Live News From Spain As It Happens

ONE of the 247 dead in the central Italian earthquake is a Spanish woman from Granada, according to the Red Cross in the Mediterranean country.

Ana Huete lived with her Italian partner and was in Illica, near the epicentre in the historic town of Amatrice, when she lost her life after a tremor reaching 6.2 on the Richter scale shook the country.

She and the bodies of four others, including an elderly woman, were recovered from beneath the wreckage.

Sources from the Red Cross and from the town say the deceased was aged around 25.

Her partner confirmed her death to Spain's main television broadcaster, TVE, but her parents, who live in Víznar (Granada province) did not wish to comment as they were too overwhelmed by the devastating news.

Ana had been on a short break in Illica, where her partner is originally from, and it is believed they lived in Italy.

Spanish diplomatic sources did not wish to confirm Ana Huete was the victim in question until they had full documentary evidence, although after her partner confirmed her identity, her death is being treated as official by Italian authorities.

Most of the town of Amatrice 'no longer exists', say survivors, and there are still residents underneath the rubble who are urgently being searched for.

Dozens remain missing, and rescuers are working round the clock to try to find anyone who may be alive in time to save them.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SPANISH weight-lifter Lydia Valentín has won a gold and a silver Olympic medal – four and eight years on from her performance, respectively.

The León-born sportswoman came fifth in Peking 2008 and fourth in London 2012, meaning that her bronze last week in Rio 2016 appeared to be her podium début.

But ongoing doping investigations led to the three women who 'beat' her in London being disqualified and Lydia getting the gold, which arrived by post on July 27 this year.

And this week, she has heard that she won the silver in 2008, and that it will soon be on its way.

Lydia moved up to fourth place after Russia's bronze winner, Nadezhda Evstyukhina was found to have high levels of artificial hormones and steroids in her system following re-tests of samples from the Peking Olympics.

Now, the gold medallist Lei Cao, from China, and Bulgaria's fourth-placed Iryna Kulesha have been disqualified following re-tests, meaning the silver-winner now gets the gold and Lydia, the silver.

As a result of her three medals in as many Olympics, one of each colour, Lydia has become one of the most successful female weight-lifters in history and one of the most-decorated sportswomen in Spanish Olympic history, having come second in her first-ever games.

Lydia, although delighted with her new-found prizes, does not subscribe to the 'better late than never' notion – the length of time the investigations have taken into the worldwide doping scam has effectively held back her career.

She was unable to join the medallists' parade or stand on the podium at the London and Peking Olympics, which would have made her a household name internationally, and missed out on her own personal moment of glory and that of her country.

Spanish weight-lifting has been 'seriously harmed' by its lack of protagonism in the last eight years, and other, up-and-coming competitors in the field – especially women – will have missed out on vital financial help and publicity because of its being an unknown quantity, Lydia explains.

Read more at thinkSPAIN:com

FINLAND'S national airline has launched new flight routes to the Balearic Islands, due to take off for the first time in summer 2017.

Menorca (Mahón, or Maó) and Ibiza join Corfu (Greece) and Reykjavik (Iceland) as Finnair's four new destinations for next year.

Connections every Sunday between Helsinki and Maó, and every Saturday between the Finnish capital and Ibiza will run from June 17 to August 12 inclusive, although Corfu is expected to be next summer's star Finnair destination.

The carrier will fly four times a week to and from Reykjavik, sharing its flight code with Icelandair, which also runs long-haul flights and is the gateway to Asia by air from Scandinavia, offering Finns a quicker route to the eastern continent.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

MALLORCA is the favourite holiday destination for Swedes and Ibiza (pictured) for the Dutch, according to data collated from online hotel search engine Trivago.

Brits' favourite is Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, with Benidorm second.

Spain crops up several times in the top 10 for the UK, with Barcelona coming fifth, Ibiza seventh and Salou (Tarragona province, on the Costa Daurada) eighth.

