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

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

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

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

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

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

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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González is Venezuela’s ‘best hope for democracy’, says Blinken, as leader vows to fight on

Edmundo González pledges to push for freedom and democracy for Venezuela after going into exile in Spain amid fears for his safety

The US secretary of state has said Edmundo González “remains the best hope for democracy” in Venezuela after the former presidential candidate went into exile in Spain.

Antony Blinken said on X on Sunday that González’s departure from Venezuela “is the direct result of the anti-democratic measures that [President] Nicolás Maduro has unleashed on the Venezuelan people”.

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Venezuela opposition leader Edmundo González lands in Spain after fleeing country

Opponent of Nicolas Maduro – widely seen as legitimate election winner – seeks asylum in Spain after being accused of a series of crimes

The Venezuelan opposition leader and former presidential candidate, Edmundo González, has gone into exile in Spain, dealing a bitter blow to opponents of the country’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro.

The Spanish government said on Sunday that a Spanish air force plane carrying González and his wife had landed at the Torrejón de Ardoz military base outside Madrid

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Police find body in search for missing British tourist in Mallorca

Officials believe victims were swept away in flash flood amid heavy storms, after body of British woman was also found on island on Wednesday

Police searching for a British man believed to have been swept away by heavy flooding in Mallorca have found a body.

It comes after the body of a British woman was found on the Spanish tourist island on Wednesday.

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Madrid moves to ban app-rented e-scooters over safety concerns

Lime, Dott and Tier Mobility licences to be cancelled from October due to issues with circulation and parking

Madrid will ban e-scooters rented through mobile apps after the city’s three licensed operators failed to implement limits on their clients’ circulation or to control their parking, the Spanish capital’s mayor has said.

José Luis Martínez-Almeida said on Thursday the licences of Lime, Dott and Tier Mobility would be cancelled from October, adding that the city had no plans to grant new licences to any other operators.

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Thieves try to steal almost half a tonne of olives as harvest begins in Spain

Police find group ‘collecting olives in flagrante’ near Seville, with lucrative fruit a tempting target for criminals

Police in southern Spain have thwarted the theft of almost half a tonne of olives as the country’s harvest season begins and the lucrative fruit becomes a tempting target for opportunistic thieves and professional criminal gangs.

The verdeo – or collecting of the green olives – takes place in the early autumn and marks the beginning of the harvest season. As it got under way in Seville province this week, officers from Spain’s Guardia Civil force prevented 465kg (73st 2lbs) of olives from being stolen near the town of Albaida del Aljarafe.

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Spanish police arrest three over raids on ‘at least 22’ luxury Ibiza homes

Two men and one woman accused of carrying out robberies at night and using gas to make residents groggy

The string of robberies, spanning years and all following a similar pattern, had left Spanish police perplexed.

Late at night as residents slept, the thieves – dressed in black and with their faces covered – would gain entry to some of Ibiza’s most exclusive homes, often making off with thousands of euros in stolen goods. The victims frequently reported the same groggy feeling when they woke up, leading police to suspect that the perpetrators were using some sort of gas to induce drowsiness.

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YouTube chef found guilty of gruesome murder on Thai holiday island

Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, from a prominent Spanish acting family, sentenced to life in prison after admitting dismembering the victim’s body and disposing of it

A court in Thailand has found Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, a member of a famous Spanish acting family and a YouTube chef, guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced him to life in prison, in a lurid case that has gripped Spain.

The 30-year-old was convicted of the murder of Edwin Arrieta Arteaga, a 44-year-old plastic surgeon from Colombia, when both were vacationing on the Thai holiday island of Koh Pha-ngan in August 2023.

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Spanish police boat appears to run over dinghy carrying four people

Calls for inquiry as video appears to show Guardia Civil boat knocking at least one person out of dinghy bound for Spain

Human rights campaigners in Morocco and Spain have called on Spanish authorities to launch an investigation after a video appeared to show a Spanish police boat briefly mounting a small dinghy carrying people towards the coast of Spain.

The incident took place on Sunday as a vessel carrying four people approached the Spanish semi-exclave of Melilla. The video appeared to show the larger, more powerful Guardia Civil patrol boat veering towards the Zodiac inflatable, making several manoeuvres before skimming over the top of the boat, causing at least one person to fall out of the small vessel.

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Calls to close ‘vile’ website ranking countries by tourist deaths on balconies

Intervention over Spanish website from MSP Christina McKelvie comes days after death of Scottish law student

A Scottish politician has called for the closure of an “utterly vile” Spanish website that ranks countries by the number of their tourists who have died or been injured after falls from balconies.

The intervention by Christina McKelvie, the MSP for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, comes days after the death of a Scottish law student who was born in a constituency represented by McKelvie.

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Seville council can cut off water supply to illegal tourist flats, court rules

Six properties disconnected in past year but there are thought to be 5,000 unlawful apartments in Spanish city

A court in Seville in southern Spain has ruled that the city council is within its rights to cut off the water supply to illegal tourist apartments.

Over the past year the city has disconnected the supply to six illegal apartments. Three owners appealed but the judge, mindful of neighbours’ complaints about noise, accepted the council’s argument that the apartments were not the owners’ residences.

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Resorts on Spain’s Costa Brava struggle with invasion of jellyfish as seas warm

Stings needing medical attention surge by 41% as rising sea temperatures due to the climate crisis boost reproduction

Costa Brava resorts in Spain’s north-east are struggling to cope with an influx of jellyfish as rising sea temperatures facilitate reproduction and drive species farther north.

Between May and August almost 7,500 people on the Catalan coast sought medical attention for jellyfish stings – a 41% increase on last year. The stings are painful and can have unpleasant consequences for anyone with compromised immunity.

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Brazilian migrant who saved child from balcony fall in Spain hailed as a hero

Felipe David says he acted ‘without thinking’ when he saw the boy had gotten into trouble at Alicante apartment

A Brazilian migrant living in Spain has been hailed as a hero after he risked his own life to rescue a young child who was dangling precariously off a second-floor balcony in the coastal city of Alicante.

Felipe David Souza, a 29-year-old painter, was preparing to head home on Wednesday when he heard screams outside the apartment where he was working. He glanced out and saw that a crowd of people had gathered on the street below.

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Scottish student dies in fall from hotel balcony in Ibiza

Emma Ramsay, 19, was on holiday with friends in San Antonio and police are treating her death as an accident

A Scots law student has died while on holiday in Ibiza after reportedly falling from a sixth-floor hotel balcony.

Emma Ramsay, 19, is reported to have died in the early hours of Tuesday morning after a fall at a beachfront hotel in the resort of San Antonio, in the north-west of the Spanish island.

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Spanish judge calls for end to social media anonymity in hate crime cases

Comments come after wave of false claims online about suspect in killing of 11-year-old boy

A Spanish judge has called for an end to social media anonymity in the wake of a wave of online disinformation after the killing of an 11-year-old boy.

Miguel Ángel Aguilar, a judge from the court that handles hate crimes and discrimination, wants to oblige platforms to reveal users’ true identity in cases of suspected hate crime so the law can impose digital restraining orders.

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