Category Archives: Spain

Air Canada plane makes emergency landing in Madrid

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Boeing 767-300 suffers engine and tyre damage on takeoff from Barajas airport

An Air Canada Boeing 767 with 128 passengers onboard has made an emergency landing in Madrid due to technical problems after taking off from the city’s Barajas airport.

The Toronto-bound flight AC837 departed from the Spanish capital early on Monday afternoon but had to request an emergency return after one of its two engines was damaged and a tyre ruptured during takeoff. There was no immediate information as to what had caused the malfunction.

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‘Why can’t we use a bear?’ Spanish startup shocked by Haribo legal threat

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Founders of firm making alcoholic sweets left puzzled by trademark infringement claim

Small, sweet bears with the capacity to inflict a very sore head have triggered an intellectual property dispute involving a multinational confectioner, a trio of enterprising Spanish students and a shot or two of alcohol.

A couple of years ago, three friends studying in the Basque country experienced an epiphany: what if they combined their childhood love of sweets with their adult taste for alcohol? And what if the delivery system were a small, chewy bear?

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‘Earth sandwich’: two men, two slices of bread and 12,724km of filling

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Men in New Zealand and Spain calculated longitude and latitude to perfectly align both slices

An Auckland university student has created an “earth sandwich” with a stranger in Spain, after a long search for an accomplice.

Etienne Naude, 19, placed a slice of white bread on the ground at Bucklands Beach in Auckland, using longitude and latitude to ensure he was precisely opposite a volunteer he had found in the south of Spain after posting for help on Reddit.

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Row in Spain over far-right party’s parental veto policy for classes

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Initiative allows parents to opt their children out of school activities that go ‘against their moral principles’

Spain’s coalition government has vowed to overturn an “authoritarian” initiative by the far-right Vox party that allows parents to stop their children attending talks, workshops or classes during school hours whose content “goes against their moral principles”.

According to Vox, the policy – referred to as the “parental pin” – is designed to protect children by requiring parental permission for exposure to content relating to “ethical or social values or civic or sexual morals”.

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Chemical blast in Catalonia kills one and injures six

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Toxic cloud alert activated following a big explosion near Tarragona

A massive explosion at a petrochemical plant in the northeastern Catalan region of Spain has killed one person and gravely injured at least six others.

The blast in the port city of Tarragona sent a column of black smoke into the sky and prompted local authorities to warn people in surrounding areas to stay inside as a precaution.

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Socialists and Podemos to rule together in Spanish coalition

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Pedro Sánchez secures backing in parliament to govern with anti-austerity alliance group

Spain will be led by a coalition government for the first time in 80 years after the acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, narrowly secured parliamentary approval for a joint administration between his Socialist party and the anti-austerity Unidas Podemos alliance.

The investiture vote on Tuesday, which Sánchez won by 167 votes to 165, with 18 abstentions, ends the nine months of political deadlock resulting from two inconclusive general elections last year.

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Costa del Sol deaths: church leaders praise strength of widow

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Pastor describes Olubunmi Diya as ‘remarkable woman’ as her lawyer says case not closed

Church leaders say the widow of a Christian pastor from London who drowned in a pool at a Spanish resort with two of their children on Christmas Eve has astonished them with her grace and dignity in grief, as her lawyer stressed the case was not closed.

Olubunmi Diya, who witnessed the incident with their surviving daughter, Favour, 14, has returned to the UK and is being comforted by members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), of which her husband, Gabriel Diya, 52, was a pastor in Charlton, south-east London.

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Barcelona to open southern Europe’s biggest low-emissions zone

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City bans most polluting vehicles from area 20 times the size of Madrid’s zone

The largest low-emissions zone in southern Europe opens in Barcelona on New Year’s Day, banning the most polluting vehicles from entering an urban area including the city and some satellite towns.

Petrol-driven cars bought before 2000 and diesels older than 2006 will be banned and face a fine of €100-€500 (£85-£425) each time they enter the zone. A moratorium will be in place for the first three months, during which time offenders will receive notification of the infraction but will not be fined.

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Spanish pool deaths: mother may seek more investigations – lawyer

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Olubunmi Diya not satisfied deaths of husband and two children were simple accident

A woman whose husband and two children drowned in a pool while on holiday in the Costa del Sol is not satisfied their deaths were a simple accident and could seek further investigations, her lawyer has said.

Olubunmi Diya lost her daughter Comfort Diya, nine, her son Praise-Emmanuel Diya, 16, and her husband, Gabriel Diya, 52, in the incident on Christmas Eve at the Club La Costa World in Fuengirola.

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Costa del Sol: hotel insists pool not to blame for deaths

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Resort owner says Olubunmi Diya’s claims ‘at odds’ with the police report into drownings

The operator of the Costa del Sol hotel where a British pastor and two of his children drowned has dismissed suggestions that there may have been a problem with the swimming pool in which they died.

Gabriel Diya, 52, Comfort Diya, nine, and Praise-Emmanuel Diya, 16, died on Christmas Eve at the Club La Costa World holiday resort in Fuengirola, Spain.

