A tussle in Spain:

A northern Spanish village is furious at a community of nuns whom it accuses of stealing three religious statues, the daily El Mundo reported Monday. The religious order of the Discalced Carmelites had been present for 125 years in Grajal de Campos near Leon, where it was in charge of a cloister and an adjoined church.

When a plague of termites forced the nuns to move to a convent in the central city of Toledo a few months ago, they took with them three statues from the church, including a veneered Christ which was paraded through the streets of the village in an annual procession.

It is unclear who actually owns the statues, but the villagers are convinced the nuns had no right to take them and the keys to the church, which nobody can now enter.

Villagers have staged protests ranging from sit-ins to banging pots. They have been met with the stony silence typical of cloisters.