Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin July 9

CLICK HERE FOR THE FEATURE ARTICLES "Airline strikes and travel mayhem continue in Spain" and "A boom in cases may bring back Covid restrictions this summer"

In UK and world politics, it’s been a turbulent week as former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe died after being shot at a campaign event, Rafa Nadal had to bow out of Wimbledon with an abdominal injury and Boris Johnson’s government fell apart amid a wave of resignations and cabinet reshuffles, forcing the PM to relinquish his post. Eventually he will, at any rate, as soon as a suitable replacement can be found. Or not even a suitable replacement. Anyone would do at this point. Even a mouldy cabbage would do a better job of not breaking basic ethics standards as leader of the country.

While the top brass of the UK’s political class are embroiled in their own little quagmire, the rest of the country is suffering strikes and stoppages at the height of the summer holiday period, affecting many flights to Spain. In Spain, the Covid-19 situation is also blowing up, with a dramatic spike in cases and hospitals fearing a return to the bad old days of the scenes they saw in 2020, all of which is stoking calls for facemasks to be made obligatory again and other Covid restrictions to be reinstated.

Enjoy all this and more below—this week with a jolly playlist to accompany your reading!

Anarchy in the UK

Boris Johnson is gone… well, sort of. He’s technically resigned as head of the Tory party but is holding onto power as Prime Minister until a replacement can be chosen from within the ranks. (Hold on, isn’t that what a Deputy Prime Minister is for?)

The anarchy sown among the Conservative party this week raises the question for many Brits who live in Spain, have a home there or regularly visit on holiday: what will happen next? BoJo has been roundly criticised in Brussels for his handling of Brexit negotiations, and a change at the top may also translate into a change in tactics over bargaining with the EU on trade deals, freedom of movement and the ability of UK citizens to live in European countries without the current restrictive 90-day-in-180 rule.

This may depend on who replaces Johnson – whether hardline Brexiter Penny Mordaunt or someone willing to take a more moderate stance towards the EU – or it might be business as usual, regardless of who takes the reins.

There are actually those who believe that Boris’s resignation could be the beginning of Britain’s road back into the EU. The Stay European campaign has said, “This was the Brexit Government. That is how it was elected, that is what it was for. Looking back, we will see the fall of Boris Johnson as the first step on the road to Rejoin.”

Sure, recent polls suggest that support for Brexit in the UK is at an all-time low. But Brejoin probably won’t happen.

But with Johnson gone, there is now wiggle room for some more lenient positioning between the EU and the UK. Both side may be more open to rediscussing terms to allow all Brits in the EU (and Europeans in the UK) to enjoy all the same healthcare, travel and residency privileges as they did before.

And while this is admittedly a long shot, if the last few months have shown us anything about UK politics, it’s that anything can happen. Don’t count your politicians before they’ve resigned!

Straighten up and fly right

There’s just no escaping the drama and chaos faced by travellers at the moment and this was another week punctuated by disappointment and frustration for holidaymakers.

After the Ryanair cabin crew strikes around Spain failed to make the impact that was initially feared, unions representing the staff announced a further 12 days of industrial action this July.

The next round of Ryanair industrial action will take place on July 12-15, 18-21 and 25-28 across the company’s 10 Spanish bases, but airline bosses appear to be unruffled by the news, and last weekend predicted “minimal (if any) disruption to its flight schedules in July as a result of minor and poorly supported Spanish labour strikes”.

As the last days of Ryanair’s initial strike action came to an end, easyJet’s work stoppages kicked off, resulting in the cancellation of seven Spanish flights in the first hours. The industrial action will be punctuated throughout the month, with more strikes planned for July 2, 3, 15, 16, 17, 29, 30 and 31.

The USO, the union which represents many of the cabin crew, is looking into taking legal action since a Ministry of Transport decree ensures that all striking airlines have to provide a minimum service: in the Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin July 9

case of easyJet, this translates into 57% of flights at Barcelona airport, 56% at Malaga and 51% at Palma de Mallorca. The decree means that, legally, airline staff have to report for duty if the operator deems the flight they are scheduled to work on an essential one.

