Category Archives: Spain

‘Empty Spain’: country grapples with towns fading from the map

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The doctor visits once a week in Sayatón, an hour from Madrid. In the 28 April elections, vanishing towns like this could be a key issue

Just over an hour’s drive from Madrid, well beyond the industrial estates and retail parks that orbit the Spanish capital and off a main road that climbs and falls with ear-popping regularity, lies a small town that is slowly fading from the map.

Little stirs in Sayatón on a weekday morning besides the wind that whips the town hall flags and the cockerel whose crow bounces off the facades of houses, some shut up against the winter, others in varying states of decay.

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Sri Lanka terrorist attacks among world’s worst since 9/11

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Death toll from Easter Sunday’s eight bomb blasts nears 300, with 500 others injured

The wave of bombings on Sunday targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka is among the worst terrorist attacks carried out worldwide since September 11, in which 2,977 people died.

On Monday, police said the death toll had surged overnight to 290, with the number expected to rise further. About 500 people were injured, according to reports.

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Neus Català obituary

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Fighter against fascism in Spain, France and Germany

Neus Català, who has died aged 103, was a lifelong fighter against fascism. A communist who had escaped over the Pyrenees at the end of the Spanish civil war, then joined the French resistance, she was eventually captured and sent to Ravensbrück, the Nazi death camp for women in northern Germany. She was then moved to the Flossenbürg camp, where she was set to work in the Holleschein munitions factory. Català was one of a group of women who sabotaged the bombs and shells being manufactured, by spitting in gunpowder or spilling oil in the machinery.

Her memories of the extermination camp, she said, were always in black and white, never in colour. She survived because of her determination and because “there was great solidarity among the women”. Català was critically ill when the camp was liberated in April 1945 (“We were just skulls with eyes”), but she recovered to continue her fight against fascism.

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Barcelona school removes 200 sexist children’s books

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Other schools look to follow after Tàber school takes out one-third of its collection, deeming the books ‘highly stereotypical and sexist’

Several schools across Barcelona are considering purging their libraries of stereotypical and sexist children’s books, after one removed around 200 titles, including Little Red Riding Hood and the story of the legend of Saint George, from its library.

The Tàber school’s infant library of around 600 children’s books was reviewed by the Associació Espai i Lleure as part of a project that aims to highlight hidden sexist content. The group reviewed the characters in each book, whether or not they speak and what roles they perform, finding that 30% of the books were highly sexist, had strong stereotypes and were, in its opinion, of no pedagogical value.

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Rape and abuse: the price of a job in Spain’s strawberry industry?

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Ten Moroccan women say Spanish authorities have ignored claims they were trafficked, assaulted and exploited

Last April, Samira Ahmad* kissed her baby goodbye and boarded a bus, leaving her home in Morocco for the strawberry fields of southern Spain.In her bag was her Spanish visa and a contract that promised €40 a day plus food and accommodation. In the three months she’d be away, she hoped the pain of being separated from her family would be softened by the money she’d be sending back to them – a fortune compared to what she’d be able to earn at home.

A year on, and Ahmad’s life is in ruins. She is destitute, divorced and for the past 10 months has been living in hiding, surviving on handouts with nine other Moroccan women who – like her – claim they faced human trafficking, sexual assault and exploitation on the farm where they were hired to work. She says her biggest mistake – other than coming to Spain – was going to the authorities.

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Spanish police ‘recover Julian Assange surveillance footage’

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Material that originated from Ecuadorian embassy was reportedly offered for sale

WikiLeaks has said it has uncovered a surveillance operation against Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy and that images, documents and videos gathered have been offered for sale.

Spanish police were said to have mounted a sting operation against unnamed individuals in Madrid who offered the material for sale in what lawyers and colleagues of Assange said on Wednesday was an attempt at extortion.

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Arrest over ill wife’s death renews Spanish euthanasia debate

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Ángel Fernández recorded video with his wife, who had MS, discussing their plan

Spain is again wrestling with the issue of euthanasia after a man was arrested for allegedly helping his seriously ill wife to die.

Ángel Fernández, 70, is reported to have confessed to assisting in the death of María José Carrasco, 61, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 30 years ago. He was arrested in Madrid on Wednesday and released on Thursday night pending further inquiries.

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Spanish PM: Brexit and Catalan independence bid both based on lies

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Exclusive: Pedro Sánchez says rhetoric in both debates will lead societies down blind alley

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has compared Brexit to the failed push for Catalan independence, warning that “engaging in campaigns or political projects based on lies eventually leads societies down a blind alley”.

Renewing his appeal for the UK to accept the EU’s withdrawal deal, Sánchez said he saw clear parallels between the rhetoric that drove the Brexit debate and the arguments used in the regional independence campaign that plunged Spain into its worst crisis in four decades.

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Europe’s south and east worry more about emigration than immigration – poll

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Exclusive: Survey of 14 countries show some Europeans now favour “emigration controls”

Southern and eastern European countries are more concerned about emigration than immigration, according to a wide-ranging survey of attitudes in 14 EU countries.

In Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Hungary and Romania, six countries where population levels are either flatlining or falling sharply, more citizens said emigration was a worry than immigration, according to the poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

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‘Grave terrorist attack’: North Korea condemns raid on its Madrid embassy

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In first official comment on February incident, Pyongyang suggests Washington’s possible involvement

North Korea on Sunday described the February raid on its embassy in Madrid by a dissident group as a “grave terrorist attack” and urged an investigation into the perpetrators.

A group of armed men burst into Pyongyang’s Spanish embassy last month and roughed up employees before fleeing with documents and computers.

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Secretive group seeking to oust Kim Jong-un claim North Korea embassy raid

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Cheollima Civil Defence says it carried out daring raid on Madrid building in February

A secretive dissident group seeking to overthrow the regime in North Korea has claimed responsibility for last month’s raid on the country’s embassy in Madrid, as a court in Spain prepared to seek the intruders’ extradition.

Cheollima Civil Defence said in statement posted on its website that the 22 February raid on the embassy was “not an attack” and claimed that its members had been responding to an “urgent situation” inside the embassy. The intruders fled with computers, hard disks and other items after a failed attempt to persuade an embassy official to defect.

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Spanish court: FBI was offered stolen data by North Korean embassy intruder

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One of 10 people who entered consulate by force in February contacted FBI, high court says

The details of how mysterious intruders raided North Korea’s embassy in Madrid last month, tricked the Spanish police and made off with a stash of stolen intelligence which they offered to the FBI have been laid out by a Spanish judge.

Spanish police were called to the embassy in the middle of the raid, but were warded off by the Mexican citizen Adrian Hong Chang who pretended to be a diplomat, the Spanish newspaper El País reported.

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Franco’s shadow: reburial battle sees Spain confront its darkest days

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Past and future collide as nationalist Vox party gears up for success in next month’s general election while exhumation of dictator draws closer

The gates of the suburban mausoleum that could soon house Spain’s most restless ghost are decked with a shrivelling bunch of red and yellow carnations, a handful of prayer cards and a cheap, broken crucifix.

If the socialist government’s long and fraught campaign to exhume Francisco Franco from the fascist splendour of the Valley of the Fallen finally succeeds, his body will be reinterred in June here in the humbler surroundings of the Mingorrubio-El Pardo municipal cemetery.

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Christchurch suspect: Europe investigates possible far-right links

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Officials in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria examine Brenton Tarrant’s travels before attack

Authorities in Europe are working to establish whether the man suspected of carrying out the most deadly terrorist attack in New Zealand’s history had any links to far-right groups on the continent.

Since Friday, officials in Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece have begun formal investigations into the alleged gunman’s extensive travel through Europe in the years before he moved to New Zealand.

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EU declares migration crisis over as it hits out at ‘fake news’

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European commission combats ‘untruths’ over issue after row with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán

The European commission has declared the migration crisis over, as it sharpened its attack on “fake news” and “misinformation” about the issue.

Frans Timmermans, the European commission’s first vice-president, said: “Europe is no longer experiencing the migration crisis we lived in 2015, but structural problems remain.”

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Spain’s far-right Vox party suspends member after sex offence arrest

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José Antonio Ortiz Cambray arrested on suspicion of sex offences as party deletes references to him on social media

Spain’s far-right Vox party has suspended one of its senior regional members and apparently set about deleting references to him on social media after he was arrested on suspicion of sexual offences.

Officers from the Catalan police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, arrested José Antonio Ortiz Cambray, 53, on Tuesday afternoon in the city of Lleida after receiving information that prompted them to open an investigation.

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Britons face five-hour airport queues in Spain with no-deal Brexit

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Alicante airport is likely to be worst affected, says consumer group Which?

British tourists to Spain could face airport queues of five hours or more after a no-deal Brexit, according to analysis by Which?, and the consumer group suggests travellers should take food, water and even nappies to survive prolonged delays.

Alicante airport, which serves Benidorm and other Costa Blanca resorts, is likely to be the worst-affected airport, and Which? said visitors to Tenerife, Lanzarote and Málaga were also facing “life in the slow lane”.

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Spain would ’roundly condemn’ use of force in Venezuela

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Spanish foreign minister says Madrid would not support military action to oust Nicolás Maduro

Spain has warned that it will not back any military intervention in Venezuela after the South American country’s opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, urged other nations to consider “all options” to remove the president, Nicolás Maduro, from power.

Guaidó is due to meet the US vice-president, Mike Pence, in Colombia on Monday amid ongoing speculation that the Trump administration could use force to oust Maduro.

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Woman dies after eating at Michelin-starred restaurant

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Spanish authorities say 28 others suffered food poisoning after dining at Riff in Valencia

One woman has died and 28 people have suffered food poisoning after eating at a Michelin-starred restaurant in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia.

The 46-year-old woman, who has not been named, became ill after having a meal at the Riff restaurant with her husband and son. She died in the early hours of Sunday. Her husband and son are recovering.

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Spanish warship orders Gibraltar boats to leave British waters

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Royal Navy sends boats after threat to commercial vessels anchored off UK territory

A Spanish warship has ordered commercial vessels to leave British waters, Gibraltar’s government said.

The warship’s crew can be heard in an audio recording of a radio exchange on Sunday telling vessels anchored at the Rock to “leave Spanish territorial waters”. Royal Navy boats were deployed in response to the incident.

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