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Britain made a mistake in slapping a quarantine on people travelling from Spain, the country's prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said on Monday. The UK has also extended coronavirus guidance advising against all non-essential travel to the country. The UK government's sudden decision to impose a two-week quarantine on arrivals shocked travellers between the two countries
When the pandemic first struck, Spaniards forgave the government’s mistakes. This time it could be different
Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, provided a reassuring contrast to the buffoonery of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. When he forced the country into a harsh mid-March lockdown, he freely admitted mistakes had been made.
Spaniards were prepared to pardon. But, just as Americans cannot forgive Trump for leading the United States into a double-bump pandemic, so a sense of anger is building as Spain’s triumphant “defeat” of coronavirus threatens to become merely a brief holiday.
Attack on Roger Torrent seen as possible act of domestic espionage
WhatsApp has confirmed that the mobile phone of a leading pro-independence politician in Catalonia was targeted over its messaging app in a 2019 attack that has been condemned as a possible case of domestic espionage in Europe.
In a letter to Roger Torrent, the speaker of the Catalan parliament, and obtained by the Guardian and El Pais, the company confirmed that his personal WhatsApp account was “targeted in an attempt to gain unauthorised access to data and communications on the device”.
Thousands more holidays are set to be cancelled after the UK government’s recommendation against all but essential travel to mainland Spain was extended to include the Canary and Balearic islands.
The news will come as a further blow to the tourism industry and the Spanish government, which had lobbied hard for the removal of quarantine restrictions for tourists returning from the islands.
Travellers between Spain and Britain have expressed their shock at the UK government's sudden decision to impose a two-week quarantine on arrivals. Spain has said it is in talks over the potential removal of quarantine restrictions for travellers going to the UK from the Canaries and Balearics where the rate of infection is 'well below' that of the UK
Pet owners should not be alarmed by the news that a cat has tested positive for coronavirus, the government says. This is from Yvonne Doyle, medical director at Public Health England:
This is the first case of a domestic cat testing positive for Covid-19 in the UK but should not be a cause for alarm.
Tests conducted by the Animal and Plant Health Agency have confirmed that the virus responsible for Covid-19 has been detected in a pet cat in England.
This is a very rare event with infected animals detected to date only showing mild clinical signs and recovering within in a few days.
Here is more from the Defra news release about the pet cat testing positive for coronavirus.
The pet cat was initially diagnosed by a private vet with feline herpes virus, a common cat respiratory infection, but the sample was also tested for SARS-CoV-2 as part of a research programme. Follow-up samples tested at the APHA laboratory in Weybridge confirmed the cat was also co-infected with SARS-CoV2 which is the virus known to cause Covid-19 in humans.
Pet owners can access the latest government guidance on how to continue to care for their animals during the coronavirus pandemic.
The German state of Bavaria is spearheading the mass rollout of coronavirus testing facilities in the hope of reaching as many returning holidaymakers as possible.
Airports, railway stations and main border crossings used by cars, are to be kitted out with mobile testing units, Markus Söder, the leader of the southern state, announced this morning.
Holidaymakers have been warned the government could impose “handbrake restrictions” on more countries beyond Spain in order to stop the spread of coronavirus – with travellers unlikely to be given much warning if further quarantine measures need to be enforced.
The restrictions on travellers returning from Spain after the measures were announced overnight threw summer holiday plans into disarray for British tourists, and will raise fears among those travelling to other European countries that they could face a similar turnaround at a moment’s notice.
People flying into Britain from Spain have attacked the government’s decision to impose a 14-day quarantine on people returning from the country, saying they were given no warning and that they felt safer in Spain.
As flights from Jerez, Alicante, Valencia and Palma landed in quick succession on Sunday afternoon at Stansted airport, passengers found themselves faced with the realisation that they were about to enter into an unexpected period of self-isolation.
