Marías, also a translator and columnist, was described as ‘one of Spain’s greatest contemporary writers’
The Spanish novelist Javier Marías, author of All Souls, A Heart so White, and the epic, three-part Your Face Tomorrow – and a writer regularly touted as a candidate for the Nobel prize for literature – has died at home in Madrid at the age of 70.
Marías, who had been ill with pneumonia for the past month, died on Sunday, according to his publisher, Alfaguara.
Continue reading...Madrid museum buys three hand-carved canoes from Zapatistas, with proceeds going to Open Arms NGO
Three exquisitely decorated canoes hand-carved in the jungles of southern Mexico and borne across the Atlantic on a ship tasked with a peaceful, symbolic – and cumbia-soundtracked – invasion of Spain could soon find a permanent mooring in the heart of Madrid.
More importantly, proceeds from the sale of the small boats could help save some of the tens of thousands of men, women and children who risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean each year.
Continue reading...Spain’s El País greets new PM saying ‘lack of charisma can be a political advantage in times of uncertainty’
Liz Truss’s purported lack of charisma and the “disastrous” economic situation facing Britain is the focus for much of the European media following the appointment of the country’s new prime minister.
The apparent differences in style between Boris Johnson and his successor was picked up by newspapers and websites across the political spectrum but the conclusions on Truss’s first speech in office were generally generous.
Continue reading...Experts and environmentalists say aquifer feeding Doñana national park, a Unesco heritage site, has been overexploited for tourism and to water fruit farms
The largest permanent lake in Spain’s Doñana national park, one of Europe’s biggest and most important wetlands, has shrivelled to a small puddle as years of drought and overexploitation take their toll on the aquifer that feeds the area and sustains millions of migrating birds.
On Monday, experts from Spain’s National Research Council (CSIC) said the Santa Olalla lake, which sits in a Unesco world heritage site, had dried up for the third time in 50 years.
Continue reading...Two books containing 17th-century works by pioneering feminist poet and nun saved from US auction and returned to Spain
Two precious and well-travelled books containing works by the Mexican nun, writer, composer, poet and proto-feminist Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz have been saved from auction in New York and returned to Spain, where they were printed almost three-and-a-half centuries ago.
Sister Juana, who was born in mid-17th century Mexico to a Spanish father and a Mexican mother of Spanish descent, possessed a thirst for knowledge and a mind that would eventually mark her out as one of the greatest figures of the Golden Age of Spanish literature.
Continue reading...Prehistoric stone circle and 11th-century church uncovered as country’s reservoirs hit 36% of normal capacity
A huge megalithic complex and a centuries-old church are among the underwater monuments to have resurfaced in Spain as a severe drought causes water levels to plunge.
After a prolonged dry spell, Spain’s reservoirs – which supply water for cities and farms – are at just under 36% capacity, according to environment ministry figures for August.
Continue reading...More than 300 festival goers also injured during 2022’s Bous al Carrer festivities
Authorities in the eastern Spanish region of Valencia are calling on festival goers not to “lose respect for bulls” after seven people were killed by the animals during this year’s Bous al Carrer bull-running fiestas.
The summer festivities – which translate as “bulls on the street”, and which are held in towns and villages across Valencia – have also resulted in more than 300 injuries in the past two months.
Continue reading...If foreign secretary wins the Tory leadership contest she looks set to have to change course on ‘handouts’ despite campaign pledges
For months, everyone in government had known that Friday was energy cap day, and at 7am the bad news duly dropped. Phones pinged as the nation woke to Ofgem’s confirmation that typical gas and electricity bills were to rise by a frightening 80%.
Millions of people would be unable to cope, said charities. Even those on low or middle earnings who had some savings could see them entirely wiped out. It was a full-on national crisis, albeit long predicted.
Continue reading...Women less interested in ‘macho competitiveness of violence’ in conflict, says author
A new book has shed light on the little-known history of nearly 200 female journalists from 29 countries who covered the Spanish civil war.
While Ernest Hemingway and Arthur Koestler were among writers who made their names reporting on the war, Bernardo Díaz Nosty’s 900-page Periodistas extranjeras en la Guerra Civil (Foreign Female Journalists in the Civil War) uncovers the story of 183 women whose writing gave a new slant on the 1936-39 conflict, distinct from the masculine and bellicose tales of life on the frontline.
Continue reading...Marin Eugen Sabau granted right to assisted death due to chronic pain he felt after shootout with police
Spanish prison authorities have euthanised a man who had shot and wounded four people in December and was subsequently wounded in a shootout with the police, rendering him paralysed and begging to be allowed to die while awaiting trial.
