Live News From Spain As It Happens

A COSTA Brava restaurant has been named the 'best in the world' by a British magazine.

The trade journal Restaurant calls the Celler de Can Roca, in Girona, 'the Oscar of the gourmet world'.

During a ceremony in London's prestigious Guildhall, brothers Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca won an award for their family-run business.

They knocked Danish restaurant Noma off the number one spot this year – now number two in the world, the Scandinavian eatery hit the headlines recently after 63 diners suffered an upset stomach on the same night due to a chef who was unwell passing on germs through the food. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A VILLAGE in the Barcelona province has 60,000 cars registered in it – despite only having 300 inhabitants.

Aguilar de Segarra (pictured) has no shops and only a handful of houses, but has 228 cars per resident, according to the census.

Given that car tax is between just 10 and 15 euros a year – at least 10 times lower than in nearby towns and in the city of Barcelona – around 12 car-hire companies have registered their head office as being in Aguilar de Segarra.

This means they save a fortune on tax on their vehicles.

Just a few kilometres away, the village of Rajadell – which has 500 inhabitants – has 40,000 cars registered, or 80 vehicles per resident. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

PROBABLY the largest and most spectacular Moors and Christians fiesta in Spain is taking place this week in Alcoi (Âlicante), a town as famous for its festival re-enacting the battle between the Arab occupants of Spain and the native Catholics during the Inquisition as Sevilla is for its Easter parades and Valencia for the Fallas. 

Read morte at thinkSPAIN.com

A BRITISH pensioner has drowned after attempting to retrieve a golf ball from a lake on the course in Almonte (Huelva).

The deceased, who has not been named but is said to be aged 70, was playing golf on the Dunas de Doñana course on Matalascañas beach when he accidentally hit a ball into a lake next to hole five.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A TWO-WHEELED protest 'march' in Valencia yesterday (Sunday) involved hundreds of cyclists demonstrating against a planned new law which will make it compulsory to wear helmets when riding bikes.

They say helmets are not compulsory in hardly any other European country, and their enforced use will reduce the number of people who use bicycles as their habitual form of transport. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

BANKNOTES of 500 euros may be scrapped to cut down on forgery rackets, tax evasion and poverty.

Leader of the opposition socialist party, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, says that by taking them out of circulation, the 500-euro notes found to be genuine could be spent on helping those living in poverty in Spain, a figure which could be as high as nearly half the population and already includes over 2.2 million children, according to official records.

Spain has more 500-euro notes than anywhere else in the European Union and about a quarter of those in circulation are within the country.

Rubalcaba says that by taking 500-euro notes out of circulation in Spain, those who had them would be obliged to change them, which would mean explaining where they came from and automatically being subject to any tax on them which they had tried to avoid paying.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

TWO earthquakes at opposite ends of mainland Spain within hours of each other caused widespread panic yesterday.

The first was in Dívar (Granada) at 13.38hrs and was felt in and around the city including in the towns of Ogíjares and Churriana de la Vega.

Although it only measured 2.6 on the Richter scale, which is relatively light and rarely causes any damage – being roughly the same intensity as a heavy lorry driving past – due to the fact it was so close to the surface, numerous residents felt it for at least three seconds and rang the emergency line, 112.

But no injuries and no serious property damage was recorded.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE body of a woman found half-eaten by her dog was found this week in her Valencia flat.

According to National Police, the macabre discovery was made by neighbours of Amparo C.R., 72, after foul smells came from her apartment in the city.

They said they did not pay much attention at first because they knew the woman hoarded rubbish inside her home, and assumed this was what was causing the stench.

Amparo's nieces and nephews had tried to help her on numerous occasions and attempted to convince her to live with them, but she refused and her brother-in-law, visibly affected by her death, said she 'was becoming more and more aggressive'.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

CREWLESS aircraft will be used by the Guardia Civil to combat organised crime, including human-trafficking, illegal immigration and drug-smuggling.

Known as the 'Closeye' project, the state-of-the-art vigilance system will use aeroplanes traditionally employed by the USA Armed Forces in their fight against fundamentalist terrorism and in war zones.

Satellites and aerostats will also form part of the Guardia Civil's new surveillance plans to ensure they do not miss a trick along Spain's coasts and in its ports.

The 'Closeye' project will cost a total of 12.25 million euros, of which the European Union will provide 9.2 million. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SOCIALIST members of the central government say they will apply to the Constitutional Court if the minister of justice goes ahead with the planned Abortion Law reform.

The PSOE says restricting criteria for opting to terminate a pregnancy will not affect the abortion statistics, but will merely put more women's lives in danger due to a proliferation of 'back-street' clinics.

