Category Archives: Spain

Firefighters battle forest blaze in central Spain

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With 38C forecast, emergency services work to contain fire in Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid region

Firefighters in central Spain are battling strong winds and high temperatures as they struggle to control a fire that has already destroyed over 5,000 acres in the provinces of Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid.

The fire broke out in Almorox near Toledo on Friday just as the one in Tarragona province in north-east Spain was brought under control, having reduced some 15,000 acres of woodland to ashes.

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Aerial footage shows aftermath of wildfires in Spain – video

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Firefighters in Catalonia battled one of the biggest wildfires in 20 years on Friday as temperatures in parts of Spain were expected to hit a new June record of 43C. With Europe in the grip of an extreme heatwave, the fires burned across 6,500 hectares of land. Footage from a helicopter shows the extent of the damage caused


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France records all-time highest temperature of 45.9C

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Record for mainland France falls in southern commune of Gallargues-le-Montueux as Europe swelters in heatwave

France recorded temperatures nearly two degrees higher than its previous record and firefighters continued to battle historic wildfires in Spain as much of western Europe remained in the grip of an extreme early-summer heatwave on Friday.

The French state weather forecaster, Météo-France, said the temperature in Gallargues-le-Montueux in the Gard département hit 45.9C at 4.20pm on Friday.

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Women arrested after reporting ‘hitman’ they hired to Spanish police

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Mother and daughter say man swindled them out of €7,000 fee to kill mother’s partner

A Spanish woman and her daughter have been arrested after going to a police station to complain that the man they hired to carry out a murder had swindled them out of the €7,000 (£6,300) they paid him.

The incident seemed to begin earlier this month, when the pair told police in Madrid that the mother’s partner had cheated them out of a total of €60,000.

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Spain fights huge forest fire as European heatwave intensifies

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Blaze fanned by strong winds and high temperatures could burn through 20,000 hectares

More than 500 firefighters and soldiers are working to bring a huge forest fire under control in north-eastern Spain as the early summer heatwave intensifies across Europe.

The fire, in the Catalan province of Tarragona, has been fanned by strong winds and high temperatures and has so far burned across 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres) of land.

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Spanish court lifts ‘wolf pack’ convictions from sexual abuse to rape

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Men who attacked woman in Pamplona have jail sentences increased to 15 years

The five defendants in the notorious Pamplona sexual attack case have had their prison sentences raised from nine to 15 years each after the supreme court found them guilty of gang-raping a woman at the running of the bulls festival three years ago.

The case – known as La Manada, or the “wolf pack”, after the name of the men’s WhatsApp group – shocked Spain, prompted major protests and provoked a fierce debate over the country’s sexual offences legislation.

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Catalan leader defends push for independence on final day of trial

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Former vice-president pleads for political solution to crisis as landmark rebellion trial ends

The former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras has used the last day of landmark proceedings against him and 11 other separatist leaders to defend the failed push for regional independence but also to plead for a political solution to the crisis.

The trial, which has lasted four months and heard testimony from 422 witnesses, has examined the events leading up to the unilateral independence referendum on 1 October 2017 and the Catalan parliament’s subsequent declaration of independence.

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Gaudí’s Sagrada Família wins a building permit – 137 years after work began

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Spanish architect’s masterpiece still unfinished but there’s now a chance its central towers will be completed

Property owners have a new yardstick for measuring their frustration over building permit requests that are lost in the labyrinth of local government bureaucracy.

Barcelona city hall has finally issued a work permit for the unfinished church designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí, 137 years after construction started on the Sagrada Família basilica.

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Barcelona port is worst in Europe for cruise ship air pollution

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City tops list of 50 European ports for both sulphur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions

The port of Barcelona, a city already overwhelmed by mass tourism, has topped a list of 50 European ports for the amount of air pollution produced there by cruise ships, according to a report.

In 2017 cruise ships emitted 32.8 tonnes of sulphur oxide (SOx) in Barcelona, according to the research. Palma de Mallorca was the second most polluted, with 28 tonnes, followed by Venice with 27.5. Southampton, with 19.7 tonnes, was fifth on the list.

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Spanish king asks socialists to form new government

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King Felipe has tasked acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez with assembling a coalition

Spain’s King Felipe VI has tasked acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez with forming a new government, a complex undertaking that will involve negotiations with diverging parties.

While they won a general election in April and gained lawmakers compared with the previous term, Sánchez’s socialists failed to secure a majority in parliament and will need the support of other groupings.

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Historians rubbish Spanish supreme court’s position on Franco’s reign

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Critics say ruling suspending exhumation of dictator’s remains legitimises 1936 coup

Leading historians have rubbished the Spanish supreme court’s claim that General Franco was head of state from October 1936, almost three years before his rebellion secured victory in the Spanish civil war.

