Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin Aug 6
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CLICK HERE FOR THE FEATURE ARTICLES "Spain faces ice cube shortage amid energy crisis" and "5 key changes to the new Animal Protection Law"
Turn off the lights, take off your tie and leave the air conditioning at 27ºC. Don’t shower on the beach and when this winter finally comes round don’t turn your central heating up further than 19ºC. This is the advice of the Spanish government to combat the energy crisis, when electricity prices are going up and the whole of Europe is trying to save in the face of a lack of Russian gas.
And – curiously enough – a lack of ice, as a result. Yes, Spain seems to be running out of what is for many a basic necessity in summer, and not because there’s a freezer shortage in people’s homes.
Also in the news this week, the long-awaited Animal Protection Law finally got passed by parliament, improving welfare for thousands of sentient beings across Spain. It’s about time!
Animal magic (but not for bulls)
It’s been a positive week for our furry (and feathered and scaled and slippery) friends as the new Animal Protection Law was finally pushed through before ministers went on their annual August break. It’s been in the work for months, but five key changes have now been approved which aim to reduce the abuse and abandonment of animals.
One of the most important changes is that owners will only be allowed to euthanise a companion animal for explicit health reasons. From now on, putting a pet to sleep because it is no longer wanted or because shelters are full will be prohibited. Hand-in-hand with this is the law which bans so-called “backyard breeders”, meaning that people will only be allowed to buy pets from registered professionals.The Penal Code has also been modified to be much tougher on people who mistreat animals to the extent that they cause their death. In such cases, the prison sentence will be increased from up to 24 months to 36, in the event that it is not a first offence.
In addition, the mistreatment of all vertebrate animals (including wild species, such as boars) has been included in this legislation for the first time ever.
Other cruel practices such as cockfighting, pigeon shooting, keeping animals tethered to vehicles and the use of choke collars will be prohibited while zoos and dolphinariums will officially become species rehabilitation centres and the use of wild animals in circuses will be banned.
One animal notable by its absence though, is the bull. The issue of bullfighting and cruel bull-baiting fiestas in Spain, of which there are still dozens that form part of the annual cultural calendar, will not be addressed by the new animal law. Step by step...
Don’t let the bedbugs bite (or the cockroaches)
While there are creatures that desperately need our protection, the most ardent animal lovers out there must find it hard to suppress a shudder when a cockroach scuttles past their feet, impossibly fast and wily for their size.
Your natural reaction might be to stomp the life out of the creature when you spot one (if you are quick enough, that is), but the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that this is the worst possible plan of attack and squashing cockroaches can actually lead to several health risks.
According to the experts, stomping on a roach with your foot can spread a series of bacteria dangerous to human health.
If these bacteria are inhaled, they can cause allergies and aggravate asthma. Not for nothing are they officially classified as “unhygienic scavengers”; cockroaches can cause staphylococci, streptococci, salmonella or other ailments such as diarrhoea, cholera and typhoid fever.If you have a roach problem in your home or business, it’s best to leave it up to the experts.
Another unsavoury character making a comeback in Spain is the bed bug, thanks to the warm weather and the pre-pandemic influx of tourists. These critters feed on human blood and while their bite can be irritating, it’s not necessarily dangerous. Usually.
Enter the tropical bed bug, a new species of this parasite recently discovered in Spain which can actually spread disease and is a nightmare to get rid of. Far from being deterred by the conventional insecticides, the usual sprays and powders could actually serve to spread the infestation further.
As with cockroaches, if you suspect that you might have bedbugs, it’s better to hand the clean-up over to the professionals.
And remember: while bedbugs used to be associated with dirty or neglected premises, this is actually not the case, and the population explosion is due more to global warming and higher temperatures.
Everything’s hotting up (except the housing market)
You wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that Spain has been in the grip of a never-ending heatwave since the middle of June as thermometers have barely moved for weeks now, but the third intense episode of the year officially comes to an end this Friday. But before you drag the winter woollies out of storage, Aemet weather forecasters have warned that the temperatures will remain unusually high for this time of year, a phenomenon which is wreaking havoc with Spain’s waters.
The temperature of the water in the Mar Menor has reached its highest point ever since records began, at a soupy 31.25ºC. In some places, it’s even as high as 32.4ºC. Prior to this, the warmest temperature registered in the Mar Menor was 30.85ºC, back in 2016. But now temperatures have spiked dramatically, in part due to the recent heatwaves, which have even raised the temperature of the normally much cooler Mediterranean Sea to over 30ºC.
Why is this such a bad thing? If anything, it’s nicer to swim in warm water than in suffer through a freezing cold dip.
Well, in previous years, when the Mar Menor warmed up, the water evaporated faster and there was less oxygen, meaning more episodes of anoxia and more of those horrific mass die-outs of fish.