German holidaymakers opt for Barcelona first and foremost, but their interest in Mallorca for summer breaks is no great secret – whilst Magaluf, Palma Nova and other beach districts of Calvià are predominantly British-occupied in summer, Palma de Mallorca and its beach, the Playa de Palma, are mostly frequented by Germans, and both figure in their top 10, with the neighbouring island of Ibiza ninth.

Swedes are among Spain's most faithful customers – after Mallorca, their second choice is Barcelona, followed by New York, with Gran Canaria ninth – and, in fact, other than Dubai, most of their top 10 destinations are made up of Mediterranean beach towns, albeit more towards the east including Alanya (Turkey), Crete and Rhodes (Greece) and Dubrovnik (Croatia).

For the Dutch, too, Barcelona is in second place, behind Ibiza which comes out as the most-searched destination, and although their top 10 is very varied – New York third, the island of Bali in Indonesia fourth, and Albufeira in southern Portugal fifth – Spain features heavily, with their favourite 10 including Valencia and the S'Arenal beach resort in Mallorca.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

NEW telephone number prefixes possibly starting with an 8 are being planned for Madrid and the Basque Country province of Guipúzcoa for when existing combinations starting with the usual 9 run out.

At the moment, Madrid numbers start with 91, but as yet has not reached 919 which will be the next to be offered – and when this has run out, new ones may start with 81.

Guipúzcoa numbers start with 943, but new landline numbers may soon start with 843.

Due to ongoing demand for new landline telephone numbers, both the province of Guipúzcoa, and the single-province region of Greater Madrid, are likely to run out of combinations in the short to medium term, says the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC).

The last national phone number plan released was in 2015, when 86.5 million combinations were attributed to new landlines, although only 79.8% of those have been taken up.

Very few parts of Spain are likely to run out of numbers in the foreseeable future except these two areas – in Madrid, 97% of combinations issued became 'real-live' phone numbers when new landlines were installed in homes or businesses, and in Guipúzcoa, this reached 91%.

Although these are the most urgent areas needing fresh combinations shortly, others are catching up.

In the provinces of Alicante (965 and 966), Badajoz (924) and Valencia (962 for the province and 961 and 963 for the city), a total of 87% of last year's numbers have been taken up.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

Passengers panicked on a Vueling flight when a police officer's gun accidentally went off, causing them to fear a terrorist attack.

The aircraft was boarding at Ibiza airport, ready to take off for Madrid, when several on-duty officers – who were travelling on the flight – passed each other their regulation handguns.

One of these went off unintentionally, and the bullet hit the officer's suitcase, absorbing the impact.

State Administration leader for the island, Roger Sales, explains that it is standard procedure for police officers to carry their guns in the cabin when flying as part of the course of their duty, and they have tight procedures for boarding these for security reasons.

Sales insists that 'nothing worthy of mention happened' and that the officers were acting entirely in keeping with normal protocol.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A MINOR earthquake caused a rude awakening this morning (Monday) in the Torrevieja area, and was felt across numerous major urbanisations occupied mostly by British expats.

According to the National Geographical Institute (IGN), the quake measured 2.4 on the Richter scale at exactly 08.38hrs, with its epicentre to the south of the salt flats, near the Murcia border.

As it was 16 kilometres below the surface, the tremor was not severe and has not caused any damage.

At 2.4 – which is fairly typical for earthquakes in the south and south-east of Spain – the effect would be similar to a heavy lorry driving past at speed and may cause a visible, momentary shaking of elements on shelves or walls.

Residents would notice a sudden jerk in the floor which is over before they realise what is happening.

But small quakes are still felt over a wide area.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

TWO British citizens have been arrested after a 'designer' drug laboratory was busted in the Basque Country and massive amounts of Class A substances seized.

Guardia Civil officers raided a warehouse in Leioa, near Bilbao in the province of Vizcaya and confiscated 17,000 'depressants' or Benzodiazepam-type pills which would normally be used as strong sleeping tablets or tranquilisers, plus 8,700 doses of hallucinogenic substances such as LSD, and 10 kilos of 'stimulant' drugs in powder format, said to be amphetamines or the basis for recreational substances such as speed.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

HIGH-JUMPER Ruth Beitia has leapt into the history books after netting the gold by clearing 1.97 metres (6'5”), the first Olympic win for Spain since it hosted the games on home territory 24 years ago.

