MORE than 200 migrants arrived at Costa Blanca ports and beaches in just 24 hours this week. This was the biggest influx ever seen in such a short time, according to the Red Cross. In Spain he Socialist Party (PSOE) would be the clear winner of the upcoming November 10 general election, with 32% of the vote and between 133 and 150 seats in the 350-seat Congress, Relatives of Spain's deceased dictator scuffled with police on Thursday at Madrid’s ElPardo-Mingorrubio cemetery, where the late dictat...
Oct 31, 2019
Germany has tumbled into recession as global trade tensions, disruption to the car industry and worries over Brexit take their toll, according to the country's central bank.In a major setback for Chancellor Angela Merkel and the wider eurozone, A judge from Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, ordered the Civil Guard to close down webpages and social network accounts belonging to Tsunami Democràtic Quim Torra, the regional premier of Catalonia, on Thursday found himself alone in his defen...
Oct 23, 2019
Police used batons against the protesters who converged on El Prat airport after a call by the grassroots group Democratic Tsunami, which supports Catalan secession. While some in Catalonia opposed to breaking away from Spain rally to celebrate Spain’s National Day, others rally against it. Temperatures in the Mediterranean basin are likely to increase by up to 5C in the next 100 years, much faster than the global average, threatening food and water supplies in the process as sea levels rise and...
Oct 16, 2019
A stolen truck ploughed into nine cars and left seven people injured in hospital in a suspected terror attack in Germany on Monday evening. It is Spain’s Hispanic Day or Fiesta Nacional de España or Día de la Hispanidad commemorating the exact date when Christopher Columbus first set foot in the Americas in 1492. According to the Julian calendar, Christopher Columbus set sail from the port of Palos de la Frontera in South-West Spain on August 3, 1492. He landed on an island that is now part of t...
Oct 09, 2019
The collapse of Thomas Cook has left a huge whole in the Spanish tourism industry. The British travel group, which ceased activity on Monday after failing to secure funding, is one of the largest sources of tourists to Spain, bringing around 3.6 million passengers to the country every year.
Sep 25, 2019
The worst storm to hit eastern Spain in the last 140 years finally let up on Sunday after wreaking havoc in Valencia, Alicante, Murcia and Almería. The torrential downpours caused rivers to burst their banks, dragging cars and people away, flooding streets, forcing thousands from their homes, and destroying at least 300,000 hectares of prime agricultural land according to early estimates. Spain’s acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has rejected the latest offer made by the leftist group Unidas P...
Sep 18, 2019
Spain’s acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, trusts that the current political deadlock will be resolved without the need for a repeat general election. A Spanish dancer and choreographer died in the early hours of Sunday morning after being hit by an exploding flare during a live show in Las Berlanas, in Ávila province. Some mistakes may seem innocuous yet they can carry a high price. A young man from Spain on Tuesday involuntarily triggered a security alert at Munich airport after walking thr...
Sep 04, 2019
Emmanuel Macronhas blasted 'extraordinarily rude' Brazil leader Jair Bolsonaro for insulting his wife and appearing to criticise her looks as their feud over the Amazon fires got personal today. It's quite unbelievable.“Barcelona has a problem and it can’t be covered up,” explains Josep Cid, coordinator of Criminology studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona(UAB). .......... A rucksack that had been perfectly adapted to the task and a strategically positioned cellphone were the tools t...
Aug 28, 2019
The wildfire that broke out in Gran Canaria on Saturday has been “contained” but not suppressed, according to the regional leader of Spain’s Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres. Over 1,000 local residents have been evacuated and taken to shelters and municipal centers while emergency crews battle the blaze..........A 55-year-old man who had been working in the area with a welding machine has been arrested by the Civil Guard, who suspect that he accidentally started the fire in a property near Cr...
Aug 14, 2019
The Spanish rescue ship Open Arms has called for a safe port to dock after rescuing more than 120 migrants at sea, including two children and nine-month-old twins. …........seven months ago, the Spanish government banned the NGO Proactiva Open Arms from completing rescue missions in the central Mediterranean Sea, on the basis that the Open Armsship was not equipped to carry out long journeys. With the bitter taste of the Pamplona “wolfpack” case still in the air, fresh arrests have been made in ...
