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Great Britain on Monday sent warships to the Mediterranean and weighed legal action against Spain in a territorial dispute over the Gibraltar peninsula, as Madrid threatened to join with Argentina in a U.N. effort to strip Britain of the last remnants of its empire. In London, Ministry of Defense officials told the BBC that the Royal Navy deployments are part of a long-planned military exercise and not connected to the three-centuries old dispute over the Gibraltar enclave. The feud between the European allies has erupted anew in recent weeks amid Spanish protests over an effort to create an artificial reef...

The dispute over the Falkland Islands may get a boost at the UN, thanks to Spain’s designs on Gibraltar. According to the Spanish newspaper El Pais and reported in the Telegraph, Spain’s foreign minister has traveled to Argentina to discuss the possibility of both countries supporting each other’s territorial ambitions at the expense of the UK — and self-determination: Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo will use a trip to Buenos Aires next month to raise the possibility of forging a joint diplomatic offensive with the South American country over the disputed territories, sources told Spain’s El Pais newspaper.Spain’s foreign...

In China they’re building the second-tallest skyscraper in the world with the world’s fastest elevators, stark contrast with Spain where, apparently, elevators in skyscrapers can’t be taken for granted. At least not in The Intempo skyscraper in Benidorm, Spain, according to Gizmodo’s Jamie Condliffe: Initially designed to be a mere 20 storeys tall, the developers got over-excited and pushed the height way up: now it boasts 47 storeys, and will include 269 homes. But that push for more accommodation came at a cost. The original design obviously included specifications for an elevator big enough for a 20-storey building. In the...

Spain had a seemingly simple request for Morocco’s king: Pardon 18 Spaniards convicted in his country, and let 30 others return to Spain to serve out their prison terms. Instead, the monarch pardoned 48 Spanish prisoners, including a man convicted of raping children. … Police captured 63-year-old convicted pedophile Daniel Galvan Vina in southeastern Spain on Monday after he had nearly a week of freedom. Galvan had been convicted of raping 11 children and was serving a 30-year sentence in Morocco before the pardon came through. Morocco’s King Mohammed VI retracted his pardon of Galvan over the weekend, and Morocco,...

The find, a fossil tooth (molar) uncovered through excavations at the site of Barranco León in the Orce region of southeastern Spain, was dated to about 1.4 million years ago using several combined dating techniques, including Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) in combination with paleomagnetic and biochronological data... Researchers identified the lithic assemblage as characteristic of Oldowan technology, the earliest known stone tool industry, first discovered at Olduvai Gorge in East Africa by Louis Leakey in the 1930s. The same industry was found at Dmanisi in the country of Georgia, where early human fossils dated to about 1.8 million years ago...

The euro firmed and Athens breathed a sigh of relief after European leaders agreed to rescue debt-ridden Greece, but markets stayed cautious amid lingering concerns over the currency's health. "I think Europe proved its capacity for action on a major issue," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel as European Union leaders wound up a two-day summit mulling a new 10-year jobs and growth strategy for the bloc's half a billion people. "For all of us it is important that our common currency ... remains stable and that's why yesterday was important for the euro," Merkel said of a rescue plan brokered...

We may be in the era of Facebook and fracking. But 2013 is still beginning to look a lot like the cataclysmic century we just left behind.Victor Davis HansonVictor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal.

Madrid, July 21 (kaosenlared.net) - were "privatized" the Sun in Spain: if you get caught collecting photons of sunlight for your own use you can drop a fine not exceeding 30 million. So if you were thinking that this false crisis caused, the best option was just to have some solar panels that were down 80% at cost and have the opportunity to disconnect from the mains and your bill scam, you can forget. The excess energy can not be stored in batteries because it is forbidden. When there is no sun or wind, you have to engage the network...

MALAGA, Spain, Jul 28 (IPS) - "You live there for free, don't you?" asked a woman as she passed by the Buenaventura "corrala", a community in a building in this southern Spanish city occupied since February by families evicted from their homes for falling behind in their mortgage payments due to unemployment. "We don't want any handouts. We want to pay, through a social rent scheme," replied 42-year-old Yuli Fajardo, who was living in a tent before she found shelter along with some 40 other people in one of the 13 spacious apartments in this four-storey block of flats in...

Archaeologists in Spain are busy excavating the Gran Dolonia portion of the Atapuerca archaeological site for clues to the first humans that arrived in Europe. Many archaeological treasures have come from this northern Spain location known as the caves of the Sierra de Atapuerca. In 2007 human remains were found that date back one and a half million years, considered the oldest Europeans remains ever found. Human remains have also been found from the "Homo antecessor" dating back 850,000-to-950,000-years ago. The youngest remains found here date back a mere 5,000-years ago from the homo sapien species. The site is in...

