Move could add to Europe’s travel problems, although airline does not expect widespread disruption
Cabin crew working for Ryanair in Spain have voted to hold six days of strikes at the end of June and early July, potentially adding to the disruption affecting air travel across Europe.
The Spanish-based staff in the USO and SITCPLA unions will walk out for two three-day strikes from 24 June to 26 June and 30 June to 2 July.
Continue reading...Former Alicante postman arrested after bags of letters dating back to 2012 discovered at sold home
From Monday to Friday, he clocked in dutifully at the central post office in the Spanish city of Alicante, picking up bags and bags of mail to be delivered.
But exactly what the former letter carrier did next is now under investigation after more than 20,000 undelivered letters – dating back to 2012 and 2013 – were found crammed into bin bags in his home.
Continue reading...Europe faces prospect of further Covid measures later in the year as share of Omicron BA.5 cases rise in Portugal and Germany
A spike of Covid-19 cases and deaths in Portugal driven by the Omicron BA.5 subvariant in spite of warm temperatures is causing capitals across Europe to once again consider measures against a pandemic that has started to fade into public memory.
Portugal confirmed 26,848 new cases and recorded 47 Covid deaths on Wednesday – the highest daily death toll since 17 February, when 51 deaths from the disease were reported.
Continue reading...A draft bill also requires companies to use a freephone number available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
Exasperated by hanging endlessly on the telephone to speak to a human being at a call centre? Spain aims to end the anguish by requiring companies to respond to customers within three minutes.
The government has approved a draft bill setting the three-minute limit and giving consumers the right to speak to a person, not a chatbot, the consumer rights minister Alberto Garzón said on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Analysis: high temperatures affect southern Europe, while in US state mercury rapidly drops more than 30C
Extremely hot and mostly sunny conditions have been experienced across southern Europe this week. Parts of Spain have had record-breaking temperatures for the month of May, with the southern city of Jaén in Andalucia recording 40.3C (104.5F) on Friday 20 May, according to the Spanish weather agency Aemet. Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Andújar, temperatures exceeded 42C two days in a row.
Intense heat also affected northern Africa, with Sidi Slimane city in Morocco recording its hottest day in recorded history, reaching a scorching 45.7C. Although one particular weather event cannot be directly attributed to the climate crisis, scientists believe the severity and duration of heatwaves are expected to increase in the future in response to a warmer global climate.
Continue reading...Anonymous artist behind billboard’s makeover says it was ‘just a poetic endeavour’
In the 65 years since their unmistakeable silhouettes first appeared on Spanish hillsides, the bulls created to advertise Osborne brandy have hosted cinematic trysts, been given a Guernica paintjob, and even borne a phone-checking, coffee-drinking Batman.
Until a fortnight ago, however, no bull had ever vanished, almost completely, into the blue depths of the Spanish spring sky. Today, thanks to an overnight sortie and some very long brushes, the Osborne bull on the outskirts of the small Galician town of Xinzo de Limia is a fetching shade of azure – and a reflection on the impossibility of doing justice to the ever-changing heavens.
Continue reading...Spaniard alleged to have conspired with cryptocurrency expert to help Pyongyang evade US sanctions
The FBI has issued an arrest warrant for a Spanish man who claims to be a “special delegate” working for the government of North Korea, accusing him of recruiting a cryptocurrency expert in an attempt to help Pyongyang circumvent US sanctions.
Alejandro Cao de Benós, a 47-year-old Spanish national who describes himself as Pyongyang’s special delegate for the committee for cultural relations with foreign countries, is alleged to have conspired with Virgil Griffith, a US cryptocurrency expert, to “illegally provide cryptocurrency and blockchain services to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)”.
Continue reading...Close contacts of those infected with rare disease offered vaccines and told to isolate for up to 21 days
Public health officials are to announce more UK monkeypox cases on Monday, as efforts ramp up to contain the first multinational outbreak of the virus that has led to cases in at least 14 countries.
The unusual outbreak of the rare disease has sparked a wave of contact tracing and testing, with the closest contacts of confirmed cases – such as partners and people in the same household – offered a vaccine and told to isolate at home for up to 21 days.
Continue reading...‘Extraordinarily hot’ in central and southern areas, say meteorologists, with forecast of 40C in Andalucía
Parts of Spain are experiencing their hottest May since records began, as a mass of hot, dry air blows in from Africa, bringing with it dusty skies and temperatures of more than 40C (104F).
Spain’s state meteorological agency, Aemet, has warned of a weekend heatwave of an “extraordinary intensity”, with temperatures between 10C and 15C above the seasonal average and more akin to high summer than mid-May.
Continue reading...Analysis: Another week of extremes with peaks pushing 40C in Spain and a rare subtropical cyclone in Uruguay and Brazil
Unseasonably high temperatures have been affecting both Iberia and France over recent days. Temperatures have been about 10-15C above average thanks to a southerly flow of very warm and dry air from north Africa.