Ruth, the eldest of the 17 finalists at the age of 37, jumped the bar at the same height as Bulgaria's Mirela Demireva and Croatia's Blanka Vlasic, but with fewer faults, meaning the other two took the silver and bronze respectively.

London 2012's gold winner Anna Chicherova was not present, due to the veto on Russian athletes for alleged 'State doping', a scandal that has upset 'clean' athletes from the Federation and provoked the reluctant retirement of world-class javelin-thrower Yelena Isinbáyeva.

Beitia came fourth in London, but the three-times European champion was not content with this and hoped to finish what would be her last-ever Olympics with the top slot.

Her relentless training ahead of Rio 2016 paid off, and she was said to be in 'unbelievable form and fitness' when she arrived ready for her 'last chance'.

As well as winning Spain its first athletics gold since Barcelona '92, Beitia now holds the record as the oldest medallist in high-jump in history.

With victories in Diamond League competitions in Oslo, Stockholm and London, Beitia competed on a fast track – which she feels most comfortable on – in a warm and humid environment that reminded her of her native city, Santander (Cantabria) in summer.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A 56-YEAR-OLD man from the Basque Country has broken the world record for drink-driving after he was found to have travelled 240 kilometres (150 miles) at nearly 10 times the legal limit.

He was breathalysed by the Gendarmerie on the A-89 motorway linking Bourgogne and Perigueux, when they saw him parked on the hard shoulder in the town of Saint-Seurin-sur-l'Isle.

Officers said he stank of alcohol and was too drunk even to complete the breathalyser test, so they took him to the nearest hospital.

A blood test was carried out, and the reading showed 4.75 grams of alcohol per litre of blood, or 475 milligrams per 100 millilitres – nine-and-a-half times the legal limit for France or Spain.

The driver admitted later that he had had no idea where he was driving to, nor how much alcohol he had drunk beforehand.

He has provisionally been banned from driving for six months, but will appear in court in Libourne in southern France in October.

Spain's alcohol limits are 0.05% – 50 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood or 0.25 milligrams per litre exhaled in a breathalyser test – dropping to 0.03%, or 50 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood and 0.15 milligrams per litre exhaled, for drivers of HGVs of 3.5 tonnes or more, of passenger vehicles with more than nine seats, or with less than two years' driving experience, and attracts a fine of between €500 and €1,000.

More than double the limit means a six-month jail term, which is suspended if it is a first criminal offence, and a four-year ban.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

"Tourists won't return if towns are shut for four days at Easter"

Hoteliers in the Basque city of Bilbao have heavily criticised shopkeepers for refusing to open on bank holidays or, in some cases, even the days in between, saying tourists find their destination 'deserted' and do not bother to return.

Monday this week – August 15 – was a public holiday and, being attached to a weekend, gave many working Spaniards the chance to take a short break – but nothing was open, not even the huge high-street chain stores.

And every year at Easter, all bar the supermarkets are closed on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, leaving only a Saturday in the middle of a five-day period when the city showed any sign of life.

"We work hard to get clients to come and stay in our hotels, clients from all over the world ...

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ACTING president Mariano Rajoy has agreed to centre-right Ciudadanos' six anti-corruption conditions and set a date of August 30 for the start of the in-house presidential election debate, with the first round of voting due for August 31.

The right-wing PP leader will need an outright majority in his favour – 176 'yes' votes as a minimum out of the 350 MPs who gained seats in the second general election in June.

With the PP's own 137 MPs, Ciudadanos' 32, and the sole representative in Parliament for the Canarian Coalition, Rajoy still needs another six.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ACTING president Mariano Rajoy's party will vote a week today whether or not to accept the six conditions laid down by centre-right Ciudadanos to ensure its support.

Rajoy has said he 'should not decide on his own' whether to agree to Ciudadanos' leader Albert Rivera's terms, and intends to ask the rest of the right-wing PP to give their views.

