Researchers also find impact of bottled water on ecosystems is 1,400 times higher than that of tap water
The impact of bottled water on natural resources is 3,500 times higher than for tap water, scientists have found.
The research is the first of its kind and examined the impact of bottled water in Barcelona, where it is becoming increasingly popular despite improvements to the quality of tap water in recent years.
Continue reading...Ministers ditch plans for watchlist of amber countries such as Spain
Millions of Britons have been given the green light to travel to Europe’s holiday hotspots, avoiding quarantine on return from France and Spain where concerns have been raised about Covid variants.
Ministers announced on Wednesday that fully vaccinated holidaymakers returning from France would no longer need to quarantine and ditched plans for a “watchlist” of amber countries such as Spain.
Continue reading...Study says pigments on cave stalagmites were applied through ‘splattering and blowing’ more than 60,000 years ago
Neanderthals, long perceived to have been unsophisticated and brutish, really did paint stalagmites in a Spanish cave more than 60,000 years ago, according to a study published on Monday.
The issue had roiled the world of paleoarchaeology ever since the publication of a 2018 paper attributing red ocher pigment found on the stalagmitic dome of Cueva de Ardales to our extinct “cousin” species.
Continue reading...Spanish officials are working to recruit foreigners to help police in detecting illegal gatherings
Wanted: foreigners between 30 and 40 years old willing to party in Ibiza in the name of combating the coronavirus pandemic.
Spanish officials on the island are working to assemble a squad from abroad who would be capable of infiltrating parties that breach local coronavirus regulations and flagging them to authorities.
Continue reading...These fragile ecosystems are where the impacts of the climate crisis are often felt first, say experts
The Ebro delta appears to be in robust health, to a casual observer. There is water gurgling in the canals and irrigation channels, and what appears to be a mighty river flowing into the sea. The dazzling green rice fields are dotted with ibis, egrets and redshanks.
However, all is not what it seems. The Ebro, the only one of Spain’s three great rivers that flows into the Mediterranean, is one of the most abused and exploited in Europe.
Continue reading...Wildfires burn across Italy, Spain, Greece and Turkey in heatwave bringing temperatures above 40C
At least five people have been wounded and holidaymakers evacuated after wildfires devastated a pine wood near a beach in Pescara, Italy, as one of the worst heatwaves in decades swept across south-east Europe.
A five-year-old girl was taken to hospital but her condition is not believed to be life-threatening, according to reports.
Continue reading...Ministers to discuss plans, with talks also to determine if they will apply to England only or all UK nations
Plans to significantly open up international travel are expected to be announced on Wednesday, with UK ministers poised to let people who have been fully vaccinated in the US and EU avoid quarantine if arriving from amber list countries.
The move would benefit millions of people by finally letting them be reunited with family and friends based in the UK, as well as businesses in the aviation and tourism sectors that have been hit hard by the pandemic.
Continue reading...Police and city authorities agree that ‘pioneering’ model has reduced street dealing and consumption
Barcelona’s 200 cannabis clubs face closure after the supreme court shut a legal loophole that has seen the city become Spain’s marijuana capital.
It is the latest in a series of setbacks for the asociaciónes, as they are popularly known. In 2017, the court overruled a law passed by the Catalan parliament which said “private consumption of cannabis by adults … is part of the exercise of the fundamental right to free personal development and freedom of conscience”.
Continue reading...Francisco Javier de Balmis used children to keep smallpox vaccine fresh on journey to Spain’s colonies
When Francisco Javier de Balmis set off from Spain in 1803 to vaccinate the people in Spain’s colonies against smallpox he had no means of keeping the vaccine fresh, so he used children as his refrigerators.
An exhibition of documents relating to Balmis’s voyage has opened at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville and will be on display until 15 September.
Continue reading...Ireland and Italy among those joining France in requiring vaccine passes to enter bars and restaurants
An increasing number of European governments are planning to prevent unvaccinated people from being able to attend hospitality venues such as bars and restaurants this summer, as Emmanuel Macron celebrates the fruits of the recent announcement of the policy in France.
France on Monday passed the threshold of 40 million people having received at least one vaccine dose – close to 60% of the population. Macron tweeted: “Together we will defeat the virus. We continue!”
Continue reading...Painstaking research deciphers carvings of religious bounty dating back almost five centuries
For almost 500 years, the arch that connects the largest Gothic cathedral in the world with its Renaissance sacristy has offered visitors a sumptuous, if little glimpsed – and even less studied – vision of religious bounty.
The 68 beautifully carved plates of food that adorn the archway in Seville’s cathedral offer rather more than bread and wine.
