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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Tensions over how to quell outbreak in Catalan capital as cases flare up around the world
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.
Continue reading...Questions over Juan Carlos’s finances are having an ‘unprecedented impact’ on the country’s monarchy
Damaging allegations over the financial arrangements of Spain’s former king Juan Carlos have placed the royal family under unprecedented scrutiny but are unlikely to result in current or futures monarchs losing their constitutional immunity, according to legal experts.
Juan Carlos abdicated in favour of his son, Felipe, six years ago, renouncing the throne after a series of damaging scandals including in a controversial elephant-hunting trip to Botswana as Spain was devastated by the financial crisis.
Continue reading...Speaker of regional parliament was told he was targeted by spyware in ‘possible case of domestic espionage’
Current and former leaders of Catalonia’s pro-independence government have called for an inquiry after it emerged that the speaker of the region’s parliament has been warned that his mobile was targeted using spyware its makers say is only sold to governments to track criminals and terrorists.
On Monday, a joint investigation by the Guardian and El País revealed that Roger Torrent and at least two other pro-independence supporters have been told they were targeted last year in what experts describe as a “possible case of domestic political espionage” in Europe.
Continue reading...Tourists flouting rules on face coverings and social distancing prompt fears of second wave
Spaniards fear that the sacrifices made during the coronavirus lockdown will be in vain after tourists from overseas flouted regulations about wearing masks and social distancing.
As footage of drunken British tourists dancing on cars in the Mallorcan resort of Magaluf went viral, one Twitter user commented: “Parts of Spain in lockdown, the elderly shut away in care homes, we all wear masks in the street, but in Magaluf the antisocial and irresponsible Brits do whatever they please. It’s shameful.”
Continue reading...Infections are accelerating in largely untouched countries and those which hoped they had come through the worst. But there is hope
“Most of the world sort of sat by and watched with almost a sense of detachment and bemusement,” said Helen Clark, appointed to investigate the World Health Organization’s handling of the pandemic. The former New Zealand prime minister was describing the early weeks of the outbreak, and the sense that coronavirus was a problem “over there”. The failure to recognise our interconnection created complacency even as the death toll rose.
It took three months for the first million people to fall sick – but only a week to record the last million of the nearly 13 million cases now reported worldwide. As England emerges from lockdown at an unwary pace, Covid-19 is accelerating globally. The WHO has reported a record surge of a quarter of a million cases in a single day. The death toll is over half a million people and rising fast.
Continue reading...Tourists slowly returning to Spain’s Balearic Islands after months-long coronavirus lockdown
Sunbathing on a deserted beach in Mallorca, Nicola Brett says she is having the “best holiday ever”.
The 31-year-old gym sales executive from York arrived on the Spanish island on a Ryanair flight on Sunday, hours after the government changed its advice against all but essential foreign travel. She was flying back at midnight on Thursday, just as the rules requiring those arriving in the UK to quarantine for 14 days were lifted.
Continue reading...The coronavirus pandemic has brought Spanish bullfighting, long reviled by animal rights campaigners, to a standstill. Dozens of events, including Pamplona’s running of the bulls, have been cancelled. Photographer Jon Nazca explores the evocative locale of the San Fermín festival
Continue reading...Armada 1588: Shipwreck and Survival tells turbulent tale on bucolic stretch of Irish coast
Streedagh beach was the setting for young love in the TV drama Normal People, but its latest screen depiction reveals a dark history of plunder and slaughter on the golden sand.
Instead of romance among the dunes, viewers encounter drownings, stabbings and hangings on this bucolic stretch of Ireland’s Atlantic coast. And unlike the adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel, it’s all true.
Continue reading...Bernardo Bustillo mistakenly left his video on while attempting to multi-task by showering while listening to an online meeting
A municipal councillor in northern Spain has offered to resign after inadvertently broadcasting video of himself showering during an online council meeting that was being livestreamed.
Earlier this week councillors in Torrelavega gathered online to hash out some of the latest issues facing the municipality of some 52,000 people. Following the protocols put in place as the coronavirus tightened its grip on Spain, half a dozen councillors dialed into the videochat at 8am, streaming it online for journalists and residents.