Some of the measures proposed will 'include substantial reforms to the Constitution', the consequences of which 'would need to be studied carefully', Rajoy reveals.

Rivera (pictured) says he will only talk to the PP if it agrees for any member in public office to be immediately struck off if he or she is formally placed under investigation for corruption, and for an end to all official pardons or reprieves for those found guilty.

No more high-profile public figureheads, including politicians, judges or royalty, may be subject to diplomatic immunity, Rivera insists.

In practice, this 'diplomatic immunity' means any legal case brought against an individual who holds it goes straight to the Supreme Court, the highest contentious court in the land and the second-highest after the Constitutional Court, the latter of which exists entirely for the purpose of interpreting Spain's Magna Carta and applying it to related queries.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A SWIMMING pool can double the value of your property on the open market, according to calculations by estate agency analysts - a typical home in Spain with a pool can cost around €407,704, compared with €193,525 for one without.

These figures vary vastly by area, size and type of home, and nearby facilities, but generally, figures show that homes with a pool tend to sell for twice as much as those which do not have one, or do not have access to a communal one on the same complex.

Buyers of property with a private or communal pool will face higher running costs, although these are well worth it when considering the added value and the luxury of being able to flop into a swimming pool in the heat of the summer without moving much beyond the back door.

Typically, an apartment or villa on a complex or in a block means an annual cost of €780 in 'community' or 'freeholder' fees, which cover maintenance of the grounds, stairwells, parking areas and other shared parts.

Add a swimming pool to the block or estate, and these fees rise to €1,227 on average - an increase of €447 a year.

Of course, these also vary by area, with some being as little as €500 a year or even less for a complex with a pool.

Owning a private pool on an estate not subject to 'community charges' or not part of a freehold complex still involves maintenance fees - cleaning, topping up, checking and altering the chlorine levels and fixing leaks, replacing pumps and so on usually involve specialist knowledge and hard, manual labour, which can cost a typical €700 or so a year by paying a pool company.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

LANZAROTE is due to open the longest seafront promenade in the world – 26 kilometres (16-and-a-quarter miles).

Starting in Costa Teguise and finishing in Puerto del Carmen, passing the island's capital – Arrecife (pictured) – in the middle, the forthcoming esplanade is double the length of Spain's current longest, which is in the north-western city of A Coruña, in Galicia, and over two-and-a-half times the length of the promenade in Atlantic City, New Jersey (USA).

The latter is among the longest in the world at 9.25 kilometres (just over five-and-a-half miles).

Once Lanzarote's esplanade is open, something that authorities say will happen very shortly, tourists will be able to literally walk or cycle to the airport along the coast, and to the port.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE cheapest petrol and diesel in Spain can be found in the provinces of Soria and Salamanca - both in the centre-northern region of Castilla y León - whilst the most expensive places to fill up are the Balearic Islands and Pontevedra in the north-western region of Galicia.

Latest ministry of industry figures - the most recent being for June this year - show that a litre of 95 unleaded petrol in Soria cost €1.13 and diesel €1.01, or in Salamanca €1.14 and €1.02.

At the opposite end of the scale, petrol came in at €1.24 a litre in the Balearics and €1.22 in Pontevedra province, with diesel at €1.10 and €1.09 respectively.

Petrol and diesel have both since dropped in price - in fact, they have become dramatically cheaper in the last two to four years - but this reduction is in proportion across the board, meaning the cheapest and priciest remain as such, as well as all those within the spectrum.

At present, petrol averages at €1.135 per litre and diesel at €1.015, with crude oil sitting at US$40 a barrel compared with US$100 in 2014.

Diesel is down by 30% and petrol by 25% since the highest on record seen in summer 2012, when the latter was typically over €1.50 a litre.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A SURVEY has shown that if Spain was forced to hold a third general election in less than a year, four in 10 eligible voters would not bother to cast their ballots.

And of those who would, according to NC Report, one in 10 would vote for a different party this time around.

If any of the parties are hoping to push the country back to the polls, though, they may end up doing do to their own detriment - a third election would benefit the right-wing PP the most.