For now, though, while the situation does remain critical, the chlorophyll, nitrogen and oxygen levels recorded in the lagoon are – incredibly – fairly normal, and politicians and scientists are cautiously predicting that there will not be another fish apocalypse this summer.
Indeed, it’s also fashionable to claim that such high-profile events have had an effect on the number of people visiting the area and buying property there. The Bank of Spain itself estimated the impact to the local housing market of the environmental problem in losses of up to 4,150 million euros over the last six years. But a new report from real estate valuation group Tinsa begs to differ.
They found that, on the whole, house prices in the local area were not affected by the pollution in the Mar Menor. Of all the towns surrounding the Mar Menor, Los Alcázares was the only one where property prices fell between January and March of this year. In San Javier, San Pedro and other municipalities, prices have actually gone up since last year, and now the average cost of a home there 1,010 euros per square metre.
However, property prices around the Mar Menor are still below pre-pandemic levels, and it may take some time for them to recover, but that has more to do with the after-effects of the last two years of Covid and the current economic downturn.
No ice in paradise (or lights or ties)
Many people have been surprised to find the supermarket shelves in Spain empty of ice lately, just when they need it most in the hot weather. In fact, bars and restaurants as well as shops have reported a drastic shortage, and some are limiting their customers to two bags of cubed or crushed ice daily, in order to ration their stock.
Those in the business blame rising electricity costs for the shortfall: factories usually produce a glut of packaged ice early in the year to have plenty ready for summer, when the demand soars, but this year that simply didn’t happen because it was too costly. One of the largest Spanish manufacturers believes that stock will completely run out this month!
Luckily there’s an easy solution to this, as experts have revealed that ice can actually be made by just putting water in your freezer at home.
High electricity prices aside, all of Europe is sitting in a pretty precarious position right now, with the threat of a Russian gas supply cut off looming large. On the EU’s recommendation, the Spanish government has implemented a number of measures to try and save 7% of its energy consumption to build up a back-up supply for the winter.
Private households aren’t affected at the moment, but bars, restaurants, shops and other public buildings have been hit with a series of mandatory restrictions. For one, air conditioning units can now be run at no lower than 27ºC in summer and no higher than 19ºC in the cooler months, while the access doors to the premises of public buildings and shops will have to install automatic closing devices to ensure that the cool air doesn’t get out.
President Pedro Sánchez was roundly lambasted when he made the announcement for not wearing a tie, and calling on all civil servants to ditch their neck nooses for the summer to stay cool. Todo por la patria.But the measure which is perhaps causing the most controversy is that lights in shop windows and on public monuments like castles and museums must be turned off at 10pm in order to conserve energy. Many cities across the country have flatly refused to collaborate, calling the idea “frivolous”, and even warning that the darkened streets will lead to increased levels of petty crime.
The new rules are due to enter into force next Tuesday, so let’s see how many people actually take any notice…
Murcia
A bizarre high-speed chase took place this Wednesday night in Cartagena when a goat somehow got loose and ran madcap down the Paseo Alfonso XIII highstreet. Why and how the animal was careening around near the City Hall building is a mystery, but what is known is that it crashed through the shop window of a jewellery store, narrowly avoiding skewering frightened onlookers with its long horns, and was only caught when police locked it in the store’s toilet.
Police called for backup from a couple of shepherds they know and sometimes use for occasions such as these, and the sturdy goatherds ably trussed up the trembling animal and carried him away through the large crowd that had gathered to watch the odd spectacle. That wasn’t the end of the antics, though, as less than 24 hours later the animal escaped again!
It had been taken to a farm in Canteras to be looked after by a shepherd there, but no sooner had he put it out to graze with his flock than it wandered off once more. After a few hours, farmer José Rosas managed to locate the goat again and presumably will keep it under much closer watch this time. But if he’s really determined this may not be the last we hear of this great escapist of the animal kingdom.
Events took a turn for the sinister on El Mojón beach in San Pedro del Pinatar this week when an 18-year-old was crushed by a lifeguard tower while hanging out with friends late at night. The group of teens was apparently drinking and partying on the beach and it’s thought that some of them may have climbed up onto the structure before their combined weight caused it to topple over. The huge wooden tower snapped at the base and hit the victim, who was sitting behind it, on the head, killing him instantly, while two others, both 18, were taken to hospital.
Elsewhere on the Mar Menor, a 52-year-old man sadly drowned on Las Amoladeras beach in La Manga, one of a long line of bathers who have already expired while swimming in the water this summer. Drownings in the sea and beach deaths are more common than you might think, especially in summer, and as ever the advice is to ensure that you only swim if you are in a fit and healthy state, there is a green flag flying on the beach, and you are accompanied by someone else.