It’s not been a good week for easyJet at all, as consumer watchdog Which? revealed that it had reported the airline to the Civil Aviation Authority for mistreating passengers whose flights have been recently cancelled and not informing them of their rights to compensation and alternative travel.

By law, when airlines axe flights they are obliged to offer passengers an alternative flight at the earliest possible opportunity, even if this is with a rival carrier, but Which? claims that the carrier hasn’t been up front about this option and is unfairly penalising customers.

To add insult to injury, amid staff strikes and mounting court cases, easyJet’s chief operating officer decided he could take no more and announced his resignation. Peter Bellew left under a bit of a cloud after being accused of “misleading” cabin crew, pilots and investors in an attempt to cut staffing costs.

If you think things couldn’t get any worse for easyJet, think again. One of its flights that did actually manage to get off the ground was a plane travelling from Gatwick to Menorca on Sunday July 3, but passengers were left stunned when a threatening-looking F18 Spanish fighter jet accompanied the flight all the way to Mahón Airport.

It turns out than an 18-year-old British teen had posted online that he had placed a bomb on board, and the plane was quietly yet quickly taxied to a remote part of the tarmac once it had safely landed. The bomb squad and their sniffer dogs established that there was no explosive but the young Briton was arrested and will likely be forced to foot the bill for the huge police operation.

Meanwhile on mainland Spain, unbelievable scenes greeted passengers landing at Madrid’s Barajas airport and Barcelona’s El Prat over the weekend as arriving tourists had to stumble over thousands of pieces of luggage in the arrival halls, stacked up against walls and abandoned on the stationary carousels.

Aena claims that the unfortunate “incident” was not caused by the state airport management but by airlines and their ground handling companies, and that several of the pile-ups were as a result of suitcases being delivered to arrivals much later than the passengers disembarking from flights.

Similar scenes were witnessed at UK airports last week, with many travellers forced to leave their luggage behind to be delivered later rather than waiting for several hours. British Airways ground handling and check-in staff, who had plannned to schedule work stoppages later this summer at Heathrow over pay and working conditions, have called off their strikes for the moment, but not before BA already cancelled around 11% of their summer flights to Spain and other popular holiday destinations.

Yes, it’s thoroughly annoying, all this disruption at airports. No one likes being stuck waiting for a plane that’s delayed for hours; no one likes having their holiday plans cancelled at the last minute; and no one likes having their luggage piled up willy-nilly on the floor like that heap of dirty clothes you forgot to pick up.

But equally, the airline staff don’t like being made to work under stressful, demeaning conditions for low pay. There must be something terribly wrong for cabin crews, baggage handlers and ground staff to all be striking, and the best we can do as passengers and well-wishers is urge the big bosses at the airlines – the ones calling the shots and who could actually call this thing to a halt if they gave in to workers’ demands – to ‘straighten up and fly right’.

Heavy fuel

If you’ve taken the car out recently, you’ll have noticed that petrol and diesel prices are slowly creeping up to the 3 euro/litre mark, a shocking state of affairs just months after the steep rise in fuel prices began, supposedly due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that would make Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler rethink his commitment “to run on heavy, heavy fuel”.

Of course, the Spanish government introduced its 20 cent/litre discount back on April 1, forcing petrol stations to provide lower prices to end consumers for their fuel – a short-term, emergency measure which they have decided to extended to the end of December.

However, prices keep rising anyway and a measly 20 cents off is beginning to feel like a cruel joke. Some, such as the Union of Professionals and Self-Employed Workers of Spain (UPTA), have called for the cost of fuel to be lowered by a further 20 cents/litre.

“For every litre of petrol or diesel that is poured into the tank of a vehicle, 94 cents are being collected in taxes. Of those 94 cents, 60% goes directly to the coffers of the autonomous communities, which are the only ones that have not taken the necessary measures to help the self-employed and the most needy families,” says UPTA, calling on the different regions of Spain to do more, and not just the central government in Madrid.