They say in countries where abortion is illegal or subject to extremely stringent criteria, just as many women terminate pregnancies as in more liberal countries, but the number of abortions carried out by people with no medical qualifications is much higher and the woman's health is at risk. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A FORTHCOMING reform to the existing Abortion Law in Spain will prevent women from terminating a pregnancy if they find out the foetus will be deformed or physically or mentally handicapped.

In cases where an abortion is necessary because the mother's life or physical or mental health is in danger, this will have to be accredited by doctors in writing and approval given.

Justice minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón says this should not be a 'pretext' or an 'automatic justification', but must be proven to be irrevocably true by at least one medical expert.

He says terminating a pregnancy because the baby would be born handicapped 'goes against the convictions of the United Nations' and that 'live is not a discretionary concession, but an unalienable right' which is 'not reduced due to disability', and that 'life should not attract a lower level of protection' due to physical or mental handicap or deformity. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

RESTRICTIONS on letting property to holidaymakers in a bid to appease the hotel industry could cost around 150,000 people their livelihood.

The government is about to approve legislation which will mean private property let to tourists will no longer be covered by the State Law of Urban Rentals (LAU), and will instead be subject to regional government law or industry regulations.

This potentially opens the door to thousands, if not millions of holiday properties which are currently legal ceasing to be so.

At present, Spanish law allows holiday homes to be rented out under any circumstances, classifying them as 'seasonal lets'.

But the central government says the omnipresence and proliferation of private villas and apartments being let – largely over the internet – is creating 'intrusion' and 'disproportionate competition' for the 'traditional tourism industry'.

The new law is likely to ban owners from renting out their properties for given numbers of days or nights.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE Spanish Consul in Boston has been fired because he closed the office and went home within an hour of the marathon bombings, in the midst of chaos, bloodshed and medical emergencies.

While runners and spectators lay on the road with severed limbs and police and paramedics worked against the clock to save lives, Pablo Sánchez-Terán closed the Consulate for the day – despite the fact that 91 Spaniards were taking part in the race and many more were watching.

When asked why he closed, Sánchez-Terán answered, “because it was closing time.”

His actions have earned him global outrage on social networks, particularly on Twitter, where one woman writes: “He shut the Consulate 'because it was home time'. Clearly he's a true civil servant at heart.”

Another Twitter user wrote: “New idiom alert: 'You work fewer hours than the Spanish Consul for Boston'.”

Although no Spanish people were killed or injured in the twin blast – which US president Barack Obama has confirmed was definitely a terrorist attack, but that the third explosion in the nearby JFK Library was unrelated – Sánchez-Terán did not know this when he closed.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A TOTAL of 91 Spanish people were taking part in the Boston Marathon yesterday when two bombs went off near the finishing line.

Three people died, including an eight-year-old boy, and over 130 are seriously injured with many having lost limbs – several having lost all four limbs - although no Spaniards are thought to be among them.

A third explosion was heard in the nearby JFK Library, although it is not known whether this was caused by a fire as opposed to being an intentional act.

By 17.30hrs local time (21.30hrs GMT or 23.30hrs Spanish time), about an hour after the blast, mobile phone coverage was blocked to prevent possible remote detonations, the airport was shut and airspace over the city closed.

One person is being held in custody helping with inquiries, but although speculation is rife that it may have been the work of Al-Qaeda, US president Barack Obama says he does 'not intend to jump to conclusions'. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A STREET in Madrid is to be named after the late UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, along with two others dedicated to Hollywood diva Sara Montiel and Nobel Prize writer José Luis Sampedro.

Only the PP has voted in favour of adding the British Conservative leader to the long list of celebrated figureheads who have roads bearing their name in the capital, including French medic Marie Curie who discovered radiotherapy, Indian peace activist Gandhi, Olof Palme, Sandro Pertini, Marcelino Camacho, and Rosa Luxemburgo.

Spokeswoman for United Left, Milagros Hernández, said Thatcher, who passed away following a stroke on Monday, April 8, left 'thousands of people poor' after 11 years at the helm, and was responsible for 'economic and welfare cutbacks' that spelt disaster for families across the UK.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

EVEN if the courts confiscate Iñaki Urdangarín's passport, he will still be able to travel to Qatar to take up the job he has been offered, say sources from the Zarzuela Palace.

Despite having been withdrawn from public duties and his name and details scrubbed from the Royal family's website amid corruption and money-laundering charges linked to the Nóos Institute, the King's son-in-law is still entitled to use a 'diplomatic' passport as he is still officially one of the Royals due to his marriage to the Infanta Cristina, daughter of the monarch.