Acting president Mariano Rajoy's team has already gained from the second general election, with its 123 seats won in December rising to 137 in June, albeit still short of the 176-seat majority it needs to govern, whilst its direct rival, the left-wing PSOE (socialists) lost five seats, centre right Ciudadanos eight, and the coalition of Podemos and United Left remained the same, with the three now on 85, 32 and 71 respectively.

But in the event of a third election, nine in 10 of those who voted PP would do so again.

The PSOE would suffer, losing 16.7% of its electorate; as would Unidos Podemos, dropping by 15.7%, and Ciudadanos would come out worst of all, losing 25% of its voters.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THIS weekend has left five people injured in bull-running 'festivals' in the Valencia region, including two teenagers, reigniting the debate about the ethics of these spectacles.

A boy of 15 in Calpe (Alicante province) and a 13-year-old girl in Museros (Valencia province) were among the victims – the younger child had to undergo surgery after being injured at a bull-handling demonstration on Saturday, although the boy was discharged today (Sunday) after he was admitted to hospital just after 02.00hrs for his wounds to be dressed.

Two others were gored on Saturday night – a man aged 50 in El Puig (Valencia province), who was taken to hospital just after 21.00hrs in Sagunto, north of the city, about an hour after a 60-year-old woman was gored in the leg in Pinoso (Alicante province) and rushed to Elda health centre.

The region's first victim of the weekend was a 21-year-old man, also in Pinoso, at 21.25hrs on Friday.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A FIVE-YEAR-OLD boy has died in a Granada hospital after being hit by a firework during the patron saint festival in his village.

The victim is said to have been badly injured due to the 'force of the impact' when the artefact struck him at around 19.00hrs last night (Sunday).

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

POLICE in Barcelona have arrested members of the notorious international 'Pink Panther' gang after they broke into a high-end jeweller's on the Passeig de Gràcia, the city's main shopping street.

Five eastern Europeans - one of whom was armed - are said to have committed nearly 380 violent robberies in Spain in the last 16 years.

They were caught when the Mossos d'Esquadra - Catalunya's answer to the Guardia Civil - set up stations inside the retail outlet after finding out in advance what they planned to do.

The thieves caused extensive damage to the premises, including smashing the street-facing display window.

This gang is not the first faction of the 'Pink Panthers' to strike in Spain - two-and-a-half years ago, Serbian Borko Ilincic was captured in Madrid, having been on the run since 2007 when he was part of a massive heist on the upmarket Al-Wafi shopping centre in Dubai, to where he has recently been extradited to face trial.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

EXCAVATIONS in the popular expat town of Tortosa (Tarragona province) have uncovered a chunk of a fifth-century Roman city wall – the oldest archaeological finding to date in the area.

At 40 metres (130 feet) long and three metres (9'9”) high, the boundary wall found in the plot opposite Tortosa cathedral acted as a fortress for what was known in the late Roman era as the city of Dertosa.

Other than remains of walls belonging to residential homes, or human remains, pottery and similar artefacts, nothing of such outstanding historical value dating back to this era has ever been found on the Costa Daurada, archaeologists say.

Mediaeval home foundations, dating back to the Arab or Andalusí era, have been found on the site already, but these are far more common along Spain's eastern and southern coasts, and even the public square built in the first or second centuries, in the Roman times, are more run-of-the-mill than the recent discovery of the city wall.

Tortosa town hall is working on ways of preparing the dig to allow visitors to wander round and find out for themselves what the municipality was like during the Roman Empire, once it has been able to invest more money and time in building the new Plaza which will open out the cathedral complex to the banks of the river Ebro.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SPAIN’S football league will fine teams which do not fill at least 75% of spectator seats in the parts of the pitch where TV cameras are pointing.

According to La Liga, new television coverage rules mean the section from corner to corner must be three-quarters occupied as a minimum – and if these areas are less than 50% full, the fine will double.

“Occupation of the stadium is part of the audio-visual perception of the match, and for optimum television coverage, the stadium should appear to be full,” La Liga states.