In the beach bars – chiringuitos – Cartagena city council is cracking down on concerts and gigs late at night, which it claims are illegal and not covered by the bars’ operating licences. Many chiringuitos on the beach host events like this and advertise them on social media to bring in customers in the evenings, and they are often popular with clients. But the head honchos up at City Hall have sent out a stern warning reminding all bar owners that such activity is illicit, and may be punished by revoking their licences.
But who is it really harming to have a bit of music on the beach? Most of these beach bars are far enough away from residences not to cause a nuisance, and they rarely go on until too late anyway. If anything, this move just seems like another attempt from the city council to squeeze some money out of the chiringuitos to pay to host concerts, at a time when they are suffering from a downturn in custom anyway.
The Costas coastal authority around the Mar Menor has also launched closure proceedings to shut down five chiringuitos for only opening in the afternoons and evenings to customers who don’t even use the beach at all. They say this contravenes their operating licence, which specifies they must provide beach services, and as such they will force them to close, right in the middle of the summer season.
On the San Javier coastline, at least, many people will be happy to finally be rid of an unwelcome building – the Lagomar ‘ghost building’ that has been standing uncompleted for 50 years now. The building – the twin of the Doblemar Hotel right next to it, was originally ordered to be demolished more than 10 years ago, but economic stumbling blocks meant that no one has been able to take the job on until now.
Those hoping for some spectacular explosive demolition event may be disappointed, though, as the plan, which will cost 679,000 euros and take six months to complete, is to dismantle the building piece by piece, floor by floor from the top down to avoid causing any damage to the local environment. Less exciting, perhaps, but far more responsible. Let’s hope it actually does get demolished this time!
There’s loads going on in Murcia this summer. Check out our EVENTS DIARY for some ideas of what to do:
Spain
Each week there seems to be news of another new tragedy involving a holidaymaker in Spain, and it seems that this August will be no exception. The new month has begun with a harrowing report of a British dad-of-two dying in Magaluf after a vicious beating by nightclub bouncers.
The reports are contradictory to put it mildly; the victim’s brother maintains that 35-year-old Tobias White-Sansom was tackled from behind for no reason, before being knocked to the ground and knelt on by several burly bouncers and police officers while handcuffed.
On the other hand, the Spanish authorities claimed that they had no choice but to physically subdue and drunk and drug-addled tourist who attacked the nightclub staff after being thrown out for refusing to wear a T-shirt.
The investigation is ongoing and whichever version is correct, the tragic outcome is that the young Nottingham man sadly went into cardiac arrest and died five days later in Palma’s Llatzer Hospital.
Over on Spain’s other island archipelago, a young Welsh man sadly drowned just hours before he turned 30 in Tenerife, where he had travelled on holiday for his birthday celebrations.Nicky Desmond had decided to take a swim in the sea shortly after arriving on the popular Canary island, and it is currently believed he somehow suffered an accidental drowning. Details of the tragic accident haven’t actually been released yet, but what is known is that emergency services took him to a hospital in Adeje, where he died a short time later.
Friends have launched a GoFundMe campaign in order to raise the 10,000 pounds (11,874 euros) needed to bring his body home for a funeral, of which they’ve already raised more than half.
Alicante
Brits behaving badly in Benidorm made headlines once again this week with the season of stag dos and hen parties in full swing. Back in June, footage of a horny British couple in the throes of drunken passion up against a recycling bin on a busy Benidorm street went viral, racking up thousands of likes on Twitter. Now images of the drunken antics of a bachelor party in the resort are doing the same. Passersby at a crossroad in the coastal town were this week greeted with the bizarre, and for some offensive, spectacle of a naked young man wrapped around a lamppost in cling film in broad daylight. Attached to the exposed holidaymaker was a sign that read: “Kiss or slap €1”.
Elsewhere in Benidorm, it wasn’t Brits but barmen in trouble with the law for selling drugs over the counter at work. Two waiters at the same premises were sentenced to six years and one day in prison for a crime against public health and will also have to pay a fine of 1,500 euros. A third barmen believed to have been involved was acquitted due to lack of evidence but this may still be appealed before the Superior Court.
According to police, ‘clients’ would come and go throughout the day, but only stay for a couple of minutes. When the fleeting customers were searched, more often than not packages of cocaine were found on them. Officers also tapped the phones of the two suspects and discovered that they used code words and phrases for different narcotics, doses and prices to cover their tracks.
A police operation of a different kind got underway earlier this week with the support of dozens of British expats and Spanish locals following the shocking disappearance of a Belgian pensioner. 82-year-old Hugo Gerard Dewulf was last seen in Hondón de los Frailes at around 6pm on Monday August 1.