Urdangarín has not confirmed either way whether he will take up the post of handball trainer for the Spanish team in Doha, but public clamouring – especially by the anti-corruption pressure group Manos Limpios ('clean hands') – calling for his passport to be taken off him while the trial continues was thought to mean that if the judge agreed, he would have to turn down the job. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THOUSANDS of demonstrators gathered in the Plaza Cibeles in Madrid today (Sunday) calling for Spain to go back to being a republic.
On the 82nd anniversary of the Second Republic and a year to the day of King Juan Carlos being caught on camera having just killed an elephant in Botswana – leading to his being forced to resign as president of the WWF – protesters carried flags in the Republican red, yellow and blue with matching T-shirts and even street name signs bearing the title 'Avenida de la República'.
They claim the monarchy has had its day and that a 'change in system' is needed to 'return to democracy' so that 'the power is in the hands of the people'. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

AN inferno which wiped out nearly an entire village has left 35 families homeless in the Basque Country.

The blaze started at around 03.45hrs on Thursday morning in an abandoned house in Bermeo (Vizcaya) and quickly spread to at least eight other homes, destroying them completely.

Three of these crumbled to the ground and are now no more than piles of rubble, and at least another two are so badly structurally damaged that they will probably need to be demolished and rebuilt.

High winds caused the flames to propagate until two entire streets were on fire. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SPAIN'S minister of finance has assured the nation that he does not intend to increase taxes and in particular IVA any more – but socialist leader Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba (pictured) does not believe him.

According to the latter, every time Cristóbal Montoro pledges not to increase taxes, he does precisely that.

“As an experienced listener of Montoro's broken promises, I'm afraid I have unfortunately little faith in his words,” Rubalcaba stated.

“Each time he solemnly declares that 'this year we will not put taxes up', the following month he in fact puts them up. So I'd actually prefer he didn't say anything at all.”

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SPANISH mussels have been withdrawn from sale in France after an outbreak of food poisoning.

Affected consumers have reported suffering mild fever, headaches, vomiting and diarrhoea after eating the shellfish, which was imported from Spain's north-western region of Galicia.

French authorities have recommended that all consumers who have bought mussels from any store or market on or after March 25 return these to the point of sale and claim a refund. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

KING Juan Carlos' daughter, the Infanta Cristina has been summoned to testify in the Nóos case despite initial doubts as to whether she was involved.

Her husband, Duke of Palma Iñaki Urdangarín, has already had 8.2 million euros in assets – along with his co-director Diego Torres – embargoed and may face up to 20 years in jail for misappropriation of public funds.

The Nóos Institute was set up as a non-profit organisation to promote sports, culture and tourism in Valencia and the Balearic Islands, in order to qualify for public funding from the regional governments of both, but was in fact a lucrative business which allowed the two directors to pocket millions of euros. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A GERMAN couple who spent 14 months living scot-free in a Costa Brava hotel are facing a two-year jail sentence and a six-figure fine.

They allegedly checked into the four-star hotel in Pals (Girona) and claimed to be interested in buying and running the complex and the business.

Based upon this, they did not pay their bill, saying they were staying there in order to study their new venture.

By the time they were eventually forced to leave, they had run up an unpaid bill of just under 132,400 euros between them.

And according to the case notes, the couple never had any intention of buying the hotel. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE Supreme Court has abolished what it calls a 'discriminatory' way of calculating State pension entitlements for part-time workers.

A minimum of 35 years of contribution into the Social Security pot through work or self-employment is required to qualify for a full State pension, but a person who has worked for 50 years at 20 hours a week will only be considered as having contributed for 25, meaning they will not get the full amount.

A person who has worked for 40 years at 10 hours a week will be considered to have contributed for just 10 years, since contribution is calculated on a pro-rata basis of a standard 40-hour week.

The court says this is discrimination, particularly against women who tend to be the ones more likely to work part-time as they are statistically more frequently the ones who bear the lion's share of childcare, particularly in the early years. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

CLASSES at school in parts of Spain with regional languages must be taught in Spanish if any pupil so requires, says a Supreme Court ruling.

This has annoyed members of Catalunya's regional government, with education minister Irene Rigau saying: “The language of a classroom cannot change just because one student wants it to.”

But the highest court in the land says it can indeed – parents of any pupil can request that their child's education be bilingual, both in the regional language and in Spanish.

So far, 10 verdicts by the Supreme Court on the subject have been passed in favour of mums and dads in Catalunya who want their children to be taught in Spanish, even if this is in combination with Catalán.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

POLICE in San Sebastián de la Gomera have cordoned off an abandoned house after finding a seven-metre-long wasp nest.