The driver of a speeding train that crashed in northwestern Spain on Wednesday night, killing 78 people, has refused to respond to police questioning on Friday, a police spokesman told AFP. “The driver has refused to answer the police authorities,” said the spokesman, adding that the case will now “proceed to a judicial process as soon as possible.” Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, 52, who has remained in hospital under police supervision since the crash, was formally detained by police on Thursday night accused of criminal recklessness, according to the head of the Galician police service Jaime Iglesias. The train was...

MIAMI (AP) — Leaders of more than a dozen Caribbean countries are launching a united effort to seek compensation from three European nations for what they say is the lingering legacy of the Atlantic slave trade. The Caribbean Community, a regional organization that typically focuses on rather dry issues such as economic integration, has taken up the cause of compensation for slavery and the genocide of native peoples and is preparing for what would likely be a drawn-out battle with the governments of Britain, France and the Netherlands. Caricom, as the organization is known, has enlisted the help of a...

MADRID – Authorities in Spain opened a formal investigation into the train conductor in the deadly train crash that killed at least 78 in northwestern Spain Thursday after the train jumped the tracks on a curvy stretch just before arriving in the northwestern shrine city of Santiago de Compostela. Reuters reported that the conductor was not immediately identified but cited local newspapers that reported driver Francisco Jose Garzon assisted in helping the victims and yelled, “I’ve derailed! What do I do?” during a phone call. There were two drivers. One was trapped in his cabin and radioed that the train...

At least 20 people were killed and dozens more were injured in a train crash Wednesday in northwestern Spain, a senior aide to Spain's prime minister told CNN's Al Goodman. Investigators are looking at all possible causes of the crash, though their initial assessment is that it likely wasn't the result of terrorism.

The carriages careened off the tracks at a curve approaching the station at Santiago where the limit is set at 80 km per hour (50mph). But one of the drivers has admitted that the train took the curve at a speed of around 190km per hour, according to local media reports quoting sources close to the investigation. Alberto Nunez Feijoo, president of the region of Galicia, described the scene as "Dante-esque". "I saw a woman who had lost one foot," said Lidia Cannon, a tourist visiting the local fiesta. "But instead of crying or shouting or whatever because of the...

A passenger train derailed in Spain yesterday, killing at least 77 people trapped inside the crushed cars and injuring 143. There were Americans among the dead, according to television reports. The tragic high-speed derailment, along a curving stretch of track in the northwestern part of the country, was Spain’s worst rail accident in decades, officials said. Bodies were covered by blankets along the tracks as rescuers used pickaxes to pry open the cars and free people inside the train cars.

On 24 July 1936, exactly a week after the Spanish Civil War broke out, three women, who had taken up the habit of their countrywoman, Saint Teresa of Avila, were brutally executed by the anti-Catholic Republican faction in the Castilian city of Guadalajara. Their names were Sister Maria Pilar of St. Francis Borgia, age 58; Sister Maria Angeles of St. Joseph, age 31; and Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus and St. John of the Cross, who was only 27 years old when she was martyred with her two friends. The three had fled from their Discalced Carmelite monastery two...

Francisco Franco, grandfather, painter The grandson of the Caudillo revealed in his book, "La naturaleza de Franco. Cuando mi abuelo era persona" that his famous grandfather, and, in my estimation, easily the greatest national leader of the 20th century, was also a painter. "After dinner, granddad often would lock himself in the studio and paint. ... Francisco Franco was a loving grandfather, excellent companion in hunting and fishing, my teacher and my friend. When we were alone, fishing or sitting around the campfire, gradndad told me stories from his youth. They always began with the words 'When I was a...

NARAL Pro-Choice America, formerly known as the National Abortion Rights Action League, appears concerned it may be losing the battle to depict a 20-week abortion ban as "extreme." The group expressed outrage that a host on NBC, a network usually sympathetic to abortion rights advocates, implied the 20-week ban is "reasonable." "Is it not reasonable to put late-term restrictions on abortion ... ?" David Gregory of "Meet the Press" asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on July 14. Gregory pressed Reid twice more, repeatedly using the word "reasonable," after Reid continued to dodge the question. Reid promised to "look at"...

It is sad to report that Greece has overtaken Spain in terms of unemployment, with both above 25% … and rising. Greece is the gold line and Spain is the white line. greecespainunempli While the US has lower unemployment rates than Greece or Spain, our TEEN unemployment rate is very Greek-like at 24.20% (green line). unemp1619 If we compare US teen unemployment to U6 full-time and partial unemployment, they track together. And U6 unemployment is at a whopping 14.3% u6teen Detroit’s unemployment rate is over twice the national average. Not quite Greece or Spain, but definitely bad. This is while...

