Government launches 24-point programme
By Oliver McIntyre
In the face of steadily worsening economic news, Spain’s prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, last week held an emergency holiday-season cabinet meeting to approve a 24-point reform package aimed at battling the crisis.
The move came as the latest inflation and economic growth figures were released, both showing dismal numbers. Inflation, based on the Consumer Price Index, hit 5.3 per cent in July, the highest level seen since Spain’s economic crisis of 1992. Meanwhile, the country’s economy grew just 0.1% in the second quarter of this year, skidding to year-on-year growth of 1.8%, the lowest in 15 years.
Among the most important impacts of the 24-measure plan – which is to take effect during this year and next – will be a 20-billion-euro injection to the economy by way of government-backed lines of credit for small and medium-sized businesses and financing for the purchase of subsidised housing.
At the meeting, the cabinet officially approved the previously announced plan to do away with the wealth tax (‘impuesto de patrimonio’), retroactive to January 1, 2008. This is expected to save 1.3 million taxpayers – including at least 300,000 foreigners – a total of some 1.8 billion euros.
Other highlights of the plan include measures to streamline the process of starting a business – cutting to 24 hours the time it takes to set up shop – and to speed up of the process by which businesses reclaim IVA value-added taxes.
Following the meeting PM Zapatero admitted the economy has slowed hard and ‘stagnated’, but he insisted that growth continues to be greater than the EU and Euro zone average. Indeed, Eurostat reported last week that the Euro zone economy has contracted for the first time since the launch of the euro a decade ago, with gross domestic product in the 15-country block dropping by 0.2% in the second quarter.
Sr Zapatero’s team says its economic measures are aimed at ‘reinforcing growth capacity’, with the goal of reaching “a growth rate of around 3% by 2010.”
The opposition Partido Popular criticised last week’s special cabinet meeting – unprecedented in August and for which Sr Zapatero interrupted his summer vacation – as little more than ‘publicity stunt’.
Photo EFE
Government to stop ‘spam’ phone calls and faxing
News Staff Reporter
THE DAYS of a siesta being interrupted by a phone call from a pushy sales person may be over. The government is planning to introduce legislation to make ‘spam’ telephone calls and faxes illegal.
The move is targeted at those businesses which cold-call and try to persuade the potential client to, for example, switch phone operators or to buy insurance and other financial products. They are most common during the hours traditionally associated with the siesta and in the early evening, and many businesses hide the phone number of origin so that it does not display on the recipient’s telephone screen.
Four government departments are now working together to penalise such practices which they describe as abusive and unfair. Modifications to existing legislation could be in place by the end of the year with sanctions thereafter imposed on any company which continues with such sales methods.
The minister for health and consumer affairs, Bernat Soria, said last week that the government is also planning to draw up a code of conduct for businesses to discourage cold-calling in any form. The principle telephone operators are also to be contacted, he added, to inform them that ‘spam’ phone calls violate the rights of consumers and will be considered a serious offence in the new legislation.
While ‘spam’ emails are already prohibited with senders liable to prosecution, the minister said, the revised legislation would extend this protection to other means of communication including phone calls and faxes.
News Staff Reporter
PROSTITUTES throughout Spain are feeling the pinch of the economic crisis as latest reports show a considerable fall in the number of customers.
The situation has also forced ladies of the night to drop their ‘service charge’ by up to 50% in some cities.
Spanish prostitutes blame both the economic crisis and the mass arrival of prostitutes from Eastern Europe for the fall in trade.
Recent figures estimate that around 400,000 women work as prostitutes in Spain, the majority of whom are foreign nationals, mainly from Eastern Europe.
Brothel owners belonging to the national brothel association ANELA also say their turnover has dropped by around 30%. “It began to fall slightly after the elections,” says one brothel owner, “but more recently it has plummeted.”
Other sex-related businesses are also feeling the pinch. The national adult film sector says the number of films being recorded has dropped as producers are not investing anymore and sex-shops have also seen their income fall noticeably.
News Staff Reporter
RAFAEL Nadal has continued Spain’s successful summer of sport by picking up a gold medal at the Beijing Olympic Games. In Sunday’s men’s final, he beat Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez 6-3 7-6 6-3.
After the match Nadal said he wanted to enjoy the moment because it only comes along once every four years. “I feel like I won it for my whole country not just for myself, so that makes it a little bit more special,” he said.
Nadal is now officially the world’s number one male tennis player and has a 770-point lead over Roger Federer, who was world number one for 237 weeks.
His next stop is New York where he is top seed. If he wins, he will bring even more glory to Spain after taking the French Open and Wimbledon titles earlier this summer.
However, not all the tennis has gone Spain’s way in China. The women’s doubles finalists, Anabel Medina-Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual, had to settle for silver when they were beaten 6-2 6-0 by Venus and Serena Williams of the US.