There was a large police presence over the following two days, and the Town Hall organised a public search for the 5ft 3in Belgian octogenarian, who has short grey hair, blue eyes, weighs around 70kg and was wearing a straw hat and sunglasses at the time of his disappearance. He is also reported to normally use a black walking stick. Family, police and local residents were still searching for the elderly gentleman on Friday morning, August 5.In other news, Teulada in Alicante’s Marina Alta is to get a new, three-star campsite for motorhomes and bungalows boasting two swimming pools and a free camping area. The company Camp-Rafalet has applied to set up the new motorhome camping site and bungalow plot on Carretera de Sant Miquel next to Benimarco village, and has already been given the go-ahead to use nearly 50,000m2 of undeveloped land that was once used to grow grapes but which have been in disuse for decades. The project also includes plans for a bar, restaurant, hairdresser, supermarket and areas for playing petanque and golf.
Alicante City Council is also ramping up its tourist-pull with a major revamp at San Juan beach. The local authority this week approved a 1.58-million-euro project to develop a new sports and leisure complex for public use on Avinguda de Niza, where the San Juan beach craft market is currently located. The project, expected to take around six months, will commence after the summer season, and the market will be moved next year.
The impressive undertaking will consist of changing rooms for up to 12 people, complete with showers and toilets, as well as a storage unit for kayaks, surfboards and other sports equipment. Shaded areas and pergolas will be erected with the aim of creating a local meeting point and training space, and the structure will be completed with an information and customer service booth.
Andalucía
Andalucía’s reservoirs have lost 96 cubic hectometres of water in the last week alone, and are now filled to just 28.33% of their capacity – 6.55% lower than this time last year – and this dire situation is only expected to worsen over the next week or so as temperatures remain stiflingly hot and no rain is forecast to replenish the aquifers.
That’s why three Malaga holiday resorts – Rincón de la Victoria, Vélez-Málaga and Algarrobo – have shut off water to their beach showers to save precious resources.
The mayor of Vélez-Málaga, Antonio Moreno Ferrer, said: “It is not easy to make this decision in the middle of summer and with the beaches full of users and we are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause but we are really faced with a critical situation and any measure that can help mitigate the effects of the drought must be carried out.”
Several Costa del Sol communities are also considering imposing a ban on filling private swimming pools.
But Malaga city has rebelled against the call to reduce their water consumption by at least 20%, which may be rolled out to our places in Spain shortly, saying that they have plenty of water reserves not to have to cut off water to the beach showers.
The city’s mayor, Francisco de la Torre, said, “It is not necessary for now to cut off the water in the showers, but we will always call for the responsible use of resources.”
If you think that’s the worst that could happen on the beach, though, you’re mistaken. On one Almeria beach, the bomb squad was called in to dispose of an anti-tank land mine that was discovered half buried in the sand. It’s unknown how the highly dangerous explosive, which is widely used by the Armed Forces, made its way onto Playa del Perdigal, right next to Almeria airport, but it’s one of a terrifying four explosive devices found by Almeria police already this summer.Meanwhile, out in the open water off the coast of Cadiz near Gibraltar, interactions between killer whales and boats are becoming more common, and a new paper by scientists warns that it’s only going to get worse. The expert paper ‘Orcas of the Strait of Gibraltar, an endangered subpopulation showing disruptive behaviour’ posits that adult orcas may be targeting ships simply to teach their young how to hunt tuna, and claims that “there has never been an attack or a death” due to an encounter.
Even assuming that’s right and these interactions can’t strictly be labelled ‘attacks’, it’s still slightly worrying that the authors of the study admitted that they “cannot rule out that more individuals will learn this new behaviour, interacting with the boats, and that the situation will probably get worse.”
You may have missed…
- Revealed: list of the 100 most expensive places to buy and rent in Spain (and some of them may surprise you).
A recent ranking of the 100 most expensive towns and cities to buy and rent a home has revealed that first place goes to the exclusive billionaires’ playground on the Costa del Sol where Vladimir Putin has a house. - Cartagena chiringuito among the 25 best beach bars in Spain, according to Forbes.
La Cangreja, located on Galúa beach in La Manga, has been selected among the 25 top beach bars in a list compiled by Forbes magazine. - 125K Brits spending 111 euros a day for 11 days: profile of a typical holidaymaker in Murcia.
Brits made up the majority of foreign tourists who visited Murcia in the first six months of this year, with over 125,000 UK citizens having gone on holiday there already, and they’ve started staying for longer and spending more money. - Could Spain be heading for a chicken shortage this autumn?
Chicken farmers in Spain have warned of disruption to poultry production if they are not paid a fair price for rearing their animals. - F1 legend Michael Schumacher and family plan new life in Mallorca.
German F1 legend Michael Schumacher and his family are planning a new life on the Spanish island nine years after he suffered catastrophic brain injuries skiing in the French Alps.
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