It is sad to report that Greece has overtaken Spain in terms of unemployment, with both above 25% … and rising. Greece is the gold line and Spain is the white line. greecespainunempli While the US has lower unemployment rates than Greece or Spain, our TEEN unemployment rate is very Greek-like at 24.20% (green line). unemp1619 If we compare US teen unemployment to U6 full-time and partial unemployment, they track together. And U6 unemployment is at a whopping 14.3% u6teen On a different note, Spanish house prices continue to decline. Ugh. spainhp072313 painhousing

An artist who created a wax model of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco “frozen” in a fridge has been cleared from a lawsuit against him presented by the leader’s foundation. Eugenio Marino grabbed the limelight at last year’s ARCO modern art fair in Madrid with his satirical work of art, titled “Always Franco”. The piece depicted the nationalist leader in full military gear frozen inside a Coca-Cola fridge. …

Blood of the Irish The Blood in Irish veins is Celtic, right? Well, not exactly. Although the history many Irish people were taught at school is the history of the Irish as a Celtic race, the truth is much more complicated, and much more interesting than that ...Research done into the DNA of Irish males has shown that the old Anthropological attempts to define 'Irish' have been misguided. As late as the 1950s researchers were busy collecting data among Irish people such as hair colour and height, in order to categorise them as a 'race' and define them as...

PAMPLONA, Spain — The penultimate bull run of Spain’s San Fermin festival left at least 23 people injured Saturday, when thrill-seekers fleeing the beasts were crushed at the narrow entrance to the bullring, officials said. An American citizen from Ohio was one of two runners gored. As the huge animals thundered into the entrance of the tunnel, they were blocked by a mound of dozens of people who had fallen and were piled on top of one other. One bull that had fallen before the entrance got up and charged into the clogged passageway. Two steers jumped over the pile...

WHAT REALLY DIED IN AUSCHWITZ What really died at Auschwitz ? Here's an interesting viewpoint. The following is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez and published in a Spanish newspaper on Jan. 15, 2011. It doesn't take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe - and possibly to the rest of the world. "I walked down the street in Barcelona and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz ... We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture,...

WASHINGTON — Today the White House announced the nominations of James Costos, an accomplished businessman and current executive at HBO, as the United States Ambassador to Spain, and Rufus Gifford, a former finance official for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, Obama for America, and the Democratic National Committee, as the United States Ambassador to Denmark. Last week, President Obama also nominated Daniel Baer, the openly-gay Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, to be Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Europe’s debt-crisis strategy is near collapse. The long-awaited recovery has failed to take wing. Debt ratios across southern Europe are rising at an accelerating pace. Political consent for extreme austerity is breaking down in almost every EMU crisis state. And now the US Federal Reserve has inflicted a full-blown credit shock for good measure. None of Euroland’s key actors seems willing to admit that the current strategy is untenable. They hope to paper over the cracks until the German elections in September, as if that is going to make any difference. A leaked report from the European Commission confirms that...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2002.aspx Treasury Targets Major Money Laundering Network Operating Out of Colombia 7/9/2013 Trade Based Money Laundering Network Supported Narcotics Traffickers Ayman Joumaa and Evaristo Linares Castillo WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced the designation of Colombian nationals Isaac Perez Guberek Ravinovicz and his son, Henry Guberek Grimberg, as well as 29 other individuals and entities, including companies located in Colombia, Panama, and Israel, as Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers (SDNTs). These 31 individuals and entities together form a money laundering network responsible for laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in...

The tiny British-held territory of Gibraltar complained to London on Wednesday that four Spanish air force jets entered its territory without permission, the latest in a string of disputes over alleged Spanish incursions into its territory.

A Spanish historian who identified and catalogued 107 tombs in a 13th-century Jewish cemetery in Toledo said the remains were "well preserved". The cemetery was partially unearthed in 2008, but the delineation and archaeological study of the graves was only recently completed, according to the Spanish news agency, EFE. The archaeologist leading the excavations, Arturo Ruiz Taboada, told EFE earlier this month that the people buried in the 107 Jewish tombs were "well preserved" and deposited unusually deep in the ground, some over 9 feet from ground level. The identity of many of those buried at the site remains unknown....

