Date Published: 19/02/2022

Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin Feb 19

CLICK HERE FOR THE FEATURE ARTICLES "Animal Protection Law in Spain gets the green light after months of delays" and "Unseasonably warm weather continues all week: Murcia weather forecast February 15-21"

Over the cold winter months, being stuck indoors and sheltered away from the rain, it’s easy for the mind to turn inwards, or turn off. But when the weather’s this nice, with unseasonably warm weather and highs of 26ºC in Murcia, closer to what we would expect to see in May than in February, we naturally begin to take more notice of the world around us. The blossoms on the trees. The sparkle of blue on the sea. The return of the swifts from their winter in Africa. New seasonable fruits and vegetables for sale at the market.

So it’s unsurprising that the animal kingdom and the natural environment, and especially their relation to the farming industry that sustains much of Spain, have been on everyone’s minds this week.

Read on for animal rights and farmers’ strikes, salmonella and warm weather, bird flu and polluted lagoons, and (of course!) coronavirus.

Animal magic

Our furry friends are at the forefront of the news this week and for all the right reasons. Spain’s new Animal Protection Law, which politicians have been debating over for eons, it seems, has finally been given the green light. The bill has actually been held up largely by the Ministry of Agriculture, which sided with hunters who wanted their working dogs excluded from the rules. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, and hunting dogs will be subject to the same regulations as companion animals.

Once the law comes into effect it will include a number of radical changes aimed at protecting the welfare of all animals: dog breeding will be restricted to registered professionals only and there will be a limit set on the number of litters a bitch can have.

Cockfighting, which incredibly is still legal in Andalucía and the Canary Islands, will be banned nationally, as will using live animals in circuses. The Spanish government also plans to crack down on the sale and possession of exotic animals which pose a risk to the native flora and fauna, with special attention being paid to the American mink, which can longer be farmed for its fur.

While there’s good news for most animals, things aren’t looking so chirpy for our feathered (rather than furry) friends. Bird flu has been sweeping across Europe and Asia since last year but the situation is Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin Feb 19

worsening in Spain, with the experts tipping this outbreak as the worst of its kind in the history of the country. So far, it has been detected in six poultry farms and in 12 natural areas, and in recent days, new outbreaks have been detected on turkey farms in Sevilla, Huelva and Valladolid.

It’s extremely rare for humans to contract bird flu, and the good news is that to date, the virus appears to be seasonal, and as the weather warms up, new outbreaks should become less likely in Spain.

That’s not all Spain’s hopeless hens have to worry about, however, as European food safety agencies have warned of a large active outbreak of salmonella which has been linked to eggs produced in Spain. So far, cases have been confirmed in six countries and in total, 272 patients have been identified. Of these, 25 have required hospitalisation and two have died.

There are currently more than 1,400 egg-producing farms in Spain with some 47 million laying hens, and around a fifth of the eggs produced each year are exported. Consequently, health experts have stepped up their investigation to contain the spread as quickly as possible.

Ol’ Menéndez had a farm… E-I-E-Uh-Oh

Anyone visiting Murcia capital city on Wednesday of this week couldn’t have failed to notice the five hundred tractors and five thousand farmers making their way in a slow procession through the streets, making noise and waving placards. In scenes that repeated themselves from almost exactly a year ago to the day, farmers in the Region (as well as those from neighbouring Almeria and Alicante) went on strike to protest the “unaffordable” rise in production costs due to the “exorbitant” increase in raw materials and cuts to water supplies from the Rivers Tagus and Segura.

Farming is one of the main pillars of the economy of Murcia, with everything from artichokes and oranges to pigs and goats being produced on Murcian soil to supply to the rest of Spain and for export to other countries. But farmers feel they are not being treated fairly, and their hard work is going unappreciated.

As representatives of the striking farmers’ unions put it, “If there are no immediate solutions, other types of actions will have to be proposed (without violence) but to make it clear that if the [agricultural] sector stops, society doesn’t eat.”