Meanwhile, the International Olympic Association has said it will not take any action against Spain after two groups of athletes were pictured apparently impersonating the Chinese by pulling their eyes into the shapes of slits. Amongst the tennis and basketball players are some who have been competing in Beijing.
The IOC said: “The Spanish athletes involved have apologised formally to China for the photograph and the matter is now closed.”
By David Eade
Anybody who lives in Spain knows that with the heat of summer come forest fires. In an average year the country has 20,000 fires which destroy some 140,000 hectares of pasture, scrub or woodland. An even more startling fact is that only one in 1,000 fires results in a court case.
Galicia, known as a wet and green area, accounts for half of the fires. It also heads the list of court convictions for both offences and criminal cases. It is followed in the summer fire league by Castilla y León, Andalucía, Cataluña and Valencia. Navarra, La Rioja, the Basque Country and Madrid are the autonomous regions with the least number of sentences.
All this information has been collated by Greenpeace in its recent report ‘Incendios Forestales, ¿el fin de la impunidad?’ It says that according to data issued by the state prosecutor there were 82 criminal convictions for starting fires in 2007 with 19 cases dismissed. Greenpeace España has studied the records of the lower courts and over the same period found 257 convictions related to fires.
Greenpeace says that in recent years the environmental prosecutors have made important strides in enforcing the law and this in turn has led to an increase in the number of cases being brought to court with convictions being handed down.
Nonetheless the current statistics are:
One of every thousand people responsible for forest fires are brought to court, that’s 0.1 per cent.
Only 5.49% of the surface burnt in the last 10 years has been met with a conviction.
The courts have only handled 3.5% of the cases involving major forest fires involving areas of over 500 hectares produced in Spain over the period 1996-2005.
In 2007 there were 11 major fires but only four people faced court action.
Greenpeace is calling for greater involvement of the public in identifying and bringing to justice those involved in starting fires. In addition it wants the prosecutors to have stronger powers and resources to investigate these cases. It wants the same prosecutors to be more involved in fire prevention with the regional authorities and for the statistics for these cases to be properly compiled and made available to the public.
If you have been in close proximity to a summer fire you will know just how frightening they are. The fact that the majority are caused by human hand, accidentally or by pyromaniacs, is a problem that needs to be urgently tackled.
Did Hitler flee to Spain? |
By David Eade
AN ARGENTINEAN investigator considers the theory that Adolf Hitler committed suicide in 1945 is a “farce.” He says he has seen an FBI document stating that the US Army looked for Hitler in Spain in 1947.
Journalist Abel Basti has, over a number of years, reconstructed the course in Argentina that the Nazis took in fleeing from Europe after the Second World War. He believes that the FBI document that he has seen had “reliable proof” that Hitler has escaped to Spain in April 1945.
Basti stated: “Hitler, Eva Braun and 13 leading Nazis arrived in Barcelona on April 27, 1945 in a flight that left from Berlin and they boarded in Linz in Austria.
“They flew in a Junker 290, series 0163, code PIPQ that some time afterwards was located by the Allies in a naval airport in the locality of Travemünde, close to Hamburg.”
The investigator went on to say that he believed that Spain had been ‘a trampoline’ for Hitler to escape in a submarine to South America. He added that the FBI document was dated May 1947 and it showed that they had gathered all these historic facts. In the opinion of Basti, Hitler was in Spain for no longer than a month and had left the country by the time the US Army started looking for him.
Basti has made this claim ahead of the publication of his third book on the Nazis in Argentina that is due out in the coming months. He considers that the suicide of the leader of the Third Reich in his bunker in Berlin was a great deceit by the Germans. He added that the Nazis placed bodies in the bunker with credentials of hierarchy members and used doubles of Hitler. Once in Argentina Basti believes Hitler moved around the country but has given no clue to his final demise.
Holiday road fatalities drop |
News Staff Reporter
TWENTY-TWO people were killed on Spain’s roads in the 14 traffic accidents recorded over the long holiday weekend that started on August 15. That is 26 fewer than in 2005 – the last time the holiday coincided with a weekend.
In the period from 15.00 last Thursday to midnight on Sunday a further 11 people received serious injuries and 25 were slightly hurt.
On the Thursday there was one death, five on the Friday, five again on the Saturday with 11 deaths on the Sunday.
THE NATIONAL nuclear security council has requested the Ministry of Industry fines Ascó I nuclear plant up to 70 million euros for four serious and two minor offences that occurred in November, when radioactive particles were found outside the plant.
GUARDIA Civil found the bodies of an Ecuadorian couple at their country home in Ontinyent, Valencia. Sources close to the investigation claim the 38-year-old man