Even if they did, though, the petrol stations themselves would still be pocketing between 3 and 7 cents more on every litre, according to a recent study from the Esade Center for Economic Policy.

Low-cost service stations have actually increased their petrol and diesel prices far more than bigger companies in Spain like Repsol, Cepsa and BP, and far more than can be accounted for merely by the Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin July 9

global increase in crude oil price. Rather, the research suggests that the reason for the difference lies in the fact that the aid system implemented by the Spanish Treasury means that filling stations have to take the initial hit on the price reduction, and are then reimbursed a month later. However, this is in turn forcing the smaller, independent service stations and those with lower prices to inflate the cost per litre to ensure they stay in the black.

Welcome news in another study then, from the Organisation of Consumers and Users (OCU), who have listed the cheapest (and the most expensive) petrol stations in Spain. The study found that BonÀrea is the cheapest chain for diesel A and petrol 95, with supermarkets and service stations in Catalonia and neighbouring areas of Aragón. This is followed by Plenoil, GM Oil (linked to GM cash), Campsa Express and Petroprix.

As well as brands, the study also analysed different provinces of Spain, and Murcia, Almería, Granada and Valencia all come in the top 10 for the cheapest places to fill up right now. Time to get pumping!

Coronavirus

The upward trend of the coronavirus pandemic in Spain continues to punish the country at the height of summer, right when most people expected that spending more time outdoors would reduce infections and serious illnesses.

Unfortunately, cases have been increasing for weeks and this has ultimately begun translating into more hospitalisations: hospital and ICU admissions have risen 21% and 16%, respectively, in the last seven days.

The latest data provided by the Ministry of Health on Tuesday July 6 paints a very bleak picture indeed, with 11,586 people currently in hospital across Spain and 503 people being treated for more serious illnesses in the ICU.

In Malaga, the municipal Clinical Hospital has had to open more beds for Covid patients due to the sudden rebound in the number of infections and the worrying spike in hospitalisations.

It’s no surprise then that the sale of self-diagnosis Covid tests has gone through the roof in recent days. In fact, the demand in pharmacies for rapid antigen tests grew 120% in the first four days of July compared to last month, according to test distributor Cofares.

The Minister of Health herself has warned that cases are likely to continue rising in the coming weeks and has recommended that people revert to wearing masks indoors if it’s crowded, a message which has been passed on to British holidaymakers as a possible warning of things to come...

At the moment there’s no whisper from the Spanish government that Covid restrictions will be reintroduced, but several local governments in areas around the country, including the Valencian Community’s popular Costa Blanca, are pushing for national safety measures. And history tells us that if enough regional leaders make enough noise, the Administration will have to listen.

In the Canary Islands, public health official Amos Garcia Rojas has said that mandatory mask-wearing can’t be ruled out this summer if the situation continues to worsen, while the mayor of Malaga has come out much more strongly in favour of restrictions.

Indoor masks must be reintroduced, he said this week, “otherwise, we are going to have a summer with many health problems that will affect the wellbeing and lives of many.”

Just in case you forgot this bizarre gem:

CORONAVIRUS LATEST NEWS

For all the latest coronavirus news and updates in Spain, use the link above

Murcia

Did you know that octopuses (or is that octopi?) eat crabs? Well, someone in Murcia did and they’re banking on it as a way to control a boom in the population of American blue crabs in the Mar Menor.

Incredibly, despite the expected ‘perfect storm’ of torrential rain this spring followed by scorching sun, life is thriving in the Mar Menor and tests carried out in recent weeks show normal oxygen levels. And none more so than Callinectes sapidus, or the American blue crab, which has a very high rate of reproduction and feeds on everything from molluscs and crustaceans to fish and algae, meaning if left unchecked its uncontrolled expansion can drastically alter ecosystems, something that would be catastrophic for the already setupon Mar Menor.

