Live News From Spain As It Happens

A HYDROGEN battery-powered car has arrived in Spain for the first time – an SUV which can run for 666 kilometres before it needs charging, a process which takes just five minutes.

The Hyundai Nexo is a zero-emissions vehicle that combines 'innovative technology with futuristic design and incredible autonomy', the latter provided by 'the latest driver-assistance devices', according to the manufacturer.

It goes from nought to sixty, literally – from a standstill to 96 kilometres per hour (60mph) – in 9.5 seconds and a maximum of 161 horse-power, 40 kW (kilowatt) batteries and a hydrogen fuel battery of 95 kW.

The NEXO is the upgraded version of the Hyundai Tucson FCEV, which has 170 kilometres' less gas in it once the fuel battery is charged.

Among its driver-assistance features are a blind-spot view monitor (BVM), remote-controlled parking, and a speed-adjustment system which does not allow it to be driven any faster than the speed limit for the road it is on at the time, automatically detecting the limit as it travels.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ÜBER and Cabify cars blocked Madrid's main business boulevard today in a counter-protest against taxi drivers trying to get them off the streets.

Around 40 black vehicles staged a slow march along the Paseo de la Castellana as far as the Plaza de Cuzco carrying banners reading: “There's enough work for everyone – monopolies out.”

Taxi drivers have been protesting in major cities, including Barcelona and Madrid, and holding strikes leaving airports in chaos as they resent the competition provided by car-pooling and chauffeur-driven hire car networks.

Both cities had agreed to allow just one Über or Cabify licence per 32 taxi permits, but taxi drivers say they are not sticking to it.

Isolated incidents of Cabify cars being smashed up and torched have hit the headlines, although the majority of taxi drivers condemned this sort of violent behaviour.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SWEDISH furniture giant Ikea is about to launch its range of pet furniture in stores in Spain, created by an animal-loving interior designer based in Valencia.

Inma Bermúdez, who says she has lots of pets at home, is the brains behind the Spanish lines of the Lurvig collection – which means 'furry' or 'fluffy' in Swedish – and which will go on sale in stores across the country from October 5.

For cats, a tented 'tube' with a pom-pom on a string to run through, scratching poles – to save humans' furniture from destruction – a 'cabinet' for cats to get inside, which looks just like a 'human' display unit and blends in well with the rest of the décor, a comfy canvas vet-carrier box with netting so the cat can see out – also suitable for a small dog, and a 'honeycomb' open drawer unit which doubles up as a display case but allows cats to pop in and out of their own round holes.

For both dogs and cats, sofa covers, sofa-style beds, squeezy balls and curry-comb type brushes for long-haired or moulting pets are included.

Prices for 'furr-niture' items start at as little as €5 – even for the display case – ranging up to €7 for the 'tube', just under €13 for the throws and beds, to a maximum of €35.

Four in every 10 homes in Spain has at least one pet, and large numbers of animals are not considered strange at all – particularly given that the vast majority of houses and flats in Spain have tiled floors and no fitted carpets, meaning they are easier to clean and moulting fur can be swept up and vomit, spillages or toilet accidents mopped up.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

LOW-COST carrier Ryanair has cancelled 190 out of its 2,400 flights scheduled for this Friday (September 28) due to the cabin-crew strikes in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands.

This is around 8% of the Irish airline's flights, and will affect about 30,000 passengers.

Ryanair, in a press release, says it has today contacted all travellers booked on the cancelled flights to rearrange their trips or provide refunds.

According to the company, it 'sincerely regrets' what it calls 'unnecessary disruption' for customers, and claims that in the last few weeks it has made 'significant progress' in negotiations with the various unions in the UK, Ireland, Italy and Germany.

Managing director Kenny Jacobs says there is 'no need' for the industrial action, which he says is 'harming the business' and 'reducing customer confidence' at a time when fuel prices are rocketing.

“If they continue, we will unavoidably have to reconsider our capacity for growth for this winter and for summer 2019,” Jacobs says.

He is calling for unions to 'use their common sense' and 'cooperate' with Ryanair to 'finalise agreements that benefit cabin crew and pilots in the next few weeks'.

