Category Archives: Spain

Books and films censored under Franco still circulating in Spain

Posted on by

Dictator who died in 1975 stamped out mention of Spanish civil war, sexuality and anti-Catholic views

A Spanish association has called for an investigation into the enduring legacy of censorship during the Franco regime after it emerged that censored versions of books and films are still circulating more than four decades after the dictator died.

Emilio Silva, the president of Spain’s Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory, sounded the alarm earlier this week after he stumbled upon a different version of the 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life on television.

Continue reading...

‘It won’t be easy’: the European exporters battling Brexit bureaucracy

Posted on by

Paperwork and Covid culminate in another year of headaches for food and wine producers

For more than two decades, Unexport has shipped millions of kilograms of produce annually from farms in the southern Spanish region of Murcia to clients in the UK. Brexit has transformed the relatively straightforward process into a bureaucratic nightmare, yielding border waiting times of up to 10 hours for lorries laden with lemons and lettuce, said Domingo Llamas, its president.

Given the damage already inflicted by the UK’s exit from the bloc, plus the coronavirus pandemic, he sees the final implementation of thrice-delayed checks as just “one other thing” to manage.

Continue reading...

Food fighters: Spain’s annual Els Enfarinats battle – in pictures

Posted on by

During the annual Els Enfarinats battle in the south-eastern Spanish town of Ibi participants dress in military clothes and stage a mock coup d’etat as they battle using flour, eggs and firecrackers outside the town hall. The 200-year-old tradition is part of the Day of the Holy Innocents celebrations, a time in Spain for pulling pranks

Continue reading...

Palma to limit cruise ships after environmental concerns

Posted on by

Spanish officials hail ‘historic’ deal to limit arrivals to maximum of three vessels a day at Mallorca port

Officials in the Balearic Islands will seek to limit cruise ships to a maximum of three vessels a day at its largest port, in a deal described as the first of its kind in Spain.

The regional government said in a statement that arrivals at Palma in Mallorca would be limited when possible to three cruise ships a day, one of the vessels allowed to be a mega-cruise liner carrying more than 5,000 people, starting in 2022.

Continue reading...

Volcano-hit La Palma gets a piece of Spain’s biggest lotto

Posted on by

After volcanic eruptions and tourism woes, island gets some Christmas cheer as tickets scoop €400,000

After grappling with volcanic eruptions that dragged on for three months, piling on to the tourism woes brought by the coronavirus pandemic, a bit of luck has landed in the Canary Island of La Palma.

Spain’s Christmas lottery – the two-century-old tradition that on Wednesday showered €2.4bn in prize money across the country – included a nugget of good news for the hard-hit island as two local kiosks said they had sold winning tickets worth a total of €400,000.

Continue reading...

Suspected Caravaggio work given protected status in Spain

Posted on by

Painting came close to being sold at auction for €1,500 before its true potential value of £50m came to light

A small oil painting that avoided being sold at a Spanish auction for €1,500 earlier this year after experts suggested it could be the work of the Italian master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio has been granted protected status as an item of cultural interest.

The painting of the scourged Christ, which measures 111cm by 86cm, was withdrawn from sale in April after suspicions grew that it had been incorrectly attributed to the circle of the 17th-century Spanish artist José de Ribera.

Continue reading...

Draw deal: Spain’s El Gordo lottery hit by ticket vendor strike

Posted on by

Annual multibillion-euro draw goes ahead despite Covid surge and first ever strike by lottery ticket sellers

Spain’s Christmas lottery, a lucrative and much-loved annual tradition that often ends in the joyous detonation of cava corks and the hatching of big plans, took place on Wednesday amid soaring Covid infections and the first ever strike by ticket vendors.

After the country recorded a record 49,823 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday night, many Spaniards welcomed the chance to focus instead on El Gordo (the Fat One) and its €2.4bn in prizes.

Continue reading...

‘A Francoist daydream’: how Spain’s right clings to its imperialist past

Posted on by

A Peruvian author fears her adopted home is far from an apology for its Latin American abuses

The Plaza Mayor, where tourists gather to drink steep beers and feast on overpriced paella, may be better known. So may Puerta del Sol, where locals ring in the new year by eating a grape on each of the 12 chimes.

But Madrid’s Plaza de Colón, a 25-minute walk from these spaces, has come to play its own special part in the social, political and historical life of the capital – and the rest of Spain.

Continue reading...

Spanish scientists cautious as La Palma volcano quietens

Posted on by

Experts have recorded no seismic activity from Cumbre Vieja volcano since Monday night

A volcano that has been spewing lava in the Canary Islands for almost three months has quietened but scientists warned the lull did not necessarily mean the eruption was over.

Experts recorded no seismic activity from the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma island since Monday night, the Canary Islands’ volcanology institute tweeted.

Continue reading...

Catalonia row deepens over family’s push for Spanish in school

Posted on by

Nationalists furious as court sides with family abused for seeking quarter of lessons in Spanish for their child

The long-running and bitter row over language teaching in Catalonia has intensified after a family in the Spanish region was harassed and abused for seeking to ensure that a quarter of the lessons at the school their five-year-old son attends are taught in Spanish.