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Mother of British children who drowned in Spain blames pool

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Olubunmi Diya insists the two children and her husband, who died with them, could swim

The mother of two British children who drowned alongside their father while holidaying in Spain has dismissed claims they could not swim and suggested there may have been a problem with the swimming pool in which they died.

Gabriel Diya, a 52-year-old Christian pastor, his nine-year-old daughter, Comfort and his 16-year-old son, Praise-Emmanuel, died on Christmas Eve at the Club La Costa World holiday resort in Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol.

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UK father and children who drowned in Costa del Sol pool named

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Gabriel Diya, his son Praise-Emmanuel and daughter Comfort died at holiday resort

Police in Spain have named the three members of a British family who drowned in a hotel swimming pool on the Costa del Sol on Christmas Eve.

They were identified as Gabriel Diya, a 52 year-old London-based pastor, his son Praise-Emmanuel Diya, 16, and daughter Comfort Diya, nine.

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Three members of British family die at Spanish resort

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Father, son and daughter were found in pool at Costa del Sol holiday complex

Three members of the same family have died at a holiday resort on the Costa del Sol on Christmas Eve.

The incident occurred after a nine-year-old girl got into difficulties in a swimming pool and her brother, 16, and father, 52, attempted to rescue her, it has been reported. It is understood the father and daughter were British citizens, while the son was American. None has yet been named.

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Storms Elsa and Fabien leave nine people dead across Europe

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More than 110,000 without electricity as rail and air travel disrupted across the region

The death toll from storms that have battered Spain, Portugal and France rose to nine on Sunday as the region braced for more violent winds and heavy rain.

Storms Elsa and Fabien have flooded rivers, brought down power lines, uprooted trees and disrupted rail and air travel across the region, leaving more than 118,000 households without electricity.

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Activists protest at ‘sidelining of social justice’ at UN climate talks

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Campaigners frustrated at how women and indigenous people have struggled to have voices heard

Youth climate activists have called for a global strike on Friday to protest that human rights and social justice have been sidelined at the UN climate talks in Madrid, where governments look set to wrap up two weeks of negotiations without a breakthrough on the pressing issue of greenhouse gas reduction.

Campaigners have been frustrated not only at the slow progress of the talks but also that groups representing women, indigenous people and poor people have struggled to have their voices heard within the conference halls where the official negotiations are taking place, even while 500,000 people took part in a mass protest in the streets outside last Friday.

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COP25 climate summit: put children at heart of tackling crisis, says UN

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Young activists including Greta Thunberg put pressure on negotiators to break deadlock

Children and young people must be at the heart of dealing with the climate crisis, the UN and campaigners have said as climate talks in Madrid enter their second week with little concrete progress.

Young people, including Greta Thunberg, played a leading role in protests at COP25 over the weekend, and on Monday appeared at the conference to put pressure on negotiators to come up with a plan for reducing greenhouse gases and tackling the impacts of climate breakdown.

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Josep Borrell: can EU’s new diplomat- in-chief strengthen bloc’s global standing?

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The veteran Spanish socialist has a reputation for plain speaking, and a brief to build a more assertive EU

It has been called Europe’s “valley of tears”. But it isn’t in National Geographic; rather it is the monthly pilgrimage of the European Union’s 28 foreign ministers to Brussels or Luxembourg to discuss the woes of the world.

And the man who coined the phrase, Josep Borrell, a socialist veteran of Spanish politics, was not paying a compliment. He described the EU foreign affairs council as “more a valley of tears than a centre of decision-making” because “it’s where all the open sores of humanity come. They tell us their sufferings, we express our condolences and concern … but no capacity for action comes out of it and we just move on to the next one.”

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Doctors in Spain revive British woman after six-hour cardiac arrest

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Audrey Mash developed severe hypothermia while hiking in Catalan Pyrenees in freezing weather

Doctors in Barcelona have managed to revive a British woman who had a six-hour cardiac arrest after developing hypothermia while hiking in the Catalan Pyrenees in freezing weather last month.

Audrey Mash said she was surprised at the attention her case had attracted and said it had not put her off hiking. “I feel like a fraud for not being back at work. I’m hoping to go back before the end of next week,” she said on Thursday.

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Spanish police arrest suspected pilot of ‘narco-submarine’

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Fifth person detained after vessel carrying cocaine was intercepted off Galicia coast

Spanish police have arrested a man alleged to be the pilot of the “narco-submarine” that was intercepted off the coast of Galicia last weekend carrying three tonnes of cocaine.

Two other men were arrested at the scene after allegedly trying to scuttle the semi-submersible vessel and swim to shore on 24 November.

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Cocaine seized from ‘narco-submarine’ in Spain was likely headed for UK

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Three tonnes of drugs found on vessel off coast of Galicia could be worth €100m

A large portion of the three tonnes of cocaine smuggled aboard the “narco-submarine” seized by Spanish police last weekend would have ended up on British streets, according to the UK National Crime Agency (NCA).

The 20-metre semi-submersible craft was intercepted off the coast of Galicia, north-west Spain, on Sunday following a joint operation with police forces from the UK, Portugal, the US and Brazil. The NCA said the cocaine was worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

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