Category Archives: Spain

‘Climate crisis on our shores’: Mediterranean countries sign deal after summer of fires

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Region’s leaders make joint declaration vowing to step up efforts to address extreme weather

With the catastrophic effects of this summer’s unprecedented wildfires still being counted, leaders from around the Mediterranean – the European region most at risk from climate breakdown – have vowed to intensify their efforts to tackle the challenges posed by extreme weather.

A joint declaration, signed in Athens, has fired the starting shot on what is hoped will bring groundbreaking change in how the neighbouring states shore up their defences against natural disasters.

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La Palma’s Cumbre Vieja volcano erupts – in pictures

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A surge of lava has destroyed about 100 homes on Spain’s Canary Islands a day after a volcano erupted, forcing 5,000 people to leave the area. Cumbre Vieja erupted on Sunday, sending vast plumes of thick black smoke into the sky and belching molten lava that oozed down the mountainside on the island of La Palma, one of the most westerly of the Atlantic archipelago off the coast of Morocco

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Lava erupts from a volcano on La Palma in Spanish Canary Islands – video

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A volcano on the Atlantic island of La Palma erupted on Sunday after a week-long buildup of seismic activity, prompting authorities to speed up evacuations for some 1,000 people. Footage obtained by the Associated Press showed plumes of black and white smoke rising up from the Cumbre Vieja volcanic ridge, where scientists had been closely following the accumulation of molten lava below the surface

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Spanish Canary Island volcano erupts, sending lava streaming towards villages

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About 5,000 people have been evacuated from near the volcano on La Palma Island but no injuries reported

A volcano has erupted on the Spanish Canary Island of La Palma, sending lava shooting into the air and streaming in rivers towards houses in two villages from the Cumbre Vieja national park in the south of the island.

Authorities had begun evacuating the infirm and some farm animals from nearby villages before the eruption at 3.15pm local time on Sunday on a wooded slope in the sparsely populated Cabeza de Vaca area, according to the islands’ government.

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‘A more human LinkedIn’: Spain media project helping Covid jobless

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Un Mismo Equipo allows unemployed and often homeless people to advertise their skills to potential employers

The Covid crisis came scything through Alejandro’s* life with a speed, ferocity and vindictive thoroughness that stuns him to this day. Almost overnight, the widowed craftsman’s business supplying leather pieces to shops, markets and the military folded, his meagre savings gave out, his father died from coronavirus, the electricity was cut off and he found himself relying on food banks to feed himself and his teenage daughter.

“Things were hard before the pandemic,” he says. “But if you’d told me one day that everything that’s happened to me would happen to me, I’d never have believed you.

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Spain cuts soaring energy bills with emergency measures

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Government expects to redirect €2.6bn from firms to consumers in next six months, with average monthly bill falling by 22%

Spain’s government has passed emergency measures to reduce sky-high energy bills by redirecting billions of euros in extraordinary profits from energy companies to consumers and capping increases in gas prices.

In the first such broad response in Europe, where wholesale prices have doubled in a year, Spain plans to limit the profits that energy companies using hydropower and other renewable power generators can make from surging electricity prices.

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Spain wildfire: almost 1,000 emergency workers fighting blaze

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Fire in Andalucía region rages for sixth day having already forced evacuation of thousands of people

Almost 1,000 firefighters and emergency workers are battling one of the most intractable Spanish wildfires in recent years as the blaze rages for a sixth day, after devouring at least 7,400 hectares (18,285 acres) of land in the southern region of Andalucía and forcing the evacuation of more than 2,600 people.

On Sunday, 260 members of Spain’s military emergencies unit were deployed to help tackle the fire, which began last Wednesday in the mountainous Sierra Bermeja above the resort town of Estepona, and which now has a perimeter of 53 miles (85km). Experts hope the rain forecast across much of the country on Monday will help extinguish the blaze.

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Wildfire in south of Spain forces thousands to flee their homes – video

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People have been forced to flee their homes across many Andalucían towns and villages as fire crews in Spain worked to contain wildfire blazes. A military unit has been sent in to help tackle the fires raging close to a Costa del Sol resort. Evacuees, some elderly, took shelter in a sports centre in the nearby town of Ronda, as volunteers brought in bottled water and supplies. Regional environment chief Carmen Crespo said the blaze appeared to have been started deliberately and investigators were working to uncover more details.

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Maria Mendiola, half of Spanish vocal duo Baccara, dies aged 69

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Group’s 1977 disco hit Yes Sir, I Can Boogie has become the unofficial anthem of Scotland football fans

Maria Mendiola, one of the members of Baccara, whose 1977 disco hit Yes Sir, I Can Boogie is the unofficial anthem of Scotland football fans, has died.

Mendiola, who was one half of the Spanish duo, was best known for her rendition of the hit song. She died in Madrid surrounded by her family on Saturday morning at the age of 69. Cristina Sevilla, her partner in a later iteration of the group, expressed her gratitude on social media in a message written in Spanish.

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Spanish wildfires drive thousands from homes close to Costa del Sol

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Firefighters battle to contain blazes in Andalucía as Spain drafts in military to help

People have fled their homes in six more Andalucían towns and villages as Spain sent in a military unit to help tackle wildfires raging close to a Costa del Sol resort.