Courts allowed the man’s assisted death after rejecting several appeals by his victims, who argued that he should face justice. The case reached the constitutional court, which refused to deliberate on it, saying there had been no violation of fundamental rights.
Continue reading...Receding rivers and lakes have exposed ghost villages, a Nazi tank and a Roman fort
The warning could not be starker. Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine (“If you see me, then weep”), reads the grim inscription on a rock in the Elbe River near the northern Czech town of Děčín, close to the German border.
As Europe’s rivers run dry in a devastating drought that scientists say could prove the worst in 500 years, their receding waters are revealing long-hidden artefacts, from Roman camps to ghost villages and second world war shipwrecks.
Continue reading...Archaeologists says prehistoric site in Huelva province could be one of largest of its kind in Europe
A huge megalithic complex of more than 500 standing stones has been discovered in southern Spain that could be one of the largest in Europe, archaeologists have said.
The stones were discovered on a plot of land in Huelva, a province flanking the southernmost part of Spain’s border with Portugal, near the Guadiana River.
Continue reading...Train driver was in process of reversing train out of danger when panicked passengers broke the windows to escape
As many as 20 passengers have suffered burns, three of them seriously, after they jumped from a train when it was engulfed by a forest fire near Castellón in north-east Spain.
The train, en route from Sagunto in the eastern province of Valencia, to Zaragoza, stopped while the driver, seeing that the fire meant it was too dangerous to proceed, was preparing to reverse the train.
Continue reading...Experts say drought and extreme high temperatures likely to make it a record year for destruction by fires
Across Europe, an area equivalent to one-fifth of Belgium has been ravaged by flames as successive searing heatwaves and a historic drought propel the continent towards what experts say is likely to be a record year for wildfire destruction.
According to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis), 659,541 hectares (1.6m acres) of land burned across the continent between January and mid-August, the most at this time of year since records began in 2006.
Continue reading...Strong gusts hit the Medusa electronic music festival in Cullera south of Valencia in the early hours of Saturday
One person was killed and dozens were injured when high winds caused part of a stage to collapse at a dance music festival near the Spanish city of Valencia in the early hours of Saturday, regional emergency services said.
Other infrastructure was also damaged when gusts battered the Medusa festival, a huge electronic music festival held over six days in the east coast town of Cullera, south of Valencia.
Continue reading...Man took jamón from warehouse where he worked, defrauding employers out of €520,000 over six years
A man in Huelva in southern Spain has been jailed for defrauding his employers out of €520,000 (£439,000) after he stole and resold 7,000 hams.
The man, who has not been named, stole the jamón from the curing warehouse where he worked over a period of six years from 2007 to 2013. Although he faced a six-year sentence, it was reduced to 11 months and 29 days because the case took so long to come to trial.
Continue reading...City raises upper limit of penalties for causing disturbance after botellones grow in popularity since Covid
Barcelona is clamping down on outdoor drinking parties known as botellones by imposing fines of up to €600 (£506).
Until now, fines have ranged from €60-€100, which, if paid within 30 days, are reduced by 75%.
Continue reading...Man who allegedly injured former co-workers before being shot by police is entitled to assisted dying
A Spanish court has ruled that a paraplegic man, who was accused of firing on colleagues in a rage before being shot in the spine by police, can avoid trial as he has the right to end his life.
Last December, Marin Eugen Sabau, 46, a Romanian security guard, allegedly fired on his former co-workers at a security company in Tarragona in eastern Spain, seriously injuring three people. He later shot and injured a police officer before being severely wounded by police marksmen.
Continue reading...Sian Green-Lord says use and alteration of her image without her knowledge in government poster was ‘beyond wrong’
A British model has been left “literally shaking” with anger after Spain’s summer campaign encouraging women of all shapes and sizes to hit the beach used her image without permission and edited out her prosthetic leg.
Sian Green-Lord is the second model to complain that her picture was used without her knowledge in a body-positivity promotion called “Summer is ours too”, which was launched on Wednesday by the Women’s Institute – part of Spain’s equality ministry.
Continue reading...Announcement comes day after report of first such death in Europe as health ministry says 4,298 cases confirmed in country
Spain reported its second monkeypox-related death on Saturday, in what is thought to be Europe’s second death from the disease in the current outbreak.
Spain reported its first death on Friday, shortly after Brazil reported the first monkeypox-related death outside Africa in the current wave of the disease.
Continue reading...