British travellers in Madrid have expressed their shock and anger at the government's sudden decision to impose a two-week quarantine on those returning from Spain
Dominic Raab has defended the government's sudden decision to impose restrictions on holidaymakers returning from Spain after a surge in coronavirus cases in the country. Travellers will have to self-isolate for two weeks upon their return. The foreign secretary said the government would not 'make apologies' for the move as inaction could have risked a second wave in the UK
Calls for investigation into claims senior independence figures were targeted using powerful spyware
As a leading Catalan politician renewed calls for an investigation, Spain’s Socialist-led coalition government has emphatically denied any involvement in the use of spyware to target senior members of the Catalan independence movement, saying: “This government doesn’t spy on anyone.”
A joint investigation by the Guardian and El País has determined that the mobile phones of at least five members of the regional independence movement – including the speaker of the Catalan parliament – were targeted using powerful software its makers claim is sold only to governments.
Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron said they are willing to walk away from a summit of EU leaders, as they arrived at the third day of a long and acrimonious debate on the terms of a €750bn (£682bn) pandemic recovery fund.
With the EU split between northern and southern member states as well as eastern and western, France’s president and the German chancellor both indicated their patience was waning despite the need to respond to the economic recession facing the bloc.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, accused his Dutch counterpart of using the same methods as his country’s former communist leaders on Sunday, as EU leaders publicly clashed during tense and acrimonious negotiations over the terms of a proposed €1.8tn budget and recovery package for the bloc.
A third difficult day of a summit of the EU’s 27 heads of state and government – the first in person for five months – saw movement towards agreement as talks stretched deep into the night, but laid bare the deep splits between north and south, and east and west.
On the first day of lockdown in Britain, 48 private planes flew into Ibiza. While the island has only officially been open to tourists since the beginning of July, following one of Europe’s strictest quarantines, the super-rich have been making the most of a Balearic summer that hasn’t been this quiet for decades. Actor Emma Watson has been spotted in town and musician James Blunt has been living permanently in his villa in Santa Gertrudis, dubbed the island’s Notting Hill.
Exclusive boutique hotels, luxury villas and the island’s most expensive restaurants have reported an unexpected boom in business. Many are already full for July and much of August and say that wealthy customers are staying longer and spending more than the same period last year.
At least two victims have blamed the mobile phone infiltration on a ‘dirty war’ by the Spanish state
In spring last year, Sergi Miquel Gutiérrez realised something odd was going on with his mobile.
“I remember some issues, for example losing some information on WhatsApp, and losing emails and having them appear in places I didn’t put them,” he said.
Jordi Pujol, his wife Marta Ferrusola, his seven children and 18 other individuals linked to the family will be charged
A Spanish judge plans to charge the former Catalan president Jordi Pujol, along with his wife Marta Ferrusola, his seven children and 18 other individuals linked to the family, with forming a criminal organisation that used its political influence to amass “a disproportionate fortune”.
Pujol was the first democratically elected president of Catalonia after the end of the Franco dictatorship at the end of the 1970s, a position he held for 23 years, during which time his Convergència i Unió party dominated the Catalan political scene.
Pair say they will file complaint against former head of Spain’s national intelligence centre
Two leading members of the Catalan independence movement whose mobile phones were targeted with spyware are to take legal action against the former head of Spain’s national intelligence centre (NIC).
The announcement came after a joint investigation by the Guardian and El País revealed that Roger Torrent, the speaker of the Catalan parliament, and the former regional foreign minister Ernest Maragall were among at least four pro-independence activists targeted using Israeli spyware that its makers say is sold only to governments to track criminals and terrorists.
Part of the northern Spanish region of Catalonia has gone back into lockdown, with Barcelona suggesting it might also follow suit with restrictions in some districts, as authorities sought to control a resurgence of coronavirus cases emerging just weeks after a nationwide lockdown was lifted.
As a judge overturned a previous court decision to approve the stay-at-home order for the Lleida area, west of Barcelona, friction was emerging over how to handle an increase in cases in a suburb of the Catalan capital.