<p>During LGBT Pride Month, President Barack Obama has now nominated five gay men to ambassador posts around the world.</p> <p>Late Friday, Obama nominated John Berry to be ambassador to Australia, and James “Wally” Brewster Jr. to be ambassador to the Dominican Republic.</p>

A woman accused of hiring someone to kill her wealthy Canadian husband on the U.S. Caribbean island of Puerto Rico was arrested Sunday by police in Spain after being sought for five years in the alleged murder-for-hire scheme, according to the FBI. Moises Quinones, the FBI’s spokesman in Puerto Rico, said Aurea Vazquez Rijos was arrested by the Spanish police at an airport in Madrid. The Puerto Rican suspect was taken into custody as she was getting off a flight from Italy, where she has lived for years and gave birth to another man’s twins. A U.S. grand jury charged...

While Spanish Muslims are busy trying to Islamize Spain, Spanish politicians are busy removing all references to Christianity from public discourse…The requirement which will be enshrined in Spain's legal code law, represents an unprecedented encroachment of Islamic Sharia law within Spanish jurisprudence. Spanish police have arrested a Muslim immigrant in Mallorca after he claimed to have been sent by Allah to "kill all the Spanish." The arrest follows a series of other Islam-related incidents in recent weeks and months which reflect the mounting challenge that radical Islam is posing to Spain. In the latest incident, police on the Mediterranean island...

The Spanish government provided funding between 2009 and 2011 to political NGOs leading the campaigns to delegitimize Israel through demonization, boycotts, lawfare and other forms of political attacks, according to an NGO Monitor report issued on Tuesday. The report provides comprehensive and detailed evidence of the use and/or misuse of official Spanish funds, including regional governments. The analysis, entitled "Assessing Transparency, Accountability, and Impact on Israel", issued in Spanish and English, was written by Soeren Kern and Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg. Kern is an analyst at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group; Steinberg is President of...

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3861.htm

Spain’s Debt-to-GDP has rocketed from 35.5% in Q1 2008 to 84.1%. That is in just over 5 years. Has it paid off? Spain’s real GDP is -2.0%. And they are running 10.6% budget deficits. Unemployment rates in Spain are at 27.16%. While housing prices continue to decline. At least Spain’s 10 year sovereign rate is down to 4.57% after peaking at 7.51% in August 2012. Growing debt and more misery to show for it. Hopefully for Spain it turns around … and soon. Speaking of debt, the US has accumulated $16.4 trillion in debt. If the Heritage Institute is correct,...

The Wall Street Journal reports on the sad end of Spain’s immense green-energy subsidies, which the beyond-bankrupt government is preparing to cut: Juan Antonio Cabrero is bracing for the savings he invested in a solar-energy farm in northern Spain to disappear into light. In 2008 Mr. Cabrero put up his €20,000 ($26,200) life savings and took on a €80,000 bank loan to buy part of the solar farm, pledging his home in nearby Tafalla as a guarantee. Spain’s government was promising more than two decades of large subsidies to spur the growth of solar energy, and Mr. Cabrero thought his...

The potential for social unrest in European Union countries is higher than anywhere else in the world and the already yawning gaps between rich and poor, a major trigger, are likely to widen globally, the International Labour Organisation said on Monday. Those most vulnerable, the report said, were Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. However the risk of social unrest had declined in Belgium, Germany, Finland, Slovakia and Sweden since 2010. Overall, the risk of unrest in the EU "is likely to be due to the policy responses to the ongoing sovereign debt crisis and their impact...

HARTFORD, Conn. — A new, Spanish-designed submarine has a weighty problem: The vessel is more than 70 tons too heavy, and officials fear if it goes out to sea, it will not be able to surface. And a former Spanish official says the problem can be traced to a miscalculation — someone apparently put a decimal point in the wrong place. “It was a fatal mistake,” said Rafael Bardaji, who until recently was director of the Office of Strategic Assessment at Spain’s Defense Ministry. The Isaac Peral, the first in a new class of diesel-electric submarines, was nearly completed when...

The Vatican has proclaimed 95 more martyrs of the Spanish Civil War. On June 3, with the approval of Pope Francis, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued four separate decrees, recognizing the martyrdom of: Mauro Abel Angelo Palazuelos Maruri and 17 Benedictine companions, who were killed in 1936;Joan of Jesus Vilaregut Ferre and 3 companions, Discalced Carmelites, who were killed along with Father Paul Segala Sole in 1936;Crisanto Casimiro Gonzalez Garcia, Aquilino Baldomer Baro Riera, and Cipriano Jose Julian Iglesias Banuelos; who were killed along with 63 Marist companioins and 2 laymen between 1946 and 1939; andAurelia Clementina...

