written by Michael Oudyn
Marbella is a playground for international jet-setters on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. It is famous for its luxury yachts, expensive international shops, and beautiful weather. It is notorious for conspicuous corruption: its last mayor did hard time for real-estate chicanery after keeping the afternoon gossip shows buzzing for years with his romance with flamenco icon Isabel Pantoja. His immediate predecessor as Marbella’s mayor did hard time for corruption after being the flamboyant president of Madrid’s second soccer team, Atletico de Madrid. In the box-office dark-comedy super -hit “Torrente II: Mission in Marbella”, Marbella is a gross-out swamp of international arms dealers. In the international best seller The Queen of the South by Perez-Reverte, state-of-the-art speed boats connected to Russian mafiosi make night-time “business trips” to Africa.
Last April Marbella was also the scene of the “3rd Annual International Congress on Climate Change and the Wine Industry.” Kofi Annan was (more…)