Wednesday’s protest march was peaceful, despite the presence and support of both Spain’s governing leftwing party and the growing far-right party alike, in a rare showing of cross-party solidarity that is likely to be seen again in future planned demonstrations in Ciudad Real, Valencia and Madrid.

Some, though, will find it hard to be on the farmers’ side in light of not only the violent actions of pig herders in Lorca recently, but also the latest news that illegal irrigation systems in a total of 1,007 hectares on 52 separate farms have had their water supply cut around the Mar Menor because they were watering their crops when they shouldn’t.

Limitations to irrigation are placed on many farms around the Mar Menor to stop the groundwater becoming laden with harmful nitrates from the crops and seeping into the already damaged ecosystem of the Mar Menor.

Farmers in the area routinely flout the rules until expressly ordered to stop by specific court injunctions, and it is estimated that there are a further 8,500 hectares of illegally watered land in the Campo de Cartagena which will be inspected in the coming months, especially in the 1,500-metre strip closest to the Mar Menor, from Cabo de Palos to the Rambla de Mendoza. While farmers are important and the work they do indispensable to society, it doesn’t give them free rein to blatantly disregard the welfare of the natural environment.

Coronavirus

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster week for Spain as far as the pandemic is concerned: on the one hand, Wednesday saw the highest daily death toll since March last year while just the previous day, the Ministry of Health registered the lowest number of daily infections since before Christmas. The common consensus is that Spain is emerging from the darkest days of the health crisis; the cumulative incidence rate has nosedived this week to below 1,000 cases and hospital pressure is dropping steadily, while the vaccination campaign is progressing at a stable clip.

The encouraging data has prompted one renowned epidemiologist to even predict when facemasks will no longer be required indoors – as early as April, according to this expert – and the Ministry has taken the decision to return sports stadiums to 100% capacity, both indoors and out.

One sure-fire sign that Spain is overcoming the pandemic is that the transmission rate of the super virulent Omicron variant is weakening. Before vaccinations, coronavirus was up there with the measles, the most contagious disease of all time, and one person was capable of passing the virus on to a staggering 15 others. Now though, the so-called Rt rate has dropped dramatically, and today, it would actually take two Covid-positive patients to pass the virus onto one other person.

All positive news for sure, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that even one death is still one too many. As has been the case with previous waves, fatalities are the last indicator to rise and so are naturally the last to fall. But the data is definitely encouraging: according to epidemiologist Pedro Gullón, the probability of a person infected with Covid dying today in Spain is 0.9%, whereas during the first wave, before vaccinations were available, it reached 11%.

In the Murcia region, the bizarre Footloose situation is finally over and dancing is allowed once again! People in bars and clubs may once more hit the dancefloor without even needing to show a Covid pass, as the Murcian authorities decide to scrap all restrictions on restaurants, nightclubs and the rest. These establishments are no longer subject to capacity limitations, and you are allowed to drink at the bar once more.

It’s a positive move, ostensibly based on the improvement in the infection rates, but in all honesty it won’t make much difference to the day-to-day lives of most people. Only those who actually own bars or restaurants. For the rest of us, how many times have you actually been asked to show a valid Covid pass when you’ve tried to enter a café? How many times have you been refused entry because the place was full to its 50% capacity or been given a stern telling off for taking a sip of your beer while standing at the bar?

The only restriction that still remains in place – for now – is the requirement to wear a facemask inside. But again, once you’ve sat down in the restaurant and taken your mask off, how many people put it back on again to move the ten metres to the door? It’s only a matter of time before this rule, too, goes the way of the dancefloor…

The explosion of infections in the Valencia region finally appears to have subsided this week, with a continued slide in daily Covid cases and hospital admissions. Not unsurprisingly, this has had a notable effect on the region’s incidence rate, which now stands at 1,500 cases per 100,000 people, and has prompted the Valencian Government to scrap the controversial Covid passport from March 1.

According to the Regional President, Ximo Puig, the proof of vaccination or recovery is “no longer deemed necessary” due to the favourable evolution of the pandemic – a move which comes a fortnight after outdoor mask wearing was abolished across Spain.