Several countries interested in buying ex-Spanish Navy Aircraft Carrier Principe de Asturias According to rumors that emerged recently in the Spanish press, the Philippines as well as several Arab countries have expressed interest in purchasing the former Spanish Navy Aircraft Carrier Principe de Asturias. In case of a sale, the contract would include refit and upgrading of the vessel by Spanish shipyard Navantia. The Spanish aircraft carrier SPS Principe De Asturias (R 11) steams through the Atlantic Ocean while participating in Majestic Eagle 2004. (Picture: US Navy) It is reported that Indonesia already expressed interest in the vessel earlier this...

The Spanish government approves Imran Firasat´s extradition to an Islamic country). I am going to die, or I should better say that I am going to be killed soon. The enemy who is going to kill me is not any Muslim but he is a powerful man of the Spanish government who is persecuting me nonstop since last several months and now he is going to kill me any time by abusing his diplomatic power. Revealing the danger of radical Islam to our free and modern society has become a curse for my life. Before it were only Muslims who...

The real story goes something like this: In 1511, messy political squabbling forced Ponce to surrender the governorship of Puerto Rico, an appointment he had held since 1509. As a consolation prize, King Ferdinand offered him Bimini, assuming the stalwart conquistador could finance an expedition and actually find it. J. Michael Francis, a historian at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg who has spent decades studying the Spanish colonies in the Americas , says no mention of a Fountain of Youth occurs in any known documents from Ponce’s lifetime, including contracts and other official correspondence with the Crown. In...

The gilded lifestyle of MEPs has been compared to the uncontrolled excesses of ancient Rome after research showed their perks have not been dented despite biting austerity measures. From Italian MEPs who enjoy free haircuts to Maltese ones who get 52 free gallons of petrol a month, the perks—and expenses—continue unabated for the representatives of European Union nations. MEPs from the 27 EU nations are paid salaries of £137 million ($207 million) a year, according to research by German pricing watchdog Preisvergleich.de, and some earn 740 percent more than the average citizen. …

The Asturian government has decided to do its bit to help eradicate Spain’s Christian cultural roots. The regional government’s education minister, Doña Ana González Rodríguez, sent a circular round to all schools under her jurisdiction, asking them to remove the terms “Christmas” and “Holy Week” from the school calendar. Mrs. Gonzalez wants all references to Christianity to be replaced with equivalents such as “winter holidays” and “end of second term holidays” that are acceptable to everyone, including non Christians. There’s just one problem though. The decision was taken without consulting the schools in question or the parents. Naturally, the Observatory...

Schoolchildren in the northern Spanish region of Asturias will no longer be able to call Christmas by its name now that a new law passed by the local education ministry prohibits the use of “religious” terms in the classroom when referring to the December and spring holidays. Teachers and pupils in Asturias classrooms will now have to refer to Christmas as “winter holidays” and Easter as “second term holidays”. The region’s socialist-led government

€530m bill for Spain's 'sinking submarines' A defence contract worth €2.2 billion has hit the rocks after tests showed that the "world's most modern" submarine would plunge straight to the bottom of the sea. Sunday's El Mundo newspaper reported on the latest developments in the submarine saga that has given Spain's defence department a sinking feeling. The €2.2 billion contract to design and build four S-80 underwater craft, billed as "the most modern submarine in the word" has been put on red alert after engineers found flaws in the plans and sounded the klaxon. €530 million had already been spent...

ALMERIA, Spain, May 20 (UPI) -- A hotel in Spain has come under fire for refusing to let a group of children with Down syndrome stay the night because they "might annoy other guests." Hotel CaboGata Plaza Suites in Almeria refused a reservation for a group of children with Down syndrome who were planning on celebrating the end of their school year, The Local.es reported. The hotel said it would not board the children because "these kinds of people might annoy other guests." Management at the hotel has apologized for the incident, saying it was "a misunderstanding," adding, "In 35...

The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables in a move described by one of Britain’s top cooks as authoritarian and damaging to artisan food makers. The small glass jugs filled with green- or gold-colored extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe, but they will be banned from 1 January 2014 after a decision taken in an obscure Brussels committee earlier this week. From next year, olive oil “presented at a restaurant table” must be in prepackaged factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labeling in...

Even as President Obama is following in Eurosocialist footsteps, the 14-year utopian experiment on a single currency is collapsing. The architect of the euro just ran up the white flag on the biggest policy mistakes in history. Former German Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine called his own brainchild a "catastrophe". "The economic situation is worsening from month to month," he wrote on his Left party blog. "unemployment has reached a level that puts democratic structures ever more in doubt." "Catastrophe" is the right word. Today Greece is suffering more than 50% unemployment. That's worse than the Great Depression in the US....