Continue reading...In the northern region of La Rioja, one medieval town has suffered a particularly deadly outbreak. And in such a tight-knit community, suspicion and recrimination can spread as fast as the virus. By Giles Tremlett
Continue reading...Spain and Portugal reopen border as global tourism industry predicted to lose up to £2.6tn
The first tourist flights in four months landed on the Greek island of Crete, and Spain and Portugal reopened their land border as European countries continued to ease travel restrictions, as Brazil recorded 60,000 deaths.
A charter plane carrying 172 passengers from Hamburg landed at Heraklion airport on Crete at 8am, minutes after another aircraft had arrived from the Czech Republic, re-establishing the island’s air links with the outside world.
Continue reading...Villanueva de Algaidas reacts after complaints force council to take down its rainbow flag
The 8-metre long rainbow flag flew from the town hall for less than 48 hours. But after a trio of complaints led to its removal, residents in the southern Spanish town of Villanueva de Algaidas responded swiftly, plastering the town’s bars, buildings and balconies with more than 500 rainbow flags of their own.
Officials in the town of about 4,200 people had flown the flag at the town hall to mark pride month since 2018. This year was no exception, despite a recent supreme court ruling barring administrations in Spain from hanging unofficial flags on government buildings.
Continue reading...Ministers also expected to end policy of quarantining arrivals to the UK for 14 days
Overseas holidays will be given the green light from early next month, with the government expected to suspend the 14-day quarantine period for a series of countries and also to set up so-called air bridge arrangements for overseas destinations.
While the full list of countries involved is still being confirmed, the initial phase of travel opening up is expected to involve European nations including France, Greece, Spain and possibly Portugal, with other potentially more distant locations to follow.
Continue reading...Rifkin’s Festival, which was shot in the Spanish city last year, chosen to headline annual film festival
Rifkin’s Festival, the new film by Woody Allen, has been selected to open the San Sebastián film festival in Spain.
Starring Elena Anaya, Louis Garrel and Gina Gershon, Rifkin’s Festival was shot in and around the city in 2019, and according to the plot synopsis takes place during the festival itself. “It tells the story of a married American couple who go to the San Sebastián festival and get caught up in the magic of the event, the beauty and charm of the city and the fantasy of movies. She has an affair with a brilliant French movie director, and he falls in love with a beautiful Spanish woman who lives there.”
Continue reading...As another religious painting restoration goes horribly wrong, we take a look at some of the finest examples of butchered statues, art installations and frescoes
In the latest instalment of the greatest genre of art news – and I write that as a lover of art – another restoration has gone awry. The word “awry” is being generous.
This is the revelation that a private collector, based in Valencia, paid €1,200 (£1,070) for a restoration job on baroque painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s Immaculate Conception of Los Venerables. It is no longer immaculate. It now looks like an e-fit issued by a local police force, with those thin eyebrows popular in the 90s. What’s more, the restorer (who it turns out was a furniture restorer by trade) made two attempts – the second significantly worse than the first. That one, the e-fit one, has the Virgin Mary staring straight ahead, which isn’t even the same position as the original, which has Mary looking to the heavens.
Continue reading...Barcelona's El Liceu opera house reopened on Monday with a concert to an audience of 2,292 potted plants. The event took place a day after Spain's three-month state of emergency came to an end. It was the work of Spanish conceptual artist Eugenio Ampudia, who said the inspiration came from a connection he built with nature during the pandemic: 'I watched what was going on with nature during all this time. I heard many more birds singing. And the plants in my garden and outside growing faster. And, without a doubt, I thought that maybe I could now relate in a much more intimate way with people and nature'
Continue reading...New infections in and around Seoul; Spain reports 36 new outbreaks; New Zealand strengthens borders
Authorities in South Korea have said the country is experiencing a second wave of the coronavirus in and around Seoul, and warned that stronger physical-distancing measures will be reimposed if the daily increase in infections does not come down.
Confirmation of the new wave came as the Israeli government said a lockdown could be reintroduced amid a sharp rise in cases, and a team of contact tracing experts prepared to deploy to the Australian state of Victoria to tackle a new outbreak in Melbourne.
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