Category Archives: Spain

Climate crisis and neglect threaten Spain’s saffron crop

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Growers fear a perfect storm for a tradition that has long bound rural communities together

A sharp wind shunts clouds across the low and endless skies of La Mancha as Carlos Fernández stoops to pluck the last mauve flowers of the season from the cold earth. Their petals, which stain his index finger and thumb blue, enclose an almost weightless prize whose crimson threads are treasured in Spain and across the world.

But despite the prices his crop fetches, and the weighty comparisons those prices inevitably invite, the life of a saffron grower is not without its trials, travails and frustrations.

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‘Out of your league’: Shakira song mocking ex Gerard Piqué breaks YouTube record

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Video with DJ Bizarrap ridiculing footballer’s new relationship racks up 63m views in 24 hours

A savage new song by Shakira in which the Colombian star, philanthropist and committed believer in the veracity of hips ridicules her former partner Gerard Piqué has logged more than 63m YouTube views in 24 hours, making it the most watched new Latin song in the platform’s history.

Shakira and Piqué, who played football for Barcelona, Manchester United and the Spanish national team, separated last year after more than a decade and have two children. The former centre-back, 35, has since begun a relationship with a 23-year-old woman, Clara Chía.

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‘No topic is off the table’: the Spanish mayor hearing voters out over dinner

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Michel Montaner visits a different constituent at their home most nights to gain a better feel for people’s concerns

It began with a tweet in October. “I would like to have dinner at your home. I’ll bring dessert.” What followed was an avalanche of invitations, sending Michel Montaner knocking on the door of complete strangers most nights of the week.

“I ring their doorbell and say: ‘Hi, I’m the mayor,’” Montaner told the Guardian. “I turn up alone, no police, no advisers.”

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Six-day illegal rave sees 5,000 people descend on Spanish village

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Residents watched in amazement as tents, caravans and seven stages set up near village centre

The music blared for days, thumping through dozens of speakers hastily erected in the dusty fields. Against the backdrop of Spain’s Sierra Nevada mountains, thousands of revellers danced while others perused stands selling homemade soap, piercings and slices of pizza from a makeshift mud oven.

The illegal rave began on Friday, choking off traffic and leaving pulsating beats wafting over the nearby village of La Peza. “It was 24 hours a day of chin chin boom,” said Fernando Álvarez, the mayor of the municipality.

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Tobacco companies to be billed for cleaning up cigarette butts in Spain

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Ruling is part of a package of measures designed to reduce waste and increase recycling

Tobacco companies are to be forced to foot the bill for cleaning up the millions of cigarette ends that smokers discard every year under new environmental regulations in Spain.

The ruling, which comes into force this Friday, is part of a package of measures designed to reduce waste and increase recycling. It includes a ban on single-use plastic cutlery and plates, cotton buds, expanded polystyrene cups and plastic straws, as well as cutting back on plastic food packaging.

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‘I feel at home here’: descendants of Galicia’s emigrés return to the old country

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Spain’s poor western region is welcoming back heirs of those who once left it – especially from troubled Argentina

Galicia has long been one of Spain’s poorest regions and since the mid-19th century Galicians have emigrated in their tens of thousands to seek a brighter future in the Americas. But now they’re coming back.

The Galician regional government says that returnees – the majority are Argentinians – are settling in the area at a rate of three a day. After more than 150 years of steady depopulation, in 2019 more people arrived than left, while, for the first time in its history, the reverse was true for Argentina.

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‘Extreme event’: warm January weather breaks records across Europe

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At least eight countries experience record high temperatures of ‘almost unheard of’ heat, say meteorologists

Weather records have been falling across Europe at a disconcerting rate in the last few days, say meteorologists.

The warmest January day ever was recorded in at least eight European countries including Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia, according to data collated by Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who tracks extreme temperatures.

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Spain ‘ready for any scenario’ as Gibraltar talks with UK falter

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Spanish foreign minister says he does not want ‘no deal’ relationship, but EU is prepared for hard Brexit for territory

Spain and the EU are prepared for all possibilities – including a hard Brexit – when it comes to the bloc’s relationship with Gibraltar, Spain’s foreign minister has said, adding that the ball was now in London’s court after 11 rounds of negotiations.

“Spain doesn’t want a ‘no deal’ scenario,” the Spanish foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, told Europa Press. “The government of Spain and the EU, which is ultimately the signatory on the agreement with the UK, are ready for any scenario.”

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China bridles as EU states prepare to scale up Covid monitoring

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France joins Spain and Italy in requiring arrivals to show a negative result with the UK to follow suit

European countries are preparing to scale up the monitoring of potential new coronavirus variants from China, as Spain and France brought back mandatory testing at airports in response to Beijing’s rapid rollback of anti-infection measures.

The two countries on Friday followed Italy’s lead by requiring arrivals from China to show a negative test result, though unlike Rome, Spain makes exceptions for those who can prove they are fully vaccinated.

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Iranian chess player ‘moving to Spain’ after competing without headscarf

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Sara Khadem and family plan to set up residence in an unnamed Spanish city, according to reports

One of Iran’s top-ranked female chess players is reportedly planning to settle in Spain after photographs emerged of her taking part in an international tournament without a headscarf.