In other areas where this species of crab is prevalent, such as Catalonia, fishing has always been the main method of control, but scientists have now concluded that in order to maintain crab populations at levels that are acceptable to the ecosystem, introducing more octopuses into the Mar Menor is the way forward since a single octopus can eat up to 33% of its weight in crab meat in a single day.

From surf to turf, there was tragedy for pigs this week as a lorry transporting dozens of the animals plunged into a ravine in Lorca, flipping over onto its roof and killing the driver. Rescuers tried to free the lorry driver, 30, from the cab, but he died a few hours later. And all the while the pigs in the back were squealing and yelping, according to firefighters on the scene. While a probe has been launched into the cause of the crash, there has predictably been no update on the condition of the animals or whether any of them were hurt or killed.

In nearby Mazarrón, two burglars – a man and a woman – were caught in the act of breaking into a home using a crowbar and several other tools. Police surprised the pair mid-crime after receiving a tipoff from a local resident, who informed officer “of the suspicious attitude of the persons arrested as they were loitering around the area”.

Well, if it was household goods they were after, there’s an easier and cheaper way to go about it as IKEA ran an offer giving away 150 free items of furniture to anyone who can find them. The Swedish chain placed chairs, tables, storage units and shoe racks around the localities of Murcia city, Alcantarilla and Cartagena so that anyone who stumbles across them is allowed to keep them, absolutely free! There’s no indication yet whether all the pieces of furniture have been found or not, but in any case there are plenty of secondhand but serviceable shelves and seats left by the Region’s dustbins every single day, and hardly anyone bothers reclaiming them. So you decide – is this a generous giveaway from IKEA or illegal fly tipping?

Finally, some sad news as David Sparks, a British citizen resident in Totana and founder of the online advice group After Brexit in Spain, has passed away at the age of 82. The After Brexit in Spain site currently has over 18,000 members who appreciated the free and honest advice David and his team provided on all things post-Brexit.

“He is survived by his wife and family,” said the organisation, “and will be greatly missed by many of his members who have sent condolence messages thanking David for the help he gave them in difficult circumstances and describing him as a man of honour and integrity.”

RIP David.

Check out our EVENTS DIARY to see everything going on in Murcia:

Spain

Once you’ve navigated the galling gauntlet of actually getting to Spain, the rising temperatures would likely make a refreshing dip most welcome, but you might want to think twice if you’re planning a trip to Mallorca this summer.

A dream vacation turned into a holiday from hell for up to 25 holidaymakers this week, including a seven-year-old child who has been taken to hospital in a serious condition, after they suffered chlorine poisoning from the pool at the Sea Club hotel in Playa de Alcudia.

Several of the guests were rushed to hospital, suffering from symptoms such as blurred vision, stinging throat and eyes and coughing, but the pool only remained closed for a couple of hours while the water was analysed. Hotel bosses explained that the stoppage of one of the filter pumps failed to prevent one of the impulsion circuits from continuing to discharge chlorine for a few moments. This meant that when the pump was re-started, the levels of chlorine discharged were higher than usual.

Meanwhile, popular Spanish supermarket chain Mercadona has announced that it will be extending its opening hours this summer, as the days last longer and to give people a chance to spend an extra half hour at the beach before popping in for something to eat.

Normally, Mercadona stores don’t open on Sundays or bank holidays throughout the year, and their normal business hours are between 9am and 9.30pm. Now though, for the remainder of the summer, until August 29, the store will be open from 9am to 10pm, Monday to Saturday, without any breaks.

In addition, in popular tourist areas and along the coast, stores will also open on Sundays from 9am to 3pm, including in Alicante, Chiclana de la Frontera (Cadiz), Benalmádena (Malaga) and Cubelles (Catalonia), among others.

Alicante

In Alicante province, it’s been another week of upholding the law and bringing suspected criminals to justice, in particular those on the run from the authorities in their own countries.