The family’s actions have provoked an angry response from some Catalan nationalists who view their stance as an assault on the region’s language and culture.

Continue reading...

Spanish bishop who married ‘transgressive’ erotica author is stripped of powers

Posted on by

Xavier Novell i Gomà was Spain’s youngest bishop before abandoning clerical career to marry Silvia Caballol

A controversial Spanish bishop has been formally stripped of his powers and prohibited from administering the sacraments four months after he abandoned his clerical career to marry a “dynamic and transgressive” erotic novelist.

Xavier Novell i Gomà, who became Spain’s youngest bishop aged just 41 when he was appointed to the Catalan municipality of Solsona in 2010, is reported to have backed and participated in so-called conversion therapies for gay people, and has also been criticised for supporting regional independence.

Continue reading...

Spanish village that dropped ‘Kill Jews’ name hit by antisemitic graffiti attack

Posted on by

Castrillo Mota de Judíos’ Sephardic centre was among four locations defaced in the ‘cowardly’ attack

The mayor of a Spanish village whose former name was an ugly reminder of the country’s medieval persecution of its Jewish population has vowed to carry on with plans for a Sephardic memory centre despite an antisemitic graffiti attack this week.

Seven years ago, the 52 eligible residents of Castrillo Matajudíos – Camp Kill Jews in English, voted in a referendum to change the village’s name back to Castrillo Mota de Judíos, which means Jews’ Hill Camp.

Continue reading...

Travel firms scramble to rearrange holidays amid new Covid measures

Posted on by

Swiss skiing holidays in doubt as country joins Spain in tightening travel rules to contain Omicron variant

Tour operators are scrambling to rearrange Swiss skiing holidays after the country joined Spain in tightening travel restrictions amid rising concerns about the spread of the new Omicron Covid variant.

From Saturday night, Switzerland mandated 10 days of quarantine for all new arrivals, in effect wrecking skiing holidays in the Swiss Alps until further notice. Travel firms are also wrestling with Spain’s ban on non-vaccinated arrivals that will affect British holidaymakers from Wednesday 1 December.

Continue reading...

The world is watching: TV hits around the globe

Posted on by

A Spanish trans woman’s memoirs, a Mumbai gangster drama, Israeli sisters in trouble… the Covid era is a rich moment for TV drama. Critics from Spain to South Korea tell us about the biggest shows in their countries

Continue reading...

Podemos defends push to change Spain’s controversial ‘gag law’

Posted on by

Leader calls legislation ‘greatest blow to civil and political liberties’ since return to democracy

The leader of Spain’s Podemos party has defended the coalition government’s push to change its predecessor’s “gag law”, calling it “the greatest blow to civil and political liberties” since the country’s return to democracy.

Ione Belarra, who serves as the minister for social rights in the Socialist-led minority government, said the public security legislation had eroded basic democratic rights since it was introduced by the conservative People’s party (PP) six years ago.

Continue reading...

Germany ‘at crossroads’ as Covid cases surge across Europe

Posted on by

Urgent measures needed to avoid ‘chaos’, warns expert, as Spain, Portugal and Netherlands tighten rules

Germany’s top health officials have raised the prospect of a national lockdown, warning that a rapidly rising number of coronavirus cases and a dramatic increase in the number of patients in intensive care meant contact reduction was the only way of tackling the crisis and avoiding “the road to chaos”.

“We need a massive contact reduction immediately,” said Prof Lothar Wieler, the head of the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s federal disease control agency.

Continue reading...

Spanish police recover rare 2,000-year-old Iberian sword

Posted on by

Double-edged, curved falcata particularly sought after because of the original condition of its blade

More than 2,000 years after it was last wielded by a warrior somewhere on the Iberian peninsula, a rare, magnificent – and plundered – sword has been recovered by Spanish police, who tracked it down before it was sold online.

The pre-Roman falcata, a double-edged, curved sword used by the Iberians between the fifth and first centuries BC, was seized along with 202 other archaeological pieces after it appeared on what Policía Nacional officers termed “a well known social media site”.

Continue reading...

Pandemic hits mental health of women and young people hardest, survey finds

Posted on by

Survey also finds adults aged 18-24 and women more concerned about personal finances than other groups

Young people and women have taken the hardest psychological and financial hit from the pandemic, a YouGov survey has found – but few people anywhere are considering changing their lives as a result of it.

The annual YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project found that in many of the 27 countries surveyed, young people were consistently more likely than their elders to feel the Covid crisis had made their financial and mental health concerns worse.

Continue reading...

Support for populist sentiment falls across Europe, survey finds

Posted on by

YouGov/Guardian poll finds ‘clear pattern of decreasing support for populism’ in European countries

Support for populist sentiment in Europe has fallen sharply over the past three years, according to a major YouGov survey, with markedly fewer people agreeing with key statements designed to measure it.

The YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project’s annual populism tracker, produced with the Guardian, found populist beliefs in broadly sustained decline in 10 European countries, prompting its authors to suggest the wider electoral appeal of some may have peaked.

Continue reading...