“If things continue to go the way they are going, we will continue to see a massive decrease in the number of infections. We are doing well and the government’s intention is that there will be no restrictions beyond the necessary time,” added Puig.

But anti-Covid measures are still impacting on daily lives, particularly leisure activities and festivities, and this week the Valencia Government announced that the public will be required to wear a mask at the traditional Fallas festivals and Moors and Christians festivities across the region, although capacity control will be scrapped. Only those taking part in the parades and festivities will be exempt from wearing masks, providing they maintain a safe distance.

The incredible success story of Andalucía’s fight against Covid has prompted authorities to relax restrictions there, too, putting an end to the need to show a Covid passport to enter restaurants, nightlife establishments, nursing homes and hospitals on Tuesday of this week. The number of new cases and hospitalisations are both down, while the region as a whole has regularly had around half the cumulative incidence rate as the rest of Spain throughout this entire sixth wave despite being one of the largest Autonomous Communities.

CORONAVIRUS LATEST NEWS

We’re taking this health crisis seriously, and are of the opinion that the better informed everyone is about the latest of the fast-changing developments, the more protected we all are. That’s why we endeavour to bring you all the most up-to-date coronavirus news as it comes out, which you can always consult using the link above.

Murcia

The Las Dunas shopping centre in Cabo de Palos is finally going to get its long-awaited makeover after lying almost empty for years. The commercial centre has been something of an eyesore since at least 2019, when the initial regeneration project was mired in concerns for the impact of the works on the local environment. It has been run down, graffitied and used as a site for underage teens to drink and party illegally.

Now, the project has been given the green light to go ahead with the restoration work to install 761 new stores to add to the 25 existing businesses on the premises, all of which is set to create around 400 jobs and give the area the spruce up, and the shopping centre, it so desperately needs and was promised.

Also new are the cat boxes that beady-eyed residents may have spotted around Mazarrón and Cartagena this week. These mini ‘houses’ for cats, which are about a metre high and the same across, are being used as part of a drive to control cat populations humanely by capturing and neutering or spaying them instead of putting them down.

The cats are lured into the boxes and then removed to the vets to be ‘taken care of’. While it’s the local councils who have paid for these new boxes, it’s charities such as APROAMA, Cuatro Gatos and Animur that maintain them and perform the important work of looking after the cats. They’re always in need of more volunteers, so if that sounds like something you might like don’t hesitate to get in touch with them!

An Irishman who teaches English and Technology in a Murcia school was horrendously stabbed in the back – literally – by one of his students during class. The boy was new at the school last year, and reportedly had no prior altercation with his teacher. Nonetheless, he drew a knife and stabbed the man three times in front of the whole class. The teacher’s injuries are not life threatening, and the boy’s family is pleading for him not to be criminalised over the incident because it would ruin his young life, so full of promise. Granted, and perhaps the teacher’s life won’t be totally ruined, but what would be a worse tragedy would be if there wasn’t some sort of justice. Police investigations continue…

The Spanish airline Volotea is thinking of taking Costa Cálida hotels up on an offer to give passengers a 30-euro discount on plane tickets to and from Corvera airport during the low season. Volotea has routes from Corvera to other Spanish destinations such as Asturias and Santander in the north, as well as sunny Menorca and several overseas locations too.

The novel idea to add a cash incentive for hotel guests was put forward by Murcia’s tourism group, Hostetur, and has the backing of the Ministry of Tourism, who said that “any initiative that is proposed to promote tourism is welcome”.

Lastly, police in San Andrés have arrested a ‘dine and dash’ couple who feasted with friends at several restaurants in Murcia and then left without paying. In their mosty daring escapade, this Murcian Bonnie and Clyde invited nine of their friends and relatives to a prestigious restaurant, promising to make a credit card transfer as payment. The group racked up a bill of 900 euros, but never paid it. The man and woman, aged 45 and 38 respectively, have been charged with fraud.