In Benidorm, police closed in on a 43-year-old Brit wanted by the UK authorities over drug charges. Believed to be the leader of a drug trafficking organisation based in the south of England, the Briton was arrested in the hugely popular coastal resort following a Crimestoppers appeal in which the British authorities asked for public help. At first the fugitive was believed to have fled to the Costa del Sol but the trail soon led investigators to the province of Alicante, where they had “reliable information” the suspect was living with relatives who had recently moved to the area.

In Elche, a Romanian lorry driver who fled France after being found guilty of attempting to smuggle Indian and Afghan adults and children to the UK by ferry has also been arrested. A French court sentenced the 38-year-old for trafficking after 11 people, including several children, were discovered hidden “in terrible conditions” inside the cargo trailer of his articulated lorry destined for the UK in 2017. The driver was arrested by French port police and sentenced to jail, but he immediately absconded and had been on the run until now and will be extradited to face justice in the Netherlands.

In both brazen and bizarre scenes in Crevillente, a naked drunk driver was arrested after police caught him receiving oral sex from a female passenger, also starkers, whilst the vehicle was still in motion. The distracted driver reportedly drove through a traffic control in Paseo de la Estación “swerving” with the “horn honking”, obviously attracting the attention of suspicious traffic cops who pulled the car over and discovered the woman in the front passenger seat bent over performing a sex act on the driver. The vehicle was seized and the driver was charged with reckless driving and driving under the influence of alcohol. He faces a maximum of two-years in prison.

But it’s not all been about crime. Alicante marina this week established itself as one of Spain’s leading ports with the official inauguration of an agreement with MSC Cruises, which has selected the city as the start point for one of its most emblematic ships.

The MSC Orchestra cruise ship set sail from Alicante port on Monday July 4 on a voyage around the Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin July 9

western Mediterranean – a welcome boost to local trade and business as it’s hoped the 40,000 anticipated travellers who will board the liner on a dozen separate occasions this year will have “a significant impact on the city” in economic terms, though those who get fed up with thousands of cruise passengers disembarking and swarming around the city will not be so pleased. MSC has huge expectations for the summer season and since the start of the pandemic, has increased the number of home ports in Spain from three (Valencia, Barcelona and Mallorca) to six with the addition of Alicante, Malaga and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

There was further good news for Alicante with a government pledge that Alicante-Elche Airport will get its long-awaited railway link with the city. The railway connection to the Costa Blanca’s largest airport and the fifth busiest in Spain has been in the pipeline for 22 years, and despite more than two decades of calls for a rail link, aside from forking out 50,000 for a feasibility study which was approved two years ago, no progress has been made until now.

However, ambitious and environmentally-friendly plans to create a freight rail link between the Costa Blanca and the UK have hit a stumbling block, throwing the connection off track. Just months after it was inaugurated, a goods rail link between Alicante and London has been suspended until October because there simply isn’t enough cargo being transported to make the line viable. The rail connection was launched at the end of last year to ship perishable goods to Britain, and return to the Costa Blanca with UK-produced food products for local consumption as well as for British expats living in the region.

However, a lack of business support and importantly, cargo such as fruit and vegetables destined for the UK, has forced operations to cease for three months as the European market becomes more and more “saturated with third party products such as Egypt, North Africa and South Africa”. The company in charge of the line has assured that it will be re-established at the end of September or early October, “once the goods to cover the return journeys have been identified.”

Andalucía

Chaos on the calles in Andalucía. First, a video was revealed of a woman in Malaga who was caught illegally riding an electric scooter along the left lane of the AP-7 motorway between San Pedro de Alcántara and Estepona last month.

🚔La agrupación de #tráfico de la @guardiacivil de #Marbella denuncia a la conductora de un patinete #VMP al circular por la autopista AP-7 entre las localidades de #SanPedrodeAlcántara y #Estepona en #Málaga.