Aug 07, 2019
Spain’s second-largest bank, BBVA, has been placed under formal investigation by the country’s high court, the Audiencia Nacional, as part of a far-reaching spying probe known as the Villarejo case. The case is named after José Manuel Villarejo, a former police commissioner ............ Spain’s state railway company Renfe has canceled 1,152 train services (477 medium-distance, 230 high-speed AVE services and 445 freight trains) due to a four-day strike called by the CGT union for July 31, August...
Jul 31, 2019
with the political heat still high as Pedro Sanchez seeks to form a Government....SEVENTEEN Spanish provinces have been put on orange and yellow alerts for this weekend as a heatwave is set to sweep Europe once again. The State Meteorological Agency says temperatures ranging between 38 and 40 degrees will strike many parts of Spain, although the coasts should miss the worst of the heat. ....Spain remains the world’s top exporter of olive oil, and 52% of domestic production is sold abroad. .....P...
Jul 24, 2019
Ursula von der Leyen has used a last-minute speech in the European Parliament to try to persuade a majority of MEPs to back her as Jean-Claude Juncker's replacement. She will be the first female president of the European Commission of MEPs support her at a secret ballot this afternoon. But she prompted howls of derision from Brexit Party MEPs as she said she was prepared to agree to further postpone the UK's departure from the EU. More businesses in Spain are starting to sell online due to growi...
Jul 17, 2019
The largest grouping in Brussels, The UK Brexit Party, arrived at their first European Parliament session today and immediately kicked off a row by turning their backs as the EU anthem was played. This has been happening against a backdrop of the EU voting for key positions to be filled. The leaders of the EU 28 member states met last Tuesday to hammer out who should take over from Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, and Donald Tusk, the president of the European Counc...
Jul 03, 2019
Spain’s far-right party, Vox, has made headlines after two party officials made sexist remarks in response to a court decision involving a high-profile gang rape case known as La Manada. Iria Suárez González, 35, was hired by Oxford Primary School for just under a year as a teaching assistant. However, unknown to the school, she was once one of Spain’s most notorious killers, after her and a friend murdered a teenage girl back in 2000. ....... She was arrested however the charges of fraud by fal...
Jun 26, 2019
IT has only taken 137 years and €4.6 million but now Barcelona’s iconic (and as yet unfinished) Sagrada Familia basilica has finally been given planning permission...... Every year 50,000 people die in Spain from heart disease, although the figure in constantly lowering due to coronary stent surgery being available for all in autonomous communities.. RAFAEL NADAL not only took his 12th Roland Garros title on Sunday, but he also took the lead in the battle for the year-end No. 1 ATP Ranking from ...
Jun 13, 2019
Spain is among Europe’s worst offenders when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. Between 1990 and 2017, these increased by 51.7 million tons, the highest rise in absolute terms in the entire EU. The police operation ahead of the Champion’s League was the biggest ever put in place for a sporting event in Spain. More than 4,700 officers were due to participate, mostly from the National Police, along with their colleagues from the Civil Guard, the Madrid municipal police, fire and ambulance crews...
Jun 05, 2019
Terry Whitehead joins Vince to discuss how SPAIN’S left-leaning Partido Socialista PSOE) won 20 European Parliament seats and made gains in towns, cities and regions while the Brexit Party topped Britain’s ballot. .Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s PSOE will have six more Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) bringing its total to 20.The conservative Partido Popular (PP) lost four of its seats, leaving it with 12 MEPs. The centrist Ciudadanos picked up a seat to reach seven MEPs, while t...
May 28, 2019
The Spanish exclave city of Ceuta in North Africa is unlike the cities in the Spanish peninsula. In Ceuta, many locals say hello to each other with the Arabic greeting Salaam Alaikum, and the Islamic holiday Eid al-Adha is a public holiday. Preliminary data offered by Spain’s Attorney General’s Office show a 10% rise in just one year in convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. These convictions grew to 56,173 in 2018, compared with 51,085 in 2017....... ........parents in...
May 22, 2019
Guy Verhofstadt insisted unanimity rules currently in place in the European Union hinder the decision-making powers of European institutions on matters such as migration. Mr Verhofstatd, who is running to take over as European Commissioner from Jean-Claude Juncker when the top Eurocrat retires in November, claimed member states could not be expected to agree unanimously on controversial issues and would need to apply majority rules. The Pope was seen proudly holding a pin reading “Let’s open our...