Read moe at thinkSPAIN.com

BARCELONA'S iconic Sagrada Família cathedral has finally broken the 100-metres-high barrier – 92 years after it started being built.

The unusual, ultra-modern and totally-unique temple – the inside of which is split almost equally between the mass area, the tourist trail and the cement-mixer zone – remains unfinished to this day, but work has never stopped on it since the 1920s.

Plans are afoot to have it completed by June 2026, exactly 100 years after its creator, Antoni Gaudí, met his end when hit by a bus whilst crossing the street to his very own masterpiece.

In total, it will have 18 towers, or spires, and will stand at 172.5 metres in height, once finished.

The six central spires are currently being built – four for the Evangelists, the Mary Tower, and the final pièce de résistance, the Jesus Christ Tower, which will be the highest of all and will take eight years to construct.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

TEENS at a Torrevieja high school have staged a peaceful protest over centre rules banning them from wearing shorts.

Around 40 girls pointedly wore shorts on the same day to show their discontent for what they call 'sexist' regulations – boys are allowed to wear shorts, but girls are not, and although girls are permitted to wear strappy tops, boys have been banned from doing so.

Of the 40 pupils who joined the 'shorts protest', around 25 were taken en masse into the library and given stern warnings about complying with school rules.

In response, they became even more determined in their cause: by yesterday (Monday), over 70 girls wore shorts to class.

Very few schools in Spain have uniforms, except for some private – mainly bilingual or international – centres and a small handful who have piloted them in infants', meaning kids wear their everyday clothing to class.

Dress codes are far more relaxed than in the UK, where jewellery is normally limited to stud earrings, a watch and a discreet bracelet, if permitted at all, and skirts must be of a requisite length.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

WE'RE LIVING longer and are healthier with it than ever before in history: medical science is moving so fast that even a few years can change the face of treatment to an unrecognisable degree, and what was once the worst news imaginable to patients and their loved ones may now simply be unpleasant and highly inconvenient. Think back to the HIV terror of the 1980s, and how it's now usually just a chronic condition requiring daily medication, not having to affect lifestyle or life expectancy. Epilepsy, 30 years ago, was a devastating blow that seriously curtailed daily activities, and can now be kept under control with pills. Even early-stage cancer need not be a death sentence: survival rates for breast cancer in the western world are now above 90%.

But longer lives come at a price; at least, for now. And among the highest and most harrowing prices is Alzheimer's, a neurodegenerative condition that needs little introduction and, although not exclusive to the upper-middle aged and elderly, the risk increases the longer we stay alive.

Spain's 1.2 million Alzheimer's patients mean five million residents affected

Seven in 10 dementia cases are caused by Alzheimer's, which can strike at almost any age, even the 90s.

Exact numbers of sufferers in Spain are unclear; depending upon which set of statistics you read, there could be anything from 700,000 to 1.2 million residents or even more in the country right now with the condition. The Spanish Alzheimer's Confederation (CEAFA), one of the main charities focused on the disease, cites the upper figure, but recalls that the true number affected is actually around five million: it is often argued that family and close friends, especially when they are the carers, suffer at least as much as the actual patient.

Heartbreaking: It's not just forgetfulness

The distress of a treasured relative or friend not recognising you is difficult enough, but Alzheimer's goes beyond mere forgetfulness; patients frequently go through depression, anxiety, terror, confusion and can become aggressive, tearful, suicidal and even physically violent. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

GREENPEACE 'crashed' a car into the wall of Madrid's Reina Sofía art museum yesterday (Thursday) to campaign for petrol and diesel to be scrapped in accordance with longer-term environmental guidelines.

If Spain is to comply with the Paris Treaty on climate change, petrol and diesel cars will have to stop being sold by the year 2030 at the latest, with all vehicles being powered by electricity or renewable sources.

Canadian environmental charity Greenpeace 're-registered' a sawn-off car with the number plate FIN 2028 ('END 2028') and parked it halfway through an existing gap in the ground-level wall below the entrance to one of the Madrid art trail's 'Big Three', hanging a canvas wall around it with scattered papier mâché bricks in the same design as the original, so it looked as though the car had collided and smashed through it.