Continue reading...Hundreds sign petition after the jobs of Tanya Barson and Pablo Martínez, two senior figures at Macba, are axed
A row has broken out in the international art world over the departures of Tanya Barson, the English curator, and Pablo Martínez, the head of programmes, from the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (Macba).
The pair departed on 16 July, the day after Elvira Dyangani Ose, the director of the Showroom in London, was appointed as the museum’s new director.
Continue reading...Request follows discovery of possible human remains in the Pyrenees, near where 37-year-old disappeared
French police have asked for the dental records of a missing British hiker following the discovery of possible human remains in the Pyrenees, the woman’s mother said.
Esther Dingley, 37, had been walking alone in the mountains near the Spanish and French border and was last seen on 22 November.
Continue reading...Spain may be famous for its love of meat – but sanctuaries across the country are coming to the rescue of its doomed cows, bulls, pigs, sheep and geese
In the north-east Spanish region of Catalonia, an enormous bull called Pedro is poking his head over a barn door to look at some sheep. He’ll stay there for two hours if the sanctuary volunteers let him; he’ll have to be tempted away with treats so that the sheep can be let out to graze. Pedro knows the routine; he’s been here since he was a calf, when he was bottle-fed by volunteers. He lives a charmed life – he is fed, he roams, he watches sheep, he sleeps; and when he dies, it will be of natural causes.
“He’s enormous!” I say to Olivia Gómez de Zamora, a veterinary assistant from Madrid who spends a lot of time coaxing Pedro from the barn.
Continue reading...Family of missing British hiker have been informed of report and are seeking ‘urgent clarification’, says charity representing them
The charity representing the family of British hiker Esther Dingley says it is seeking urgent clarification after reports emerged that possible human remains had been found close to where the woman went missing in the Pyrenees.
LBT Global said in a statement posted to Facebook it was “aware of the discovery of what MAY be human remains close to the last known location of Esther DINGLEY. We are urgently seeking clarification. The family have been informed of the discovery and we are supporting them now.”
Continue reading...Once-grand Canfranc was known as the Titanic of the mountains, but fell into disrepair thanks to fire, derailment and war
It earned the nickname “Titanic of the mountains”, but now the monumental and ill-fated train station at Canfranc is to get a new life as a five-star hotel, 51 years after the international rail link across the Pyrenees closed.
The story of Canfranc, a village more than 1,000 metres (3,280ft) above sea level on the Franco-Spanish frontier, is one of vainglorious ambition and abject failure, of incompetence and corruption, of intrigue, smuggling and a century-long run of bad luck.
Continue reading...Hauser & Wirth is known for its galleries in Zurich, Monaco, Hong Kong, New York, LA and Bruton.
For all the lizards, the loquats and the lantana, Menorca’s newest art gallery, which lies amid the blue waters and lolling yachts of Mahón harbour, carries the faintest whiff of a corner of Somerset.
Illa del Rei, a 40,000-sq-metre island a short boat ride from the Menorcan capital, Mahón, has a long and unique history. As well as being the site of a sixth-century Christian basilica and a staging post for Alfonso III’s conquest of Menorca 700 years later, the island is home to a decommissioned naval hospital founded by the Royal Navy in 1711 when Menorca was in British hands.
Continue reading...Nation settles one of its most vexed questions as survey finds large majority of Spaniards prefer tortilla de patatas with onion
In a rare moment of national unity unseen since a certain British chef recklessly floated the idea of adding chorizo to paella, Spain has come together at last to settle one of its most ancient, vexed and divisive questions.
No longer will tempers flare at bar counters nor arguments rive friends, families and neighbours gathered together at table. Chefs, critics and home-cooks can put aside their opinions – and their spatulas – safe in the knowledge that yes, an overwhelming majority of Spaniards really do prefer their tortilla de patatas with onion.
Continue reading...Activists, protesters and journalists, including a reporter for one of Spain’s leading newspapers, reportedly in custody
Scores of Cuban activists, protesters and journalists, including a reporter for one of Spain’s leading newspapers, have reportedly been detained as Communist party security forces seek to smother Sunday’s historic flare-up of dissent.
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Americas director, said at least 140 Cubans were believed to have been detained or had disappeared in the aftermath of Cuba’s largest demonstrations in decades.
Continue reading...Agustín Ibarrola’s 1977 version was painted as part of campaign to get the original returned from New York
The grief-snapped mother is still there, cradling her dead child 84 years on, as is the fallen soldier with his stigmata and the horse with its silent screams.
However, the Guernica now on its way to a museum in the Basque country is not Pablo Picasso’s monochrome howl of anti-fascist fury but a retelling of the work intended to help bring the original to the market town whose agonies beneath waves of German and Italian bombers inspired its creation – and to denounce the subsequent horrors of the Franco dictatorship.
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