To avoid fines, La Liga ‘strongly recommends’ that season-ticket holders and VIP fans should be seated between corners ‘opposite the main TV camera’.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A SPANIARD is one of the five people injured in a random stabbing in London's Russell Square in which a woman from the USA was killed.

The Spanish victim is thought to be a man, but no further details of him or his condition have been released as yet.

London Metropolitan Police confirm that the woman who was given emergency medical attention but died at the scene was from the United States, although again, no other details have been given about her.

Sub-commissioner of Scotland Yard, Mark Rowley, says initial fears that the knifepoint attack was an act of terrorism have been ruled out.

The attacker was a 19-year-old Somalian who held Norwegian nationality, and had no known religious or ideological beliefs, nor had he been 'radicalised' by ISIS recruiters.

His frenzied stabbing spree is said to have been caused by serious psychiatric problems he is suffering from.

The knife-wielding youth was tasered at the scene to immobilise him as British police do not carry weapons, and is being interrogated in police custody.

His family is also being questioned.

Scotland Yard had already announced that a further 600 officers would be on the beat in London following the terrorist attacks in France and Germany, and government sources have been quoted as saying it is a question of 'when, not if' a similar act will be staged in the UK.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE RAGING inferno engulfing the Canarian island of La Palma continues to rage out of control, and 2,500 residents have now been evacuated.

Yesterday, as reported in www.thinkspain.com, 54-year-old forestry brigadier Francisco Santana was killed whilst tackling the blaze, caused by a German expat burning tissue.

The culprit, 27, explained he had defecated behind a hedge and then burnt the toilet paper he used afterwards, and the flames took hold of the tinder-box-dry mountainside within split seconds.

Over 2,000 hectares – 20 million square metres, or 5,000 acres – have been destroyed in what has been described as the worst fire in the Canary Islands this century and the largest in La Palma in seven years.

As well as yesterday's 700 residents forced to flee their homes in the urbanisations of San Nicolás, Tacande and Jedey in the town of El Paso, a further 1,800 have been evacuated from four neighbourhoods in the nearby municipality of Fuencaliente de la Palma.

Not only is the blaze way out of control, but maximum temperatures pushing 40ºC in the shade and increasingly-high winds mean the situation is likely to become more 'complex' in the next few hours.

According to Canary Island regional president Fernando Clavijo, it could take 'several days' before the fire is contained and it is likely to keep spreading until then.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

AN INFERNO sweeping the Canary Island of La Palma may have been caused by an expat burning garden rubbish, say emergency services, who are grappling with tough conditions to try to bring the flames under control.

They were called out at around 14.15hrs yesterday (Wednesday) and helicopters worked until nightfall alongside firefighters and the La Caldera de Taburiente National Park forestry commission.

The fire is in a hard-to-reach area, meaning once the helicopters had to withdraw at nightfall, ground workers were unable to make much progress.

Intense heat, with highs of between 35ºC and 40ºC in the shade, and forecasts of high winds, are hampering operations, and already several hectares of land have been wiped out.

The blaze started in the rural Jedey area in El Paso, and has been heading rapidly up the mountain since, having spread to a pine forest between El Paso and neighbouring Fuencaliente.

A 27-year-old German man who lives near where the inferno started has been arrested for ‘negligence’, as a bonfire he lit to get rid of garden waste – despite this being illegal in summer everywhere in Spain – is believed to have been the cause of the fire.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

BARCELONA and the regional government of Catalunya are working on encouraging companies fleeing the UK post-Brexit to set up in the north-eastern provinces – and say some have already expressed an interest.

Deputy mayor of Barcelona Jaume Collboni and regional minister for business Jordi Baiget reveal that a dedicated ‘enquiries office’ is due to be set up so that firms based in Britain to enable them to trade easily with the European Union will be able to access ‘all the information they need’ on how to move to Catalunya.

Technology companies, start-ups and new business owners, as well as existing corporations of all types, are due to be targeted in a campaign commencing in September.