Officers were called out by worried neighbours of the empty home in the island's capital and say the nest was in an indoor hallway and contained literally millions of wasps.

Experts have examined the nest, which is said to be 21'9” in length, and say the common type of wasp found in gardens would never normally build a nest of this size.  

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SPANISH actress Sara Montiel and former British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher have both died today, aged 85 and 87 respectively.

On the same day as 'Maggie', the UK's Iron Lady, passed away following a stroke, Tinseltown legend Sara Montiel died suddenly from natural causes in her home in Madrid.

Paramedics rushed to the scene but were unable to do anything to save her, and she was accompanied at all times by her daughter, Thais.

La 'Saritísima', a diva who put Spanish cinema on the Hollywood map

Montiel, the most international of Spain's singers and actresses and a diva of the silver screen long before Hollywood had ever heard of the country's film industry, had taken starring roles in around 60 films and produced 30 albums.

Known as 'La Saritísisma' – both a diminutive and an augmentative – she was born María Antonia Abad Fernández in the small town of Campo de Criptana in the province of Ciudad Real, central Spain. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SPAIN and Cyprus are the only EU countries currently in recession, according to British bank HSBC.

In 2012, Spain's GNP suffered a fall of 1.4 per cent and economic activity is expected to drop further this year, by another 1.9 per cent – and even next year is not looking good with a predicted GNP reduction of 0.2 per cent despite over-optimistic claims to the contrary by the Spanish government.

Spain seems to believe that in 2013, the GNP will only fall by 0.5 per cent and next year will grow by 1.2 per cent.

And president Mariano Rajoy claims that by next year, the country will start to create employment again.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A VET in Benijófar (Alicante) who confessed to chopping up his wife's body and incinerating her may have caused her death by operating on her in his surgery, Pet Care Veterinary Clinic.

The accused, a 45-year-old Argentinian national – as was his wife, who was aged 46 - claimed the victim had died from a massive overdose of a cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs and that he tried to revive her but without success.

She is believed to have a history of suicide attempts by overdosing due to depression largely caused by suffering from obesity.

Police now believe her husband tried to perform a stomach-reduction operation on her in the clinic, but this went wrong and he was unable to revive her, so he panicked, cut up her body at the family home in neighbouring Dolores, and sent it to a deceased pet incineration company claiming the contents of the bags were the remains of a very large dog.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

AT LEAST 200 protesters gathered outside what they believed to be the home of government vice-president Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría yesterday chanting and calling for mortgage laws to be changed and more protection against repossession.

They targeted a property near the Plaza de Manuel Becerra in Madrid's upmarket Salamanca district and also left an envelope addressed to the vice-president filled with fake 500-euro notes, alluding to the recent scandal in which former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas is alleged to have paid top-flight party members, including the president, cash-in-hand extra wages over a period of 10 years.

The crowd included Jorge Verstrynge former secretary-general of the Alianza Popular ('popular alliance'), as the PP used to be known.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE trial of the King's daughter, the Infanta Cristina over claims she has been involved in the Nóos Institute corruption case in which her husband is embroiled has been suspended.

Wife of Iñaki Urdangarín, one of two co-directors of what purported to be a non-profit-making organisation to promote sports, culture and tourism but which in fact was allowing Urdangarín and sidekick Diego Torres to profit from public funding, the Duchess of Palma was due to testify on April 27.

But the State prosecutor, Pedro Horrach, appealed against the Infanta's being summoned as a key witness, insisting there were no grounds to accuse her and 'no new information' had come to light which could justify any charges against her. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

DOG meat is thought to have been found in meatballs in Holland, having come from Spain, say Dutch authorities.

Investigations began 18 months ago when the owner of an animal shelter in Pontevedra, in the north-western Spanish region of Galicia, reported dogs having gone missing.

The woman, Olga Costa, claimed a firm which was paid by owners of deceased pets to dispose of the carcasses was shipping meat from the animals abroad.

A dog owner who went to the animal crematorium in question to bid her last farewell to her beloved pet, having not been there when he was put to sleep, said she saw workers de-boning dog carcasses.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

AGES of consent for marriage and consenting to sexual relations are about to go up in Spain in response to requests from UNICEF.

This week, the Spanish government approved its new Childhood and Adolescence Strategic Plan 2013-2016, which will cover ways of protecting the underaged.

It will include methods of safeguarding children in domestic violence cases in a bid to prevent them from becoming direct or indirect victims, a move sparked by the death of a six-year-old girl thought to have been killed by her father in Málaga, who hanged himself immediately afterwards, when he was charged with violence towards his ex-wife and mother of his young daughter. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

OVER 860,000 young people on the dole say they have simply given up looking for jobs, because they no longer believe they will find one.