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Spain

As we sail through February following the second driest January of the 21st century, there is very little rain forecast for the rest of the month with Spain set to enjoy weather more akin to May, with temperatures soaring to as high as 25ºC in some coastal and south-eastern areas. The unseasonable heat is wreaking havoc on the country’s water supply and reservoirs, a phenomenon which resulted in a decidedly creepy pseudo-resurrection in one Galician town.

Situated close to the Portuguese border, the village of Aceredo was deliberately flooded in 1992 to create the Alto Lindoso reservoir, but after the water dried up this week the eerie ghost town reappeared. Visitors flocked to the area and were stunned to see that many of the buildings remained relatively intact; surreal drone footage showed an abandoned car, a fully-functioning fountain and even a crate of beer stacked up outside a long-closed pub.

The most recent available data show that Spain’s reservoirs are now at around 45% of their maximum capacity, and with more dry weather forecast for much of the southern half of the peninsula in the coming weeks, many communities fear that drought alerts, and ensuing rises in water supply costs, are just around the corner.

Staying with the water but moving into stormy seas, it was a tragic week for Spanish fishermen as a Galician trawler sank off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada with 24 crew on board. Three men were rescued from one of the four life rafts that were launched before the boat went down, but sadly ten corpses were discovered before the search was called off by the Canadian authorities; due to the freezing temperature of the water and the rough current, there was little hope of finding any more survivors.

Now, you hardly thought we’d get through a week without some changes to the traffic and driving laws in Spain, did you? The trusty DGT hasn’t let us down, but this time it’s some good news for the drivers of used cars, since the warranty period for vehicles purchased from both private individuals and dealerships has been extended.

During the stipulated one- or two-year timeframe, the seller will be responsible for any repairs that arise from so-called hidden vices – faults that develop after the vehicle was purchased and weren’t expressly listed in the contract.

Alicante

A new Civic Coexistence Ordinace for Alicante city has been met with outrage, and there are calls for it to be thrown out at a regional level. The document includes a total of 24 restrictions on what’s deemed anti-social behaviour, ranging from minor to very serious with fines of up to 3,000 euros, including a ban on going bare-chested in the street (for men and women), illegal camping and skateboarding in certain areas.

But it’s the focus on prostitution, begging in the street and particularly sleeping rough which has sparked furious opposition. In fact, the “unfair” Ordinance has been blasted for “attacking the fundamental rights of homeless people… and punishing the weakest”.

Spokesperson for the Provincial Executive Committee of the PSPV-PSOE party, Patricia Macia slammed the document as “intolerable, cruel and unjust”, adding that “it is going to make Alicante an inhumane city that criminalises the most vulnerable groups such as the homeless”. Meanwhile, the Compromis party is urging Alicante City Council to withdraw the Ordinance immediately, and is proposing the Valencian Government step in and reject it: “It is an unsupportive, cruel and shameful initiative, which even in the case of prostituted women equates exploited women with exploiters”.

In other news, easyJet baggage handlers dropped a clanger at Alicante Airport, managing to break a £10,000 bike belonging to professional triathlete, India Lee, who has competed for Great Britain in events around the globe.

The shocked athlete had arrived on the Costa Blanca for a three-week training stint, and on landing examined her precious triathlete bike, only to discover the thru-axel had been “sheared in half”, amongst other damage. Lee shared photographs on social media and the budget airline has since apologised and says it’s investigating the matter.

In a shocking and tragic triple-murder that has stunned an entire town and the whole country, a teenager in Elche shot dead his parents and 10-year-old brother following a row over his bad performance at school. The 15-year-old was banned from using the internet, and his console was confiscated as punishment, angering the youngster to the point that he murdered his family and hid their bodies in a garage for three days.

The grisly discovery was only made when concerned relatives visited the family home, worried they hadn't heard anything from them for a few days. According to police sources, the full extent of the horrific crime quickly came to light when the teenager allegedly confessed to killing his mother and brother, before waiting for his father to return from work and shooting him dead, too.