They carried banners reading '2028: Neither diesel nor petrol', plus one in American English reading '2028: Extinction of fossil fueled cars', and hung a larger one on the railings above the 'crashed' vehicle reading: '2028: Polluting cars belong in museums'.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SCIENTISTS at a Madrid neurobiology laboratory have made a ground-breaking discovery as to the origins of Parkinson's disease, throwing into conjecture previous assumptions about where the condition starts.

The HM CINAC, or Integral Centre for Neurosciences, says the disease may not, in fact, 'spread' to the cerebral cortex as its 'final destination', as has hitherto been believed: it could be that this is where it starts.

This would explain why Parkinson's starts off with motor issues, or problems affecting general movement, speech and the body's outward physical activity.

A neurodegenerative condition characterised by rigidity, slowness and trembling – although the latter may not always be present, especially in young victims – has largely been explained by the death of 'black mater' neurons, or nerve sources in the part of the brain that generates dopamine, a brain chemical associated with the feeling of being 'switched on' and 'positive' and an over-firing of which is thought to be behind delusional disorders such as psychosis and schizophrenia, as well as attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The loss of neurons in the dopamine or 'active' and 'feel-good' part of the brain has never yet been explained, but the HM CINAC scientists believe it is not a localised phenomenon: instead, it is a 'stage on a more complex pathological journey which literally progresses in a bottom-up direction'.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

TRAFFIC authorities in Spain are considering making speed-limiting technology obligatory in all newly-manufactured cars in a bid to reduce crash deaths on roads.

Leader of the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT), Pere Navarro believes that the system preventing a car from travelling above the speed limit – a device that already exists – could prevent up to 400 fatalities a year by cutting serious accidents by at least 20%.

But whether or not this technology becomes compulsory for new vehicles, Navarro says it is 'probably a good idea' to review and increase the number of speed limit signs, since it is not always clear what the permitted maximum is.

The 'smart-speed' system, according to the DGT boss, was the subject of a research project in Norway in 2014 and found to be the 'most efficient' at saving lives.

In fact, it could be the 'most important feature, after the air-bag' at doing so, Navarro believes.

He says road crash deaths have been steadily climbing in Spain for the last four years, and reveals that 77% of fatalities happen on secondary highways rather than motorways.

Of all deaths recorded, 36% are caused by the car veering off the road and 28% by head-on smashes – and even where the proximate cause of these are alcohol, drugs, fatigue or distraction, the speed of the vehicles involved makes a difference as to the outcome.

“The faster the cars are travelling, the worse the accident tends to be,” Navarro points out.

These observations were made during the MAPFRE Foundation's latest road safety conference, jointly organised by the European Council for Transport Safety and the DGT.

Head of Accident Prevention and Road Safety at high-street insurance company MAPFRE, Jesús Monclús says the 'smart-speed' system reads the limit signs on roads and adjusts the car's speed accordingly if it is travelling faster than this, as well as preventing the vehicle from getting too close to the one in front – even activating the brake if necessary.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ONGOING debates into how to bring down electricity bills are starting to bear fruit, albeit slowly – the firs step will involve temporarily axing one of the taxes.

It will only reduce the average monthly household bill by around €3, but will be a helpful start – given that electricity typically costs just under 86% more nowadays than it did 15 years ago.

New minister for Energy Transition Teresa Ribera – who took up her post in early June – has already been facing a critical moment in her career as power bills have continued to rise rapidly since she started the job, and measures to curb the upward spiral have become an emergency.

Among these measures is cutting out the 7% energy generation tax and increasing the eligibility criteria for 'special needs' discounts, applicable for those on very low incomes.

Sra Ribera is also discussing introducing a low-income discount on heating bills.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A REGIONAL government in centre-northern Spain has proposed making fashion retailers charge a fee for customers to try clothes on in a bid to stamp out the unethical 'shoppers' hack' of checking items out for fit and then buying them more cheaply online.