May 15, 2019
Spain’s acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and opposition leader Pablo Casado of the Popular Party (PP) have agreed to open up a permanent communication channel on the issue of Catalonia, where the independence drive has deeply divided the region. APRIL was a good month for the job market. Employment, measured by Social Security affiliation, increased by 186,785 contributors compared to March. This means the number of people paying social security is now 19.23 million, the highest since July 20...
May 08, 2019
THE pollsters had it right and with 99.99 per cent of the votes counted, the PSOE were the most-voted party. The socialists headed by the current president Pedro Sanchez won 123 seats in the national parliament but will need pacts with other parties to govern. The Partido Popular, the PSOE’s closest rivals lagged further behind than expected with 66 seats and the party under Pablo Casado suffered its worst-ever defeat...........There was a record turnout of almost 76 per cent, nine percentage po...
May 01, 2019
Almost 400 hundred people had to be evacuated from their homes as torrential rain lashed the east coast particularly hitting the British favourites of Benidorm and Torrevieja hard. Late on Sunday night the AEMET state Met Office weather alerts for Benidorm on the Costa Blanca were suddenly upgraded to the highest severe threat ‘red’ level. The televised debate between candidates running in Sunday’s general election in Spain has consolidated the deep division between two opposing blocs with irrec...
Apr 24, 2019
Paris had to watch in horror as fire erupted from the magnificent Notre Dame Cathedral on Monday evening....................It was here that a Mass was held after the liberation of Paris, on August 26, 1944, in what may be the single most important moment in French contemporary history. Naturally, the cathedral is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Paris itself was born on an island whose center is occupied by Notre-Dame, and it grew out from there. FOUR people in Chiclana de la Frontera (Cadiz) were...
Apr 17, 2019
Did a group of high-ranking police officials working for the Spanish Interior Ministry carry out special jobs to damage the reputation of political rivals of the Popular Party during the administration of former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy? ONE-SIXTH of Spanish citizens were born to either a foreign mother or father, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics ......The INE’s Continuous Household Survey showed around 16.9 per cent of Spanish citizens had at least one parent born...
Apr 10, 2019
Did a group of high-ranking police officials working for the Spanish Interior Ministry carry out special jobs to damage the reputation of political rivals of the Popular Party during the administration of former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy? ONE-SIXTH of Spanish citizens were born to either a foreign mother or father, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics ......The INE’s Continuous Household Survey showed around 16.9 per cent of Spanish citizens had at least one parent born...
Apr 03, 2019
The regional premier of Catalonia, Quim Torra, is facing a criminal prosecution that could see him barred from office over his refusal to remove pro-independence symbols from public buildings ahead of the upcoming national, regional and local elections in Spain. Spanish police have arrested five members of a criminal organization accused of illegally selling access to pay-TV over the internet. Police were alerted to the organization in 2015 after Premier League, . Last week, a video went viral o...
Mar 27, 2019
SPAIN needs to double the resources it puts into tourism if it wants to keep the sector growing in the face of a slowdown from the major travel markets like the UK and Germany. IRISH budget airline Ryanair has announced extra summer flights to Alicante on Spain’s Costa Blanca during the peak holiday season. ”During the run-up to the last general election in Spain, political parties used Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to spread their messages. This year,with a snap general election called for Ap...
Mar 20, 2019
Former Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont twice disregarded requests by the regional police force to call off the unauthorized referendum of October 1, 2017 despite the “climate of tension” in Catalonia..........The pro-independence movement sees the trial as politically motivated and defines the defendants as “political prisoners.” Fifteen years after the 2004 Madrid terrorist attacks that killed 193 people andleft around 1,700 injured, eight of the 18 men sentenced by the Spanish Supreme Court ...
Mar 13, 2019
....The European Commission (EC) has forecast a 1.3 per cent growth for this year, followed by 1.6 per cent in 2020. The Spanish government will work to make things easier for British residents in Spain, even those without permanent residency status, in the event of a no-deal Brexit. SPAIN spends 23.7 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on its state school system, the 10th highest level in the world according to a new ranking. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (...
Mar 06, 2019