Elsewhere, in Torrevieja, a static home was completely gutted in one of two fires. The blaze broke out at a Florantilles camp, next to the CV-75, destroying the prefabricated building and threatening to spread to nearby properties. Fortunately, a team of six firefighters were able to bring the flames under control before further homes were affected, and nobody was injured.

Hours earlier, colleagues from Torrevieja fire station were forced to evacuate residents of a block of flats in Calle Moriones following a kitchen fire on the ground floor. Local Police cordoned off the street whilst firefighters extinguished the flames, and thankfully nobody was hurt.

Andalucía

Down the coast in Almeria, local residents were perplexed to see a Boeing 777 going in circles for more than four hours over Almeria airport on Monday. Flight LX55721 took off from Almeria at 11.12am, according to the Flightradar24 website, with destination Almeria. It finally landed at 3.24pm, leaving spectators scratching their heads as to the reason for this mysterious flight path.

As it turns out, this was a training flight to help the pilot to upgrade their pilot’s licence. These kinds of manoeuvres are common for passenger jets at Almeria airport because it has relatively low air traffic, and the trainee pilots are accompanied by an instructor at all times who supervises all the exercises. But another training flight over in Seville ended very badly later in the week.

A British pilot took off from Jerez airport in a light aircraft just big enough for one person, in a routine training flight to help him keep us the flight hours on his flying licence too. In a tragic turn of events, the plane experienced a fuel malfunction and spiralled to the ground over a field in rural Seville just 300 metres from the SE-9020 road between Pinzón and Los Palacios y Villafranca. The British man inside was killed instantly.

On the seas, the ever-imaginative drug smugglers have been getting creative when it comes to trafficking hashish from Morocco to Spain’s southern costas. It was revealed this week that a certain gang had been making fake distress calls to the Spanish coastguard saying they had broken down in Spanish waters in order to be escorted into the harbour by the very authorities who are meant to stop drug smuggling. One of these gang boats even lied about being attacked by killer whales just so they could be towed to shore and get their drugs into Spain. The gang has since been uncovered, with two people arrested and 172kg of drugs seized, as well as more than 63,000 euros.

Finally, the Andalusian government has begun to crack down on illegal caravan parking and camping in protected areas like the Cabo de Gata-Nijar national park in Almeria. 2021 saw the highest number of complaints for illegal camping and overnight stays on the beaches and in the natural parks of Almeria, with a total of 1,278 fines being handed out for amounts between 601 euros and 60,000 euros.

The president of the Association of Tourist Entrepreneurs of the Cabo de Gata-Nijar park said, “It is not the image that the natural park should give. There are caravans parked on rural roads, trails and remote places, isolated strategic areas with good views, privileged sites that are not set up for these vehicles.”

Tourism is already booming in Andalucía this year, with hundreds of visitors flocking to the beaches of the Almeria coast even thought it’s still only February. But the illegal motorhome parking, as was seen in the Murcia region earlier this year and which sometimes entails destruction of wild plants and habitats, is absolutely not the most sensible way to discover new areas and the responsible parties should rightly face legal consequences.

You may have missed…

1. EU proposes second Brexit referendum.

Following talks on February 17, the European Parliament has proposed a second referendum on Brexit, claiming that Britons lacked all the necessary information on the real implications of leaving the bloc before voting in 2016.

2. 8 ADS systems mandatory in cars in Spain from July.

As of July 2022, all newly-manufactured cars in Spain must come fitted as standard with no fewer than eight driver assistance systems (ADS).

3. Man dies after falling from top of Civil War air raid shelter in Cartagena.

A man has died after plunging around 45 metres over a stone wall at Cartagena’s Civil War air raid shelter museum in the city centre.

4. Gibraltar retaliates after lorry drivers told they will need a permit to enter Spain from March 1.

As a consequence of Gibraltar’s departure from the European Union, the Rock's hauliers operating in Spain have reportedly been told at the border they will need a special permit to enter the country from next month.

5. Three arrested over spate of house burglaries in Alicante towns.

The Guardia Civil in Alicante have made three key arrests in connection with a spate of burglaries in Pedreguer and Ondara, causing “great alarm” amongst residents.

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