Category Archives: Spain

Spanish shipbuilder Navantia in exclusive talks to buy Harland & Wolff

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Deal to rescue owner of four UK shipyards, including Belfast shipyard that built the Titanic, could save up to 1,000 jobs

Spanish shipbuilding firm Navantia is in exclusive negotiations to buy Harland & Wolff, the owner of the Belfast shipyard that built the Titanic, in a deal that could rescue up to 1,000 jobs.

It is understood the group could take control of the group’s four yards – in Belfast; Appledore, Devon; Arnish on the Isle of Lewis; and Methil, Fife – as early as next month.

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Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

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Claim raises idea explorer was from community expelled by his Spanish patrons, but experts view it with caution

A 20-year genetic investigation of the remains of Christopher Columbus has turned conventional historical wisdom on its head by concluding that the explorer whose voyage to the New World changed the course of global history may have been a Spanish Jew rather than a son of Genoa.

The claim raises the intriguing prospect that the man who played a central part in the creation of Spain’s mighty empire hailed from the very community that his patrons, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, expelled from their kingdom in the same year Columbus reached the Americas.

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Family of British woman who fell to her death in Spain call on Met to investigate

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Guardia Civil report on Piia Hokkanen indicates Spanish detectives believe cause of death was suicide

The family and friends of a British IT executive who fell to her death from an apartment block in Spain on the evening of her 50th birthday have called on the Metropolitan police to intervene in a Spanish police investigation into the fatality.

Piia Hokkanen, who at the time of her death had borrowed her sister’s holiday home for a three-day mini-break in Torrevieja, near Alicante, was found lifeless after falling from a communal window on to a neighbour’s patio shortly after midnight on 4 September.

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Insurance is failing hurricane survivors: ‘People thought they were covered’

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Flooding is separate from typical US home insurance and many homeowners are not adequately covered

As millions of US residents begin working to file insurance claims on their homes in the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, many could be denied, particularly if their homes were damaged by flooding.

A quirk in the US home insurance market is that flood insurance is separate from typical home insurance, which usually covers wind damage from hurricanes but not flooding. Homeowners must purchase flood insurance separately if they want their homes protected against flooding.

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DNA study confirms Christopher Columbus’s remains are entombed in Seville

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Scientists have ‘definitively’ proved identity of remains – with navigator’s precise origins to be revealed

Scientists in Spain claim to have solved the two lingering mysteries that cling to Christopher Columbus more than five centuries after the explorer died: are the much-travelled remains buried in a magnificent tomb in Seville Cathedral really his? And was the navigator who changed the course of world history really from Genoa – as history has long claimed – or was he actually Basque, Catalan, Galician, Greek, Jewish or Portuguese?

The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second is … wait until Saturday.

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Spanish couple detained in Singapore over protest against Valencia owner

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Police say pair ‘assisting with investigations’ after Dani Cuesta posted photo of himself with ‘Lim go home’ sign

A Spanish couple have been detained after the man held a banner to protest against Peter Lim, the billionaire Singaporean owner of Valencia football club.

Dani Cuesta had shared photos on social media of himself holding a sign that said “Lim go home” at various locations in Singapore, including the residences where Lim reportedly lives and the tourist landmark Merlion Park.

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Pedro Sánchez unveils plans to help migrants settle in Spain

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Prime minister champions migration in stance at odds with European neighbours

Spain plans to make it easier for newcomers to settle, the prime minister said, promoting migration as an effective way to protect prosperity in sharp contrast with the attitude of much of Europe.

“Spain needs to choose between being an open and prosperous country or a closed-off, poor country,” Pedro Sánchez told parliament on Wednesday. “It’s as simple as that.”

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Spanish tennis star Paula Badosa apologises after being accused of racism

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  • Badosa pulled eyes back with chopsticks in photograph
  • ‘I didn’t know this was offensive. I take responsibility’

The Spanish tennis star Paula Badosa has apologised after she was accused of racism over a photo that appeared to show her pulling her eyes back with chopsticks while in China for a series of tournaments.

Following her defeat on Saturday in the semi-finals of the China Open, Badosa’s coach, Pol Toledo, posted the photo on his Instagram, tagging the official China Open account. Comments soon began pouring in, accusing Badosa of racism.

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Interpol campaign to identify remains of women in Europe expands to 46 cases

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Police forces in France, Italy and Spain join cold-case initiative after launch last year of Operation Identify Me

Police have expanded a cold-case campaign aimed at identifying dozens of women who were murdered or who died in suspicious circumstances across Europe, taking in three new countries and more than doubling the number of cases.

The international policing organisation Interpol said on Tuesday that forces from France, Italy and Spain had joined those in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, which last year launched Operation Identify Me to help name 22 female victims.

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Europe’s exhausted oyster reefs ‘once covered area size of Northern Ireland’

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Study uncovers vivid and poignant accounts of reefs as high as houses off countries including UK, France and Ireland

Only a handful of natural oyster reefs measuring at most a few square metres cling on precariously along European coasts after being wiped out by overfishing, dredging and pollution.

A study led by British scientists has discovered how extensive they once were, with reefs as high as a house covering at least 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) from Norway to the Mediterranean, an area larger than Northern Ireland.