✅Circulaba por el arcén del margen izquierdo de la vía. pic.twitter.com/xXBedmB9Yx
— Subdelegación del Gobierno en Málaga (@GobiernoMalaga) July 5, 2022

Several stunned motorists made calls to police, reporting that the scooter user was riding along a narrow hard shoulder, oblivious to the cars and trucks speeding past her. Not only has the woman somehow managed to travel along the motorway for over 7 miles, but the battery on her scooter had also run out and she had resorted to physically propelling herself along with one foot. That, combined with the June heatwave, meant that the poor woman was totally exhausted when officers intervened.

More recently, a 20-year-old Briton was taken into custody after he crashed his car into the terrace of a café in Torre del Mar on the Costa del Sol at 3am this Wednesday morning. The mother of one of the café staff was injured when some tables and chairs crashed on top of her, while the passenger of the car, 23, was also wounded.

When police showed up, the young Brit who was driving was breathalysed and found to be double the legal alcohol limit, and reports claim he was driving up to 100kmh when he smashed into the café, the aftermath of which was caught on camera and posted on social media.

Perhaps such incidents are the reason Malaga police have launched a week-long summer speed control campaign. In summer, there are significantly more cars on the road in Malaga province as tourists rush to the popular seaside destination. As such the risk of accidents also rises, and so police are trying to tackle the surge in road accidents – the province saw 156 accidents caused by speeding last year, and nine people lost their lives.

Others losing their lives are chickens in Almeria, where an outbreak of Newcastle disease has been detected on a farm that at any one time is raising up to 10,000 six-week-old chickens. Newcastle disease is a highly contagious virus that mostly affects poultry and has an almost 100% mortality rate. But before the birds invariably die, they can suffer such agonising symptoms as torticollis (when the head twists back).

Humans can get Newcastle disease too, but it normally just causes flu and minor conjunctivitis, and the symptoms pass after a few days. Curiously enough, it’s actually a useful virus (not for the chickens) because it’s thought that the cells can help to cure cancer, selectively replicating in cancer cells and killing them without harming healthy cells.

Lastly, a drunk Belgian tourist had to be marched off a Ryanair flight from Menorca to Malaga after trying to open emergency door. The 46-year-old had reportedly become fed up with waiting for his flight, which was delayed by four hours, and proceeded to become steaming drunk. He got on the plane and immediately began harassing the other passengers, who pleaded with him to settle down as there were small children and babies on the flight.

The man ignored them and began kicking and punching seats, demanding that the flight take off already, and even tried to force the emergency door open. Eventually, police were called onto the plane to subdue and arrest him but in the end, because of the huge delay, Ryanair missed its departure spot and had no choice but to cancel the flight to Malaga. Around 180 people had to disembark and the airline rebooked them on alternative flights.

You may have missed…

Mystery as goat found tied to a lamppost in La Alberca.
Residents of the Murcia locality were greeted by an unusual sight on Thursday morning, when they found a goat inexplicably tied to a lamppost on a footpath in the centre of the town.
Family row leads to arrest in Torrevieja for growing and selling magic mushrooms.
A family row left a couple in Torrevieja in trouble with the law when police carrying out a welfare check inadvertently uncovered a mini-drug farm and the cultivation of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
€200,000 fine for destroying swallow nests in Spain.
A Menorca man faces a staggering fine of up to 200,000 euros for destroying five swallow nests last month.
Urban art decorates seafront public toilets in Puerto de Mazarron.
Work continues in Puerto de Mazarrón to decorate and spruce various parts of the seafront promenade, with pretty grafitti adorning public toilets and other structures.
Benidorm schoolboy with rare disorder gets vital aquatic therapy thanks to recycled bottle tops.
An eight-year-old boy from Benidorm who was born with a rare defect has been given 3,200 euros to continue with vital therapy thanks to recycled bottle tops.

Well, that’s about it for another week. As ever, you can share this link https://murciatoday.com/weekly_bulletin.html with anyone you think might like to receive this weekly bulletin too. Hope you enjoyed the songs!

See you next week!

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