Sara Khadem, ranked 804 in the world and 10th in her home country, was not planning to return to Iran after the tournament due to fear of reprisals, two sources told Spanish newspaper El País.

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Flavour of the month: the Spanish hamlet (population: 16) that created a hit nude calendar

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Even oldest resident, aged 100, strips off in venture aimed at revitalising village in Murcia

For decades they’ve grappled with a steady exodus as residents set their sights on jobs and opportunities beyond the southern Spanish hamlet. But the dwindling population of Peña Zafra de Abajo may have found a singular strategy to fight back – in essence stripping down to save their town.

“When I suggested the idea of a nude calendar, people said, ‘Are you crazy?’” said Lucía Nicolás, who leads the hamlet’s residents’ association. “But I saw it as a way to put ourselves on the map and show off our hamlet of 16 residents.”

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Spanish police arrest New Zealander on FBI’s most wanted list

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Michael James Pratt, given life sentence in US for sexual assault and producing child sexual abuse images, was staying in Madrid

Spanish police have arrested one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives, who was staying at a hotel in Madrid under a false identity.

Michael James Pratt, a New Zealand citizen, had been sentenced to life in prison in the US for sexual exploitation and sexual assault, and producing child sexual abuse images.

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Spain’s El Gordo lottery dishes out Christmas joy with €2.5bn pot

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Unemployed mother of two is among winners as world’s biggest lottery hands out prizes of up to €325,000

A Gambian man who crossed from the Mediterranean by boat and an unemployed mother of two were among those rejoicing after the world’s biggest lottery sprayed money across Spain.

On Thursday, the country celebrated the Christmas lottery known as El Gordo, or the Fat One, which dished out €2.5bn (£2.2bn) in prize money.

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Spanish PM vows to end ‘unjustifiable’ block on court changes

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Conservative judges froze passage of measures meant to overhaul appointments to their court

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has vowed to use “whatever measures are needed” to end to a long-running judicial deadlock after conservative judges at the country’s constitutional court took the unprecedented step of suspending the passage of legislation that would overhaul the way appointments to their court are made.

Last week, Sánchez’s Socialist-led coalition government managed to get its changes to the penal code through congress, the lower house of Spain’s parliament.

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Melilla border crush: Amnesty criticises ‘unlawful force’ and lack of first aid

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Group says Moroccan and Spanish police failed to provide even basic first aid for hours after deadly crush at enclave

The “widespread use of unlawful force” by Moroccan and Spanish authorities contributed to the deaths of at least 37 people who perished during a mass storming of the border fence between Morocco and Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla in June, according to a report.

The Amnesty International report also accuses Moroccan and Spanish police of failing to provide even basic first aid to those injured in the crush as they were left “in the full glare of the sun for up to eight hours”. It says Moroccan authorities prioritised moving corpses and treating security officials above the needs of injured migrants and refugees.

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First refugees arrive in tiny Catalan villages under repopulation plan

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Orwa Skafe, who fled Syria seven years ago, is among those given jobs and a home in attempt to revive rural areas

It’s been a long journey since Orwa Skafe fled the war in Syria seven years ago but thanks to an innovative resettlement scheme he’s found peace in a tiny village 900 metres (3,000ft) up in the Pyrenees. He is one of the first to benefit from a Catalan government programme to relocate refugees in depopulated villages.

The programme, called Operation 500 because it involves villages with fewer than 500 inhabitants, is being run jointly by the regional employment agency, the equality commission and the Association of Micro-villages.

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Delighted Morocco fans dance in the streets of London after World Cup win

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Crowds mass joyfully in centre of capital after 3-0 victory on penalties against Spain puts team in quarter-finals

Elated Morocco fans celebrated on the streets of London on Tuesday night following their team’s triumph over Spain in the last 16 of the World Cup.

Footage showed crowds of people around Oxford Street, Piccadilly Circus and Edgware Road chanting, dancing and waving Moroccan flags after the result.

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Paraglider crosses border from Morocco into Spanish enclave and disappears

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Spanish authorities hunt for person seen landing near border fence in Melilla and running off

Spanish authorities are looking for a person who used a paraglider to cross over a border fence from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Melilla in what appears to be the first use of the method to migrate into European territory.

Footage obtained by El Faro newspaper shows a person landing near the fence and then running off, leading officials to suspect the individual was trying to reach Europe.

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Man injured in explosion at Ukraine embassy in Madrid

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Staff member sustained light injuries in blast that occurred while he was handling letter, say police

An employee at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid has sustained minor injuries after opening what is thought to have been a homemade letter bomb, prompting Kyiv to warn its diplomats to bolster their security precautions.

Oleh Nikolenko, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian foreign ministry, said the embassy in the Spanish capital had received an envelope as part of a mail delivery.

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Migrants travel from Nigeria to Canary Islands balanced on ship’s rudder

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The three stowaways were rescued by the Spanish Coastguard in Las Palmas on Monday after an 11-day voyage

The Spanish coastguard has rescued three migrants who stowed away on a tanker that arrived in the Canary Islands from Nigeria by balancing on its rudder just above the waterline.

In a photograph distributed on Twitter by the coastguard on Monday, the three stowaways are shown perched on the rudder of the oil and chemical tanker Alithini II.

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