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Spain logs record number of summer visitors amid overtourism protests

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Figure of 21.8 million international visitors to Spain is 7.3% rise on 2023, says national statistics institute

Spain logged a record 21.8 million international visitors this summer, official data has revealed, during a period when anti-tourism protests also took place across the country.

The figure is a 7.3% rise on 2023, the national statistics institute (INE) said.

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Search resumes in what may be deadliest migrant boat sinking off Canaries

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At least nine dead and 48 missing after vessel carrying 87 people sinks off Spanish island of El Hierro

Rescuers renewed their search on Sunday for about 48 people missing after their migrant boat sank close to the Spanish island of El Hierro in what could become the deadliest such incident in 30 years of crossings from Africa to the Canary Islands.

Nine people, one of them a child aged between 12 and 15, have been confirmed dead in the incident in the early hours of Saturday morning.

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Nine dead and 48 missing after migrant boat sinks off Canary Islands

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Rescue services say they saved 27 of the 84 people aboard the vessel believed to have come from Mauritania

Nine people are confirmed drowned and at least 48 are missing after a boat carrying migrants capsized off Spain’s Canary Islands overnight, rescue services said on Saturday, the latest in a series of such disasters off the west coast of Africa.

Sea rescue teams said in a statement they had answered a distress call off El Hierro, one of the islands in the Atlantic archipelago, shortly after midnight. They managed to save 27 of the 84 people on board.

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Stock markets hit record highs after news of a fall in US inflation

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S&P 500 index of major US companies registers near 100% gain on year ago amid expectation of interest rate cuts

A fall in US inflation expected to pave the way for further cuts in interest rates pushed stock markets to record highs on Friday.

Ending a week of gains that began when the Chinese authorities approved a huge economic stimulus package, the S&P 500 index of major US companies soared above 5,750 to register a near 100% gain on a year ago.

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Mexico’s snub to King Felipe rekindles colonialism row with Spain

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President-elect refuses to invite Spanish king to her inauguration after lack of apology for crimes of conquest

A festering diplomatic row between Mexico and Spain has been reopened after the Latin American country’s leftwing president-elect refused to invite King Felipe to her inauguration because of his failure to apologise for crimes committed against Mexico’s Indigenous people during the conquest 500 years ago.

In 2019, Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote to King Felipe and Pope Francis, calling for them to apologise for the “abuses” of the conquest and the colonial period.

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Spanish police arrest five people over fake Brad Pitt scam

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Suspects accused of conning two women out of €325,000 by pretending to be Hollywood star online

Spanish police have arrested five people accused of scamming two women out of €325,000 (£271,000) by posing as the Hollywood star Brad Pitt online.

The suspects made contact with the women on an internet page for fans of the Oscar-winning actor and led them to believe “they had a sentimental relationship with him”, Spain’s Guardia civil police force said in a statement on Monday.

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Real Madrid pauses concerts after ‘torture-drome’ noise complaints

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Football club announces cancellation or rescheduling of gigs at refurbished Santiago Bernabéu stadium

Real Madrid has cancelled or rescheduled all concerts at its Santiago Bernabéu stadium and is working to comply with council noise regulations after local people complained that a series of loud, late gigs had turned the arena into a “torture-drome”.

Although best known as the home of one of Spain’s greatest football teams, the Bernabéu – which has just undergone a five-year, €900m (£760m) refurbishment – has hosted a string of high-profile concerts over the spring and summer. Recent headliners have included Taylor Swift, Luis Miguel and the Colombian star Karol G.

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Spanish judge shelves landmark case of Franco-era torture victim

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Julio Pacheco says he will appeal against the ‘devastating’ decision to abandon the first such investigation in Spain

Hopes of securing justice for people tortured under the four-decade Franco dictatorship in Spain have suffered a major setback after a judge in Madrid shelved a landmark investigation into a teenager tortured by police three months before the dictator’s death.

Julio Pacheco was a 19-year-old student and anti-Franco activist when he was arrested in August 1975 on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a police officer. He was taken to the infamous headquarters of the Directorate-General for Security in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, where secret police officers tortured him for seven days before he was imprisoned for “terrorism”.

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Anti-Maduro campaign ‘stronger than ever’ after Venezuelan election, says Machado

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Opposition leader María Corina Machado said exile of key figure Edmundo González ‘changes absolutely nothing’

The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has insisted the campaign to end Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian rule is “stronger than ever”, but the banishing of one of its key figures to Spain has thrown many supporters off balance.

Edmundo González, who the US and other countries have recognised as the winner of Venezuela’s 28 July presidential election, flew into exile on Sunday after several weeks holed up in the Dutch ambassador’s residence in Caracas. An arrest warrant, seemingly designed to force the retired diplomat to flee, had been issued a week earlier.

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Teacher ‘sick with nerves’ over battle to remain in his Spanish home post-Brexit

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Mark Saxby, 56, says he is in limbo because of Spanish authorities’ ‘petty’ concern about his medical insurance

A British teacher has told how he is “sick” with nerves about returning to his home in Spain amid a three-year battle to get post-Brexit residency after being denied it because he was missing one month’s medical insurance in the first year after the UK left the EU.

Mark Saxby, 56, said he felt “trapped” in a nightmarish limbo, unable to convince anyone that he had the right to live in Spain despite the EU-UK withdrawal agreement guaranteeing residency rights for those in the country before Brexit.

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