Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Monday after meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama that Spain had received a "satisfactory" explanation of reports that American spies bugged European leaders' phones.

Last year, leaked documents from the U.S. National Security Agency revealed that Washington had targeted the communications of some of its closest allies in Europe.

A Spanish judge remanded in custody on Monday eight suspects accused of supporting prisoners from the armed Basque separatist group ETA.

High Court judge Eloy Velasco ordered the eight be held while they are investigated for the suspected crime of membership of a terrorist organization.

Tens of thousands of protesters in Spain's Basque Country defied Madrid on Saturday by holding a mass demonstration marked by tensions over jailed members of the armed separatist group ETA.

Crowds filled the streets in the northern city of Bilbao in a march for "human rights, understanding and peace", after a judge banned another demonstration planned to demand concessions for the prisoners.

Spanish King Juan Carlos's daughter Cristina has abandoned plans to appeal her court summons as a financial fraud suspect, her lawyers said Saturday, in a scandal that has plunged the royals into crisis.

The king's youngest daughter, 48, will become the first of his direct relatives to appear in court accused of wrongdoing when she answers the summons, set by a judge for March 8.

Spain's Princess Cristina loves and trusts her husband "come hell or high water" as he faces a corruption probe and is innocent of wrongdoing herself, her lawyer said Friday.

King Juan Carlos's youngest daughter, the blonde-haired, 48-year-old Cristina, was summoned this week to appear on March 8 at a court in Palma de Mallorca as a suspect in alleged tax and money-laundering crimes.

A Spanish judge on Friday banned a mass demonstration planned to support jailed members of armed Basque separatist movement ETA, as the group pushed for concessions from authorities.

The treatment of ETA's jailed members is one of the most sensitive issues in a standoff between the Spanish and French governments on one side and western Europe's last major armed secessionist movement on the other.

Syria's opposition National Coalition is facing international pressure to attend a January 22 peace conference in Switzerland, but is in a major crisis over participation, members said Thursday.

The pressure to attend the so-called "Geneva 2" talks comes ahead of a Sunday meeting in Paris of the Friends of Syria, which groups countries that back the uprising against President Bashar Assad.

Once almost taboo, Spaniards are now talking seriously about a possible abdication by 76-year-old King Juan Carlos as he battles a string of health woes and his youngest daughter fights a corruption scandal.

The monarch, widely respected for guiding Spain to democracy after General Francisco Franco's death in 1975, has plunged in the polls as royal scandals accumulate and his own health comes increasingly under question.

Spanish police Wednesday arrested eight members of a group supporting prisoners from the armed Basque separatist group ETA.

The multiple raids in northern Spain were the latest in a series of blows against ETA, blamed for the deaths of 829 people in a four-decade campaign of shootings and bombings for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwestern France

Spain's press Wednesday hailed the news that King Juan Carlos' youngest daughter has been declared a financial fraud suspect as evidence that all are equal under the law.

Newspapers devoted front pages and reams of ink inside to a Majorca judge's decision to summon Princess Cristina, 48, as a suspect in tax and money-laundering crimes linked to the activities of her husband, former Olympic handball player Inaki Urdangarin.