Baiget says he has already been in contact with undisclosed sources in Britain which are ‘able to provide information and leads’ concerning UK-based companies to help lure them to Catalunya, and Collboni says the region and its main city will be on stand-by to ‘explain procedures’ and ‘help with contacts’ in order to ‘facilitate, encourage and simplify’ companies’ moves to Spain.

“What we want to do is to hold up our hand and tell British businesses, and those of other countries based in Britain, that Barcelona and Catalunya as a whole could be a great destination for them to set up and invest in,” Collboni explains, whilst adding that both the city council and regional government are ‘especially concerned’ with ‘creating quality employment’ and aspire to turning Barcelona into a ‘Mecca for 4.0 industry’.

He says he is already in close contact with ‘a number of companies’ keen to move from Britain to Catalunya, but insists that all parties ‘need to be discreet about it’ at least until the extent of their investment is set in stone, since ‘other cities in Europe also want to take advantage’ of opportunities like this ‘which Brexit may offer them’.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

FORMER Barça FC player Xavi Hernández has donated his private yacht to a refugee charity so it can either use it to rescue displaced families from the Mediterranean, or auction it off to raise funds.

The nine-metre-long, 2.6-metre-wide La Pelopina has a 325 horse-power engine, and is now in the hands of the organisation ProActiva Open Arms, which started its new mission a month ago on the 30-metre motorised yacht, the Astral, helping desperate migrants reach dry land.

The Astral was funded by a donation from an Italian mattress-shop owner based in Granada.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

MIDDLE-AGED and elderly residents in the northern region of La Rioja are the happiest in Spain, according to research – 83% say they are enjoying life far more than when they were much younger, and 70% say they are ‘having a second childhood’.

Those born in or before 1961 place the least importance on money of all generations across Spain as a whole, particularly in La Rioja where only 30% say wealth or lack of is linked to their happiness.

The average Spaniard aged 55 or over gives their life a mark of seven out of 10, if 10 is the happiest and one is the worst possible.

Results of the research show a vast gulf between those approaching retirement, or already retired, and much younger adults, as well as differences between regions, but in all sections of the survey, La Rioja comes out on top.

Here, 80% say they are in very good physical shape and that, mentally, they are even healthier than when they were younger – and in addition to their health, they say part of the key to their happiness is their increased experience of life.

Seven in 10 say problems, especially ‘the little things’, bother them a lot less now than when they were very young, whilst eight in 10 say they have a more philosophical outlook on life and six in 10 feel more free and with fewer family responsibilities – at least in the case of ‘empty nesters’ who are not acting as carers for dependant parents or other elderly relatives.

In fact, two-thirds say now is the time of their lives where they can finally spend more time doing the things they really want to do and most enjoy.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A KEY week for Spanish politics kicks off today (Tuesday) with meetings between acting president Mariano Rajoy (PP) and leaders of the PSOE, or socialists, Pedro Sánchez and centre-right Ciudadanos, Albert Rivera.

Having said he is not sure whether he will even turn up to the in-house presidential elections as he does not believe he has sufficient support, Rajoy (pictured right) postponed the investiture session sine die after being nominated to form a government by King Felipe VI.

But the session is expected to take place by August 26 at the latest, since Spain needs to send its debt forecast for the forthcoming year to the European Commission and approve the 2017 State budget.

Ciudadanos has agreed to abstain in the in-house round, but it appears its leader, Rivera (pictured centre) may decide to vote in favour of Rajoy’s taking over as president again if the vote goes into a second session.

He reportedly asked the King to ‘try to persuade’ the PSOE to at least abstain, if not vote in favour to let Rajoy through – but the Monarch’s role in elections is merely as a go-between, and he is not allowed to influence parties either way.

The PSOE’s leader Pedro Sánchez (pictured left) remains firm with his refusal, but unlike after the December elections, has not made any steps to form an alternative government after relations with left-wing Podemos’ leader Pablo Iglesias broke down – and the PSOE back-benchers are divided over whether or not the party should team up with Podemos.

Some have vetoed the idea altogether.

Pointedly, and despite Podemos being the party with the third-highest number of MPs, Rajoy has not arranged to meet with Iglesias.