The claim was made in the court’s latest ruling on the socialist government’s tortuous efforts to exhume the dictator’s remains from his hulking mausoleum and have him reburied in the family vault.

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Madrid could become first European city to scrap low-emissions zone

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Region’s likely new president Isabel Díaz Ayuso believes congestion is part of city’s cultural identity

Madrid may be about to become the first European city to scrap a major urban low-emissions zone after regional polls left a rightwing politician who views 3am traffic jams as part of the city’s cultural identity on the cusp of power.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who is expected to become the new Popular party (PP) president of the Madrid region, believes night-time congestion makes the city special and has pledged to reverse a project known as Madrid Central, which has dramatically cut urban pollution.

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‘When Franco was alive, it was safer’: inside Spain’s far-right battleground – video

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Vox became the first far-right party to enter Spain's parliament since the Franco era when it won 24 seats in the general election. Last week, the party fought its first mayoral campaign in El Ejido, a town in Andalucia with a population of 90,000 people, 30% of whom are migrants, often working in the 150 sq miles of fruit and vegetable greenhouses that surround the town. We follow the campaign and talk to Spaniards and migrants to find out why this socialist stronghold of 40 years is turning to the right

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UN report proves Catalan separatists ‘political prisoners’, says Puigdemont

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Trio arrested over alleged role in failed independence bid should be freed, panel says

The fugitive Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont has welcomed a UN report on the detention of three fellow separatists, which he said confirmed they were “political prisoners”.

The former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras and the Catalan civil society group chiefs, Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez, arrested over their alleged role in the failed regional independence bid, have been in custody since late 2017 and are among 12 regional leaders currently on trial in Madrid.

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Spanish footballers arrested over La Liga match-fixing claims

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Players and officials from top two divisions reportedly held over La Liga 2 game in May 2018

Police investigating an alleged match-fixing ring targeting Spain’s top three football leagues have arrested several people, including current and former players and senior club figures.

The country’s national police force said on Tuesday that its officers had carried out nine searches across Spain in connection with match-fixing, money laundering and criminal gangs.

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Final votes cast as EU awaits parliamentary election results

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France, Germany, Italy and others go to polls on Sunday, with gains expected for nationalist parties

The western world’s largest democratic exercise is nearing its finale as tens of millions of EU citizens in 21 countries go to the polls on Sunday, the last of four days of voting in European parliament elections that will shape the bloc’s future.

Polls suggest the vote will produce a more fragmented parliament than ever before, with the two centre-right and centre-left groups that have dominated Europe’s politics forecast to lose their joint majority for the first time, and nationalist and populist forces to make gains.

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Britons rushing to take Spanish exams so they can keep EU citizenship

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Brexit and a deadline for people whose Jewish ancestors were expelled from Spain are behind a surge to take language diploma

Growing numbers of Britons are taking official Spanish language exams in order to become citizens of Spain, motivated by fears about Brexit and a looming deadline for people with Sephardic Jewish ancestry.

Figures published by the Instituto Cervantes show a 21% increase since last year in the numbers taking Spanish as a foreign language diploma, which is a requirement for anyone wanting citizenship.

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Spanish socialists aim to consolidate general election win

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‘Super Sunday’ of city, regional and European elections could inflict further damage on traditional party of Spanish right

Spain is heading to the polls for a “super Sunday” of European, regional and municipal elections this weekend that will see Madrid and Barcelona’s city councils up for grabs and the socialist PSOE party hoping to repeat its victory in last month’s general election.

Twelve of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions will be voting to choose new governments, including the Madrid region, which has been in the hands of the conservative People’s party (PP) since 1995, despite a series of corruption scandals.

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Men who receive paid paternity leave want fewer children, study finds

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Spain’s paternity leave was part of a set of policies to promote gender equality in the labor market and at home, a researcher said

Parents who received paid paternity leave took longer to have another child and men’s desire for more children dropped, a study in Spain has found. The progressive reform towards gender equality may have changed the way men in the Mediterranean country see fertility.

The introduction of paternity leave in Spain, like in other countries, was part of a set of policies designed to promote gender equality both in the labor market and at home, said Libertad González, one of the researchers behind the report. It was also to promote fertility. “Spain is a low-fertility country,” González said. But it seemed to have the opposite effect.

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Titian masterpieces to be displayed together for first time since 1704

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The 16th-century paintings will be shown as a series in London, Edinburgh, Madrid and Boston

One of the most important groups of high Renaissance paintings is to be brought together for the first time in more than 300 years.

A partnership between galleries in London, Edinburgh, Boston and Madrid was announced on Thursday which will allow five of Titian’s greatest paintings to be seen as they were intended – together as a series.

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