On 17 May, temperatures across much of Spain, as well as southern and central France, widely exceeded 30C. A top temperature of 35.5C was recorded in the southern Spanish province of Huelva, with a provisional high of 32.9C recorded in the French commune of Montélimar. La Hague near the Channel hit 26.6C, beating the May record for this location set 100 years ago.
Continue reading...Graphic Turn: Like the Ivy on a Wall at Reina Sofía looks at calls for social justice and responses to repression
Forty-three kites bearing 43 black-and-white faces hang from the ceiling of the Reina Sofía, each one a mute appeal for answers, remembrance and justice.
Close by, T-shirts and posters clamour for equality, a forest of placards commemorates the detained, disappeared and dead of Uruguay’s military dictatorship, and an icon of the struggle for Peruvian independence undergoes a queer, pop art makeover.
Continue reading...Targeting of Catalan independence leaders and Spanish ministers must be independently investigated, says cybersecurity expert
The use of Pegasus spyware to target Catalan independence leaders and Spanish politicians – including the prime minister – has plunged Spain into a “crisis of democracy” and national security that can be tackled only with an independent investigation, a leading cybersecurity expert has warned.
Last month, researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab revealed that at least 65 individuals connected with the Catalan independence movement had been targeted with spyware between 2017 and 2020.
Continue reading...Pablo González, who has joint Spanish and Russian nationality, alleged to have worked for GRU military intelligence
A freelance journalist from Spain is spending his 10th week in Polish custody while prosecutors there investigate what they claim is a case of espionage linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In a case that raises red flags about press freedom in Europe at a time of war, prosecutors are expected next week to ask a judge for a further three-month extension to the detention of Pablo González, who has freelanced for media including Spain’s La Sexta TV channel, Spanish state news agency EFE and the US-government funded Voice of America.
Continue reading...Paz Estaban told committee spyware was used on 18 Catalan activists with judicial approval, sources say
The Catalan government is calling for answers “from the highest level” after the head of Spain’s National Intelligence Centre (CNI) reportedly confirmed that 18 members of the regional independence movement were spied on with judicial approval.
The apparent admission – to a congressional committee – came two weeks after cybersecurity experts said at least 63 people connected with the Catalan independence movement had been targeted or infected with Pegasus spyware, and three days after the Spanish government said the phones of the prime minister and the defence minister had been targeted with Pegasus.
Continue reading...Data leak reveals scale of potential surveillance by NSO Group client believed to be Morocco
More than 200 Spanish mobile numbers were selected as possible targets for surveillance by an NSO Group client believed to be Morocco, according to the data leak at the heart of the Pegasus project.
Details of the scale of the apparent targeting came as Spain’s highest criminal court opened an investigation into how the mobile phones of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the defence minister, Margarita Robles, came to be infected with Pegasus spyware last year.
Continue reading...Minister for presidency says ‘illicit’ targeting will be investigated by Spain’s highest criminal court
The Spanish government has said the mobile phones of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the defence minister, Margarita Robles, were both infected last year with the Pegasus spyware that its manufacturers claim is available only to state agencies.
In a hastily convened press conference on Monday morning, Félix Bolaños, the minister for the presidency, said Sánchez’s phone was targeted in May and June 2021, while Robles’s was targeted in June 2021. Data was extracted from both phones.
Continue reading...Felipe renounced inheritance from his father, Juan Carlos, who abdicated after financial scandals
Spain’s royal palace has unveiled King Felipe VI’s personal wealth for the first time, saying it amounted to €2.6m (£2.2m).
The announcement late on Monday came as Spain’s leftist government said it would pass a decree to “strengthen the transparency, accountability, efficiency” of the scandal-hit royal household “in line with the principles that have presided” during Felipe’s reign.
Continue reading...Victims said to include Pere Aragonès and Carles Puigdemont, but Israeli firm suggests claims are false
Dozens of pro-independence Catalan figures, including the president of the north-eastern Spanish region and three of his predecessors, have been targeted using NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, according to a report from cybersecurity experts.
The research published on Monday by Citizen Lab, considered among the world’s leading experts in detecting digital attacks, said victims of the mobile phone targeting included Pere Aragonès, who has led Catalonia since last year, as well as the former regional presidents Quim Torra, Carles Puigdemont and Artur Mas.
Continue reading...The Colombian Nobel laureate, who lived in the city from 1967-75, is to have a €12m building specialising in Latin American literature named after him
In the digital age, building a new library filled with old-fashioned printed books seems idealistic, almost quixotic.Not so in Barcelona. The city council is about to open a new €12m (£10m) library next month, the latest instalment in a programme that dates back 20 years.
The library, in the working-class district of Sant Martí de Provençals, has been named in honour of the Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez.
Continue reading...Activists could face up to a year in prison for trying to intimidate women into not having terminations
Spain has criminalised the harassment or intimidation of women going for an abortion under new legislation approved by the Senate on Wednesday.
The move, which involves changes to the penal code, means anti-abortion activists who try to convince women not to terminate their pregnancies could face up to a year behind bars.
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