Research by ASEmpleo says those who were aged 25 and under when they were made redundant between the end of 2007 and late 2012 and have not found work since do not believe they will ever get a job again.

The number of people in this age-group who are out of work has gone up by over a third in this five-year period. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

AN earthquake measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale has terrified residents in Lorca (Murcia) who are still reliving the horrors of a quake reaching 5.6 nearly two years ago.

Detected at 04.27hrs yesterday (Thursday), the epicentre of the quake was in the nearby village of La Paca, which comes under the jurisdiction of Lorca, reaching number III on the Intensity scale – around the middle – and 11 kilometres underground.

According to the National Geological Institute, the tremor was felt in the whole of the north of Lorca, the city centre itself, and in the nearby towns of Aledo, Totana, Cehegín and Archena, and even just over the border in Almería, the province immediately south of the Murcia Region. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

EMPLOYEES of the NH Hotels chain will be on strike next Tuesday across the country in protest over plans to make 646 members of staff redundant at 39 branches.

Yesterday saw demonstrations at branches throughout Spain, and unions say staff are 'feeling pessimistic' about the next meeting due with management on Thursday.

Next week's strike is expected to include support from workers from other hotel chains to make up the numbers, and will be the second on in less than a month after NH Hotels employees downed tools on March 25.

Ten days previously, they had been notified of restructure plans which would see 12 per cent of the payroll made redundant.

These include 95 workers at the five hotels in the southern region of Andalucía in Málaga, Sevilla, Granada, Huelva and Jaén. 

Source ThinkSPAIN.com

KING Juan Carlos' daughter, the Infanta Cristina is finally thought to have been involved in the infamous Nóos Case surrounding her husband, Iñaki Urdangarín, and will be called to testify in court on April 27 at 10.00hrs.

Her summons comes just days after Urdangarín's former co-director, Diego Torres, sent new emails to the judge in charge of the money-laundering and corruption trial which hinted at the involvement of the Duchess of Palma in the activities of the Nóos Institute, which was set up as a non-profit-making organisation in order to benefit from public grants but which in fact was anything but. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

FIVE medical workers' unions have announced a schedule of strikes, an official complaint to the public ombudsman and even legal action if the ministry of health led by Ana Mato continues to refuse to negotiate 'issues relating to their employment conditions'.

Healthcare staff all over Spain say they are working very long hours for no pay due to insufficient personnel numbers, and attempting to provide a quality medical service with extremely limited resources, due to cutbacks in public funding.

Mass redundancies, long waiting lists, wage cuts and far less investment in the State health service as well as constant privatisation threats, particularly in Madrid, are among other sources of discontent for Spain's doctors and nurses. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ROUND-TOWN bus tickets and telephone landline tariffs have gone up all over Spain with effect from yesterday, but electricity has gone down and mains gas prices have been frozen.

Buses within towns and cities increased in price by 2.45 per cent on Monday – the second rise in less than a month, after prices went up on March 9 by three per cent in a government bid to compensate transport companies for rocketing fuel prices.

National telecommunications company Telefónica has also increased its costs for line rental, from 13.97 euros plus IVA to 14.38 euros plus IVA – meaning an actual increase from 16.90 euros to 17.40 euros. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SPAIN'S government is hoping to negotiate a more lenient target for mopping up the State deficit during talks with Brussels in mid-April.

The European Union had ordered the country to reduce its debt to 4.5 per cent of the GNP by the end of 2013, a target which now appears far from feasible – especially as Eurostat ordered Spain to recalculate the figures it had given for 2012.

This led to the 6.7 per cent of the GNP, excluding aid given to the banks, quoted by the Spanish government being increased to 6.98 per cent.

To this end, Spain hopes the European Commission will allow it to aim for a reduction to six per cent of the GNP by the end of 2013 instead of the ambitious 4.5 per cent it was initially instructed to meet. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

TORRENTIAL rain is sweeping Andalucía and high winds have hit the Canary Islands with a vengeance, whilst an entire town in the province of Badajoz has been evacuated due to flooding.

Cádiz, Sevilla and Huelva provinces are all on 'yellow alert', denoting risk of floods and storms.

At least 659 people have been evacuated from Barbaño, a hamlet belonging to the town of Montijo (Badajoz) due to a very real threat of floods.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

OVER 450 kilometres of tailbacks were seen on Spain's roads last night (Sunday) and more are expected today as a result of holidaymakers returning home after the Easter break.

Those travelling between Alicante and Madrid were held up for an extra three hours due to a gridlock between the A-31 and A-3, and rain in the centre of the country created even further delays. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com