George King has free-climbed the Melia Barcelona Sky hotel in the Catalonian capital. His first such climb was in 2019, when he scaled the Shard in central London without safety ropes or suction pads at the age of 19. The skyscraper's managers later took him to court, where he was given a 24-week prison sentence
From France to Spain, Germany to Greece, tight rules are in place to contain the spread of coronavirus
Europe may not be subject to the drastic lockdown measures introduced to combat the first wave of coronavirus a year ago, but many countries still face another Easter of greatly reduced meeting and movement.
In France, new restrictions come into effect across the country from 7pm on Saturday that limit travel to within 10km (six miles) of home, absent one of the allowed “imperative” reasons. Sworn declarations known as “attestations” will be necessary for anyone travelling outside these rules.
Continue reading...Ruling that face masks must be worn on beaches comes amid fears of fourth Covid wave
The Spanish tourist industry has reacted with dismay to the government’s decree that face masks must be worn in all outdoor spaces, including beaches and swimming pools, even when it is possible to maintain social distancing.
“We’re going through hell with thousands of jobs and businesses threatened and now they want to turn the beaches into open-air field hospitals,” José Luis Zoreda, vice-president of Exceltur, the umbrella organisation that represents Spain’s tourism industry, told El País newspaper.
Continue reading...Several thousand Germans head to Crete and Balearic islands as pandemic third wave spreads across EU
The first foreign tourists may have landed in locked-down Spain and Greece, but as a third wave of the pandemic accelerates across the EU, few Europeans will be enjoying an Easter break abroad – or even away from home.
German holidaymakers began arriving on Crete on Monday, with six half-empty flights landing at Heraklion airport after the tourist minister, Haris Theoharis, said some visitors could be permitted before the country’s planned reopening on 14 May.
Continue reading...EU rules post-Brexit limit UK nationals to maximum 90-day stay per 180 days
Spain has warned British tourists and second-home owners that they are not entitled to spend more than 90 days in the country at a time post-Brexit, but dismissed reports that offenders would be rounded up and deported if they overstay.
Rules applying across the EU – which now apply to Britons – limit visa-free visits to those from outside the bloc to six months with an additional restriction of a maximum 90-day stay per 180-day period.
Continue reading...After bottles were recovered in top shape from a first world war shipwreck, winemakers have started to exploit the sea’s cool, dark environment
Slipping into the chilly waters of the Baltic sea, the divers descended more than 60 metres to where the masts of the Jönköping lay strewn across the seabed. They glided past the wounds left when the Swedish schooner was sunk by a German U-boat in 1916 to home in on the rare treasure they had come for: thousands of bottles of 1907 Heidsieck champagne.
Related: Champagne found at sea turns out to be world's oldest vintage
Continue reading...Performance at Palau Sant Jordi concert hall in Barcelona on Saturday night recalls pre-pandemic times
If one overlooked the white face masks dotting the tightly packed crowd of music lovers, it was almost like pre-pandemic times in Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi concert hall Saturday night.
Five thousand rock fans enjoyed a real-as-can-be concert after passing a same-day coronavirus screening to test its effectiveness in preventing outbreaks of the virus at large cultural events.
Continue reading...Plummeting audience numbers fuel calls for government assistance as famed tablaos struggle to survive
A little after 7.30pm on Wednesday night, a small crowd gathered in a dark, brick-lined bar in central Madrid to sit at candlelit, socially-distanced tables and lose themselves for an hour in the sweat, shouts and blurred hands, hems and heels of a flamenco show.
The 16 people in the audience at the Cardamomo tablao, or flamenco venue, were in luck – but then so were the eight performers on stage. Neither flamenco’s iconic place in Spanish culture nor its global status as part of Unesco’s list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity has spared it the pains and penalties of the Covid pandemic.
Continue reading...Concerns for animals’ welfare if Ever Given blockage crisis is protracted
At least 20 of the boats delayed due to a stricken container ship in the Suez canal are carrying livestock, according to marine tracking data, raising concerns about the welfare of the animals if the logjam becomes protracted.
The 220,000-ton Ever Given is causing the longest closure of the Suez canal in decades with more than 200 ships estimated to be unable to pass, and incoming vessels diverting around southern Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
Continue reading...Country’s oldest autocine is calling for exemption from 10pm rule so it can survive summer’s later sunsets
At 7.30 on Friday evening, Godzilla and King Kong are scheduled to converge on a large lot in eastern Spain to trade blows and bellows, rip fistfuls of fur and scales off each other and generally wreak CGI havoc for an appreciative, car-bound audience.