If Rajoy manages to get back into power, it will be through the main parties abstaining in the voting round, rather than through votes in his favour.

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A SECOND case of the Zika virus being sexually-transmitted has been detected in Spain – this time in the Greater Madrid region.

No trace of the Aedes Albopictus or Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which carries the virus, has been found anywhere in Spain, meaning all bar two of the 193 recorded cases in the country are imported as the patients had been in at-risk Latin American countries prior to diagnosis.

Only two sexually-transmitted virus diagnoses have been made, in Catalunya and in Madrid.

So far, 64 people in Catalunya have become infected, 52 in Madrid, 15 in Aragón, 11 in Castilla y León, seven each in Valencia and Andalucía, six in La Rioja, five each in Navarra and the Balearic Islands, four each in the Canary Islands and the Basque Country, two each in Asturias and Murcia, and one in Castilla-La Mancha.

The Zika virus is not a serious condition – tending to vanish by itself after a week or two of leaving the patient with ‘flu-like symptoms – except if it is caught by pregnant women.

In Latin America particularly, and now in Spain, the virus has been linked to microcephaly in unborn babies – where the brain is too small and underdeveloped, giving the head a ‘squashed’ appearance and meaning the child will be physically and mentally handicapped for life.

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AUGUST has started with an end to the recent heatwave which saw temperatures in the south reach over 42ºC in the shade, says the State meteorological agency AEMET.

This first week of the month will see a drop in the mercury of between 5ºC and 7ºC and, although far from chilly, some respite is expected across the country for the next few days.

Temperatures will not exceed 38ºC in any province, AEMET confirms, with the east coast - Almería, Murcia, Valencia, Alicante, Castellón and Tarragona - seeing figures of between 33ºC and 35ºC, and the top temperatures forecast in the provinces of Granada, Jaén, Córdoba and Toledo.

More northern provinces will drop down to more springlike climates - the region of Navarra, and Bilbao in the Basque Country will enjoy a more comfortable 26ºC, whilst in Vitoria, also in the Basque Country, thermometers will go down to 25ºC.

Cantabria and Asturias will see temperatures of around 24ºC, and the coldest part of the mainland will be San Sebastián in the Basque Country at a temperate 23ºC.

Even the Canary Islands will only experience figures in the 20s - about 24ºC in Gran Canaria and 28ºC in Tenerife.

Scattered showers are expected across the northern strip of the mainland, especially in Cantabria.

Tropical nights will subside, with lows across Spain sitting at between 15ºC and 20ºC, and only Toledo at 21ºC and Almería and the Spanish-owned city-province of Melilla, on the northern Moroccan coast, at 25ºC, will exceed these figures.

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RED Cross and Coastguard workers rescued a total of 130 would-be migrants entering Spain's Mediterranean shores on Sunday alone.

Jerry-built, overcrowded dinghies were spotted near Alborán Island, exactly halfway between Morocco and Almería, whilst others were rescued off the shores of Carboneras (Almería province), Cartagena (Murcia Region), and near Tabarca Island, directly east of the city of Alicante.

In the latter case, 10 migrants were spotted some nine miles off the island's coast at 17.15hrs, all of whom were said to be adult men of Algerian nationality and who claimed another 12 were on their way in a boat behind them.

The 10 were taken to the port of Alicante and given warm, dry clothing, fluids and food, and checked out by first-aiders.

Coastguard authorities were tipped off in the early hours of Sunday about a craft on its way north from the Moroccan city of Nador, and they were found 21 miles off the shores of Alborán Island.

A total of 34 of them - including six women and a child - were packed onto one motorboat.

Not far behind them, a boat carrying 25 Algerians was traced 50 miles south of Alborán Island at around 05.00hrs on Sunday.

Some time around noon, a craft carrying 30 sub-Saharan Africans, including three women and two babies under a year old, was spotted 60 miles south of Cartagena (Murcia).

The occupants were taken to the port of Cartagena for first aid, blankets, food and drink.

All 130 found in one day were said to be in good health, and are mostly of north African origin, although a handful are from sub-Saharan Africa.

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