A blaze fanned by strong winds has driven out almost 2,000 people and killed one emergency worker since it began on Wednesday in the mountainous Sierra Bermeja above Estepona, a popular spot with British tourists and retirees.

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Former Venezuelan spymaster arrested by Madrid police on US drugs charges

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Gen Hugo Carvajal, who had defied a Spanish extradition order and disappeared, was arrested on Thursday night

Police in Madrid have arrested a former Venezuelan spymaster on US narcotics charges nearly two years after he defied a Spanish extradition order and disappeared.

Gen Hugo Carvajal, who for over a decade was Hugo Chávez’s eyes and ears in the military, was arrested on Thursday night at a small apartment where he had been holed up.

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Man ‘subjected to homophobic assault’ in Madrid says injuries were consensual

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LGBTI protests against hate crime in Spain will still go ahead

A Spanish man who said he had been attacked by a masked gang who subjected him to a homophobic assault at knifepoint and carved the word “faggot” into one of his buttocks has now told police that his injuries were consensual.

The apparent attack, which was alleged to have taken place in the central Madrid neighbourhood of Malasaña on Sunday afternoon, shocked Spain and came amid a rise in hate crimes – and just two months after a gay man was beaten to death in the northern city of A Coruña.

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Giant panda at Madrid’s Zoo Aquarium gives birth to twins – video

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A pair of squawking, thrashing, bald and violently pink twins arrived in the world in Madrid on Sunday.

Much to the relief of their mother and all those working to ensure the giant panda population continues to claw its way back from the brink.

Madrid’s  Zoo Aquarium announced the birth of the as-yet-unnamed cubs on Monday,. 

The siblings are the fifth and sixth cubs born in the zoo to Hua Zui Ba, a female panda, and her partner, Bing Xing, who are on loan from China.

In an update on Tuesday, the zoo said the cubs had been weighed, clocking in at 0.171kg and 0.137kg respectively, and that their umbilical cords had been tied and disinfected.

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Pope inadvertently quotes Vladimir Putin in Afghanistan comment

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Francis ‘moved’ by Angela Merkel’s words on western intervention – in fact said by Russian president

Pope Francis has criticised the west’s recent involvement in Afghanistan – inadvertently quoting Vladimir Putin in doing so.

In a wide-ranging interview with Spanish radio station COPE, the pope was asked for his thoughts on the redrawn political map of Afghanistan following the withdrawal of the US and its allies from the country after 20 years of war.

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‘We want to create magic’: Taking cinema to remote Spanish villages

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La Barraca de Cine has spent the past year roving its way around dozens of communities across the country

Stretching six metres and painted turquoise, the trailer has trundled across Spain, making its way to mountaintop villages, cobblestone plazas and medieval historical centres. No matter the location, the process starts much in the same way: with the unfurling of a giant screen.

“Our motto is cinema for everyone and anywhere,” said Patricia de Luna, one of the co-founders of La Barraca de Cine, a roving cinema that has made its way to dozens of villages across Spain in the past year. “Those evenings of cinema with family, friends and that shared experience with those around you – that’s the magic we want to create.”

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Scottish court drops extradition case of Catalan independence campaigner

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Extradition request from Spain for Clara Ponsatí was halted after she move to Belgium

An extradition case against a Catalan academic and independence campaigner, Clara Ponsatí, has been dropped by a Scottish court after she moved to Belgium.

A sheriff in Edinburgh halted an extradition request from the Spanish government against Ponsatí, who had been elected to the European parliament in January 2020, after agreeing the court no longer had any jurisdiction in her case.

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Spain bans fertilisers near saltwater lagoon after dead fish wash up

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Officials close eight beaches as residents complain of cloudy, green water that emits a foul smell

Spanish officials have banned the use of fertilisers near one of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoons after five tons of dead fish washed up on its shores.

Alarm bells began to sound in the south-eastern region of Murcia last week as scores of small fish and shrimp began to wash up along the beaches of the Mar Menor lagoon.

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Blue whales returning to Spain’s Atlantic coast after 40-year absence

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Some experts fear climate crisis is leading creatures back to area where they were hunted almost to extinction

Blue whales, the world’s largest mammals, are returning to Spain’s Atlantic coast after an absence of more than 40 years.

The first one was spotted off the coast of Galicia in north-west Spain in 2017 by Bruno Díaz, a marine biologist who is head of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in O Grove, Galicia.

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Toledo’s last swordmakers refuse to give up on their ancient craft

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Famed since Roman times, the Spanish city’s artisans are all but extinct. But a reprieve is at hand from the TV and film industry

Its sturdy presence has threaded through more than 2,000 years of history, fuelled by fans that were said to have ranged from the Carthaginian general Hannibal to Roman legions.

These days, however, the longstanding tradition of swordmaking in the Spanish city of Toledo has dwindled to just two artisan swordmakers – the last living link to a tradition that stretches back millennia.

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‘We lost everything’: Afghan wheelchair basketball team captain speaks out

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Nilofar Bayat begins rebuilding her life in Spain after days of fear for her life under Taliban rule

When the Taliban entered Kabul, Nilofar Bayat, the captain of Afghanistan’s female national wheelchair basketball team, knew she had to get out.

“There were so many videos of me playing basketball. I had been active in calling for women’s rights and the rights of women with disabilities,” she said. “If the Taliban found out all of this about me, I knew they would kill me.”

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