Castilla y León's economy and treasury minister María del Pilar del Olmo made her views known at a recent Retail Industry Conference after discussing it with tourism, trade and industry minister Reyes Maroto, with whom she agreed to set up a new 'Trade 4.0 Observatory' in response to the challenges faced by the high street from the online market.

Sra del Olmo says too many shoppers are tending to try clothing on in physical outlets and, having worked out what fits them and which size to buy, hand them back, claiming they do not suit them, then go online to find them at a cheaper price.

This is less of an issue with major high-street chains whose brand are only sold in-store or on their own websites, normally at a similar price – and often more expensive, when delivery charges are added – but is more of a problem for individual boutiques selling a variety of in-season brands, given that buyers may then be able to find them on sites such as ASOS and El Corte Inglés with a lower price tag.

Critics of Del Olmo's idea point out that online prices may not differ greatly, giving little incentive for shoppers to hand back clothes at the changing room door and buy them via the internet, and that boutiques often sell very individual selections of their various labels, making them hard to find elsewhere.

And where this is the case, shoppers are more likely to strike whilst the iron is hot and simply buy what they have just tried on rather than risk lack of availability elsewhere or limited or no price savings.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SPAIN'S most promising young lady golfer has been murdered in the USA whilst on the course in Ames, Iowa, according to police.

Singles European Champion of 2018 Celia Barquín Arozamena, 22, was found dead at 10.25 local time on the Coldwater golf course on Monday after several players reported seeing an unattended golf bag.

It seems the Cantabria-born prodigy was violently mugged and died during the attack.

The suspect has been named as Collin Richards, 22, and is said to have an extensive criminal record.

A COLLAPSING floor at Madrid's Ritz Hotel has left one dead and 11 injured, emergency services confirm.

The hotel had been closed for renovations costing €99 million since February 28, a job that was not expected to be finished until the end of 2019.

Five layers of flooring on the sixth storey collapsed, crushing the team of workmen, of whom two were rushed to hospital in a serious condition.

The builders fell down all six floors along with the rubble, and four of them became trapped, one of whom died before firefighters could reach him.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

BRITISH Consul in Barcelona Lloyd Millen has urged Spain not to jump to conclusions about balcony fall deaths and injuries in Mallorca this summer, saying all those reported this year have been accidents.

Millen's patch covers Catalunya, Aragón, the Balearic Islands and the Pyrénéen country of Andorra, meaning his office deals with a high number of incidents involving young Brits on boozy holidays with groups of friends in party districts such as Magaluf and Palmanova – part of the town of Calvià, Mallorca – and in Ibiza.

Whenever a British holidaymaker is killed or badly injured in a fall from an apartment or hotel terrace, the Spanish media immediately refers to 'balconing' – a foolhardy stunt usually involving alcohol and peer pressure where victims attempt to jump from their balconies into the swimming pool below.

“This trend is over now. There are no cases of 'balconing' among young Brits these days,” Millen insists.

“The cases seen this year have been accidental falls, which is different; although it's true there have been a lot of such cases this summer.”

Falls reported in the press have all been onto pavements or internal courtyards with no pool, showing they cannot logically be the result of 'balconing'.

“Brits do not tend to live in flats with balconies and perhaps they are not used to them,” the Consul explains, adding that this is why the UK foreign office recommends tourists take extreme care when they visit holiday hotspots in Spain.

Cheap alcohol is also partly behind accidental falls: “If they go to the Punta Ballena strip, on a 300-metre strip there are 113 cashpoints. It's designed to get money out of people,” Millen says.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A BRITISH tourist who saved two small children from drowning in his Menorca hotel pool has asked for compensation as his holiday was 'ruined' by the post-traumatic stress.

Steven Tartt, 32, from Seaforth, near Liverpool dived into the pool when he realised a seven-year-old boy and a girl of six were drowning, and pulled them out.

But according to the Liverpool Echo, the rest of his time at the Victoria Playa Hotel on the Santo Tomás beach was spent suffering recurring nightmares about seeing the children die because he was trying to run to save them but was unable to reach them.

As a father of two children himself, Steven has found this very distressing and says he needed another week's holiday to recover.

A lifeguard was reportedly on duty at the time and did not respond when he saw the children in trouble, resulting in his being fired.