Their titanic sparring, however, could be short-lived. This weekend, the wading reptilian metaphor for atomic warfare and the conflicted, skyscraper-bothering ape could find themselves cowed by the setting sun, the changing of the clocks and the local coronavirus curfew.
Continue reading...Thousands of migrants play a key role in collecting Catalonia’s waste but must live on the margins
They are everywhere and yet they are almost invisible, living below the social radar as they crisscross the city pushing supermarket trolleys piled with metal tubing, old microwaves and empty beer cans.
The chatarreros are Barcelona’s itinerant scrap-metal collectors, and there are thousands of them. Most are undocumented migrants and so there is no official census, but Federico Demaria, a social scientist at the University of Barcelona who is conducting a study of the informal recyclers in Catalonia, believes there are between 50,000 and 100,000 in the region. About half are from sub-Saharan Africa; the rest are from eastern Europe, elsewhere in Africa and Spain.
Continue reading...Toddler from Mali has died in hospital after being resuscitated on a dock last week
A two-year-old girl from Mali who was rescued from a migrant boat and resuscitated on a dock in the Canary Islands last week has died in hospital, becoming the latest victim of the perilous Atlantic route from Africa to Europe.
The girl was one of 52 people travelling on a boat that had left the city of Dakhla in Western Sahara bound for the Spanish archipelago.
Continue reading...Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Malta say burden has to be shared more justly with other EU partners
Europe’s southern states have stepped up calls for solidarity in managing mass migration to the bloc saying the burden has to be shared more justly with other EU partners.
Highlighting the deep divisions over the issue, politicians from countries along Europe’s Mediterranean rim said a proposed migration pact fell far short of resolving the crisis equitably.
Continue reading...Plan will also allow states most reliant on tourism to make bilateral arrangements with non-EU members – including UK
The European commission has unveiled a “digital green certificate” that could allow EU citizens who have been vaccinated, tested negative or recovered from Covid-19 to travel more freely within the bloc this summer.
The plan would also allow southern states such as Spain, Greece and Portugal, whose economies are most reliant on tourism, to make bilateral arrangements with non-EU members – including Britain – providing the deals are approved by the commission.
Continue reading...Government agrees to proposal from leftwing party Más País allowing companies to test reduced hours
Spain could become one of the first countries in the world to trial the four-day working week after the government agreed to launch a modest pilot project for companies interested in the idea.
Earlier this year, the small leftwing Spanish party Más País announced that the government had accepted its proposal to test out the idea. Talks have since been held, with the next meeting expected to take place in the coming weeks.
Continue reading...Officers discover vessel during wider operation in which hundreds of kilos of drugs were seized
Spanish police have announced the seizure of a homemade narco-submarine able to carry as much as two tonnes of cargo.
Police discovered the nine-metre (30ft) vessel last month while it was being built in the southern city of Málaga, during a broader international drug operation involving five other countries and the EU crime agency, Europol.
Continue reading...Refugees and migrants camped along border to Melilla say there have been repeated raids following 150 people attempting to cross
Migrants in northern Morocco said they had been forced to sleep out in the open after repeated raids by police, who allegedly burned down their shelters in camps near the Spanish enclave Melilla.
Those camped along the border said Moroccan forces returned for a fourth day on Friday despite having already torched most of their tents.
Continue reading...Plunge in global olive oil prices means hard decisions for Spanish olive oil producers
Century-old olive trees are being chopped up to use as firewood or sold off as garden ornaments as some in Spain’s olive oil industry turn to younger, more productive trees in hope of lowering costs.
In recent years the sector in Spain has been left reeling; a plunge in global olive oil prices was followed by a punishing 25% tariff levied by the US on Spanish olive oil. After prices sank to levels that left many struggling to break even, the industry has slowly recovered, though prices remain shy of 2018 levels.
Continue reading...Researchers in Murcia find exquisite objects at women’s graves later used as sites for elite warrior burials
A burial site found in Spain – described by archaeologists as one of the most lavish bronze age graves discovered to date in Europe – has sparked speculation that women may have been among the rulers of a highly stratified society that flourished on the Iberian peninsula until 1550BC.
Since 2013, a team of more than a dozen researchers have been investigating the site of La Almoloya in the southern Spanish region of Murcia.
Continue reading...Spain seeking extradition related to separatists’ role in organising 2017 independence referendum
The European parliament has voted to lift the immunity of the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and two of his ministers, taking them a step closer to extradition and prosecution in Spain.
MEPs voted by 400 to 248 with 45 abstentions in the case of Puigdemont and 404 to 247 with 42 abstentions regarding Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí, respectively the former health and education ministers in Puigdemont’s government.
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