Tartt says he was in such a state that when he returned to the UK, he had to be signed off work for another week, meaning he lost money as he is self-employed.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE EUROPEAN Commission says next March will be the last compulsory clock change – onto BST and CEST for the Canary Islands and Spain – and after that, each member State will decide for themselves what to do.

They will be required to inform the Commission whether they want to stay on summer hours, or whether they will once again change the clocks in October and whether they intend to continue to do so twice-yearly thereafter, or remain on either winter or summer hours.

Polls in the Spanish media show more than three-quarters of people in Spain want permanent summer hours, although Galicia wants year-round BST and Portugal, directly to the south, wants to carry on with the twice-yearly clock change.

A committee set up by Pedro Sánchez's government will discuss what to do.

Meanwhile, the Canary Islands wants to remain on a different time zone to the mainland, largely because of its geographical location, but also because of its 24-times-daily mention on the radio when the hour is announced.

Its regional government has asked to be part of Sánchez's committee.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

HOT on the heels of accusations about the now-ex health minister Carmen Montón's master's degree dissertation including plagiarisms, Spain's right-wing opposition is now accusing socialist president Pedro Sánchez of doing likewise in his PhD thesis.

Sánchez is not the only one to be furious about the opposition's attempt to 'discredit what took him years of hard work' – Madrid's Camilo José Cela University has also spoken out.

It points out that a PhD is written and researched under the close guidance of two supervisors and fully reviewed by a panel before the award is granted.

The university says it has 'thoroughly reviewed' the 'internal and external evaluation processes' of the thesis presented by Dr Pedro Sánchez-Castejón in the year 2012, when he was 40 years of age, and confirms the 'complete normality of the procedures, in line with legislation in force and the habitual verification and control protocol' of the institution.

The accusations erupted after a report in right-wing international newspaper ABC claimed most of the thesis was written by famed economist Carlos Ocaña.

Sánchez has announced legal action for libel against ABC, which says it does not intend to change one word of its article and would be pleased to see the president's evidence to the contrary.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

RYANAIR cabin crew in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands will be on strike on Friday, September 28 – and other countries may be joining in too, according to Spanish airline employees' unions USO and SITCPLA.

Earlier this week, a strike by German-based Ryanair staff, including pilots, led to 44 flights to and from Spain being cancelled.

USO and SITCPLA say they are prepared to organise strikes as often as once a month if necessary unless and until the company agrees to negotiate.

Poor working conditions and pay, a refusal to recognise unions and disciplinary threats against staff involved in these, and a refusal to comply with employment law in each country it is based in are some of the accusations against Ryanair made by its workers and unions across Europe.

Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Belgian cabin crew went on strike on July 25 and 26, and pilots in Germany and Ireland have done so since, with early-August strikes among Irish pilots causing havoc at London-Stansted airport, where Ryanair has one of its biggest UK bases.

The low-cost carrier says it is 'confident' that the 'vast majority' of its cabin crew will continue to work as normal on September 28, 'as has been the case during earlier industrial action', and to this end, 'disruption is expected to be minimal'.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

CATALUNYA'S regional day brought its usual colourful wall-to-wall march through Barcelona and nods to the north-eastern territory's culture and history among its expats worldwide – but this year was one of the least-supported in the current decade as those who are not in favour of independence felt unrepresented.

Annual 'Catalunya Pride' has long been a mere patriotic celebration and, for the past 17 years, an uplifting antidote to the sombre global spirit that reigns on the same date, now September 11 has become synonymous with New York's devastating World Trade Centre attacks.

But organisers this year say only around 200,000 took part – about the same number as in 2017, barely three weeks before the disputed October 1 referendum, and just a fifth of the crowd size seen in 2014.

For the first time ever, the Catalunya socialist party, or PSC – the regional affiliate of the reigning central government socialist or PSOE party – did not attend, and neither did the mayoress of Barcelona, where most of the action happens.

Like most of the marchers, Ada Colau of the left-wing party En Comú Podem wore a yellow loop in support of the so-called 'political prisoners', or regional officials held in custody for their role in organising the referendum, but did not attend the march as she is 'not a secessionist'.

Sra Colau has long argued in favour of a non-binding referendum and open, uncensored discussion between Catalunya's and Spain's governments as being the only way to bridge the gap between the separatists and those who, like her, want Catalunya to remain part of the mother country.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE WORLD'S third-best restaurant is set to open a pop-up version at a Madrid hotel this autumn, offering an identical menu to that of its main base.

Mirazur, run by celebrity chef Mauro Colagreco and based on France's chic Côte d'Azure, will be whipping up its most famous dishes at the NH Collection Eurobuilding hotel from November 12 to December 2 inclusive.

Given its top-three global rating, Mirazur's prices are beyond those of mere daily sustenance – at €210 for the chef's taster menu, rising to €300 with specially-selected wines for each course – but are not necessarily excessive for one-off special occasions when taking into account the quality of the dishes and ingredients.

Describing its wares as French and 'border' cuisine and using fresh, locally-produced ingredients, Mirazur is likely to be a magnet for foodies during its month in the Spanish capital.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

SCIENTISTS have discovered a string of submerged islands between the Cabo de Gata (Almería province) and what is now the Spanish city-province of Melilla on the northern Moroccan coast, close to the Algerian border.

These islands are close enough together that, before they were reclaimed by the sea, would have acted as a 'foot bridge' between the continents of Europe and Africa.

The volcanic archipelago across the Alborán Sea was created through eruptions around 10 million years ago and served as a bridge between the continents for animals between five and six million years ago.

Soon after this, the gradual disappearance of volcanic activity in the region and the cooling of the earth's crust across the European and African tectonic plates meant the islands began to be covered by the sea, disappearing altogether beneath the water some 1.8 million years ago.

Dr Guillermo Booth-Rea of the Andalucía Earth Sciences Institute and a member of Spain's High Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) says the 'bridge' would have led to 'an exchange of fauna' between Africa and Europe, with 'camels and rabbits' mostly using it.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A MAN has lost his newly-acquired Spanish nationality – because it turned out he was unable to speak or understand Spanish.

It is not clear how the Moroccan citizen slipped through the net, although it appears a ministry of justice ruling allowed him to acquire a Spanish passport because he met the requisites of at least 10 years' residence and good conduct.

This was in early 2016, and when he was required to swear allegiance to the Constitution, he was unable to do so as he could not understand it.

Had it been a question of a disability, such as blindness or limited vision, or even dyslexia or illiteracy, it would have been possible for the Magna Carta to be read out to him – but the resident in Vera (Almería province) was not affected by these conditions and it was purely his lack of knowledge of the language which prevented his full comprehension.

This was two years after his application, filed with the Civil Registry and approved.

Citizenship requirements, other than good character and residence, require the applicant to show he or she is integrated in Spanish society, and to pass a general knowledge multiple-choice test on issues relating to culture, society and legal aspects, for which a 60% pass mark is necessary, and also a language test – speaking, reading, writing and listening – at A2 level, which is little more than a good GCSE standard.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

REIGNING Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton says his soon-to-be-former race colleague Fernando Alonso (pictured) is 'arguably the greatest driver' he has ever competed against.

And this is praise indeed from the unstoppable Brit, who has raced against blue-chip rivals such as Germany's Sebastian Vettel, four-times world champion, and even seven-times champion Michael Schumacher.

“[Fernando] has been one of the greatest drivers and, for me, arguably the greatest driver I've driven against. I wish him all the best moving on,” said Hamilton of his ex-team mate's decision to quit Formula 1 at the end of the 2018 season.

In an interview that has just been published in the Spanish media, Hamilton praised the Spaniard for sticking with the sport for so long – 17 seasons – especially in light of his failing to win a world title in 12 years, and says Alonso's lack of silverware far from reflects his ability.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

As a somewhat dubious solution to affordable housing availability, a start-up developer wants to build what it calls a 'beehive block' in Barcelona – eventually extending to Madrid and other European cities including Rome and Copenhagen.

Haibu 4.0 has its sights set on the Sants-Bada neighbourhood and has plans for 'flats' of just three square metres (32.3 square feet).

They would be 2.2 metres (about 7' 2”) long, and 1.2 metres (3'11”) wide and high, meaning any child of about seven years old or over, let alone adults, would not be able to stand up in them.

The idea is that the hexagonal 'tubes', slotted one above the other in the wall in a honeycomb pattern, would contain just a bed, bedside cabinet and a shelf.

Residents would share communal bathrooms, kitchens and lounge-diners.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

Spanish president Pedro Sánchez's attempt to play devil's advocate over Catalunya has resulted in a proposal that both sides of the independence debate consider unworkable: a referendum on self-governing.

Given that the Spanish Constitution in its current form – unchanged since its signing in December 1978 – does not allow any action that could 'threaten the unity' of the country but does enshrine the 17 autonomous governments in law, the present interpretation is that any referendum on Catalunya's independence would be illegal, even if non-binding.

In a bid to bridge the ideological gap, Sánchez has offered Catalunya the chance to vote on whether or not they should be self-governing, but the Catalunya Left Republicans (ERC) have urged him to 'be brave' and go for a full-on self-determination poll.

Meanwhile, Pablo Casado, leader of the right-wing PP – ousted from national leadership by Sánchez's socialist party in early June after six-and-a-half years – says there is little point in a 'self-governing' vote.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

Spanish president Pedro Sánchez has telephoned Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss relations between the European Union and its eastern neighbour.

According to the Kremlin, the conversation between Sánchez and Putin was at the Spain leader's instigation as part of a series of contacts he is gradually making with his counterparts around the world to talk about bilateral relations – something he also discussed with the Russian president.

The contents of the conversation have intrigued reporters across Spain, but have not been revealed.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

Free school textbooks for low-income families, reduced IVA on basic products such as staple foods, and self-employed persons on less than the minimum wage being exempt from income tax retentions are among the agreements Spanish president Pedro Sánchez has reached with leader of left-wing Podemos, Pablo Iglesias.

Back from paternity leave and Parliament's month-long holiday now that his prematurely-born twins are out of danger, Iglesias made his first port of call a meeting with the president to discuss ways of reversing some of the cutbacks and financial pressures brought to bear by the previous PP-led government.

Both men agreed to cut IVA on basic necessities, although it is not yet clear whether this will involve reducing the 4% bottom rate or adding more goods and services to the 4% bracket which are currently in the 10% mid-band or 21% top-levels.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

CENTRE-RIGHT opposition party Ciudadanos wants the government to scrap inheritance tax between parents and children and spouses, and dramatically reduce it for more distant family members and those where the deceased and the beneficiary have business connections.

Last year saw record highs of people refusing inheritances – one in every 10 was rejected – since, in Spain, the tax has to be paid before the assets transfer into beneficiaries' names.

And beneficiaries only have six months to pay the tax.

Ciudadanos wants to increase this to at least a year where the estate is at least 75% fixed assets, and also wants to allow payment in kind instead of in cash if necessary.

Albert Rivera's party says the tax should be reduced to zero where the beneficiary is a child or parent, spouse or unmarried partner of the deceased and where the inheritance is the latter's permanent home.

This tax exemption would also apply to second- or third-degree relatives or even more distant ones where the beneficiary in question does not own a home of his or her own.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A DOG-TRAINING course to teach pets not to be scared of fireworks will be free of charge to all owners, says the local council organising these pioneering workshops.

Vegas del Genil (Granada province), has teamed up with the DeSilva dog obedience school and the Animal and Plant Protection Society, a pet shelter in the Alhambra city, to offer a series of courses to any owners resident in the village who have trouble calming their four-legged friends during fiestas.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A FISHING boat from Galicia has been impounded in the Republic of Ireland after its crew were accused of 'cutting the fins off sharks'.

The Virxe da Blanca ('Virgin in White') is being held off the port of Castletown in the south of the country after an inspection of its practices led authorities to believe the fishermen were guilty of 'finning'.

This is illegal in Europe, although common place in east and south-east Asia, where sharks are caught, their fins removed and the remainder of the creature is thrown back in the sea, with the fins – considered a delicacy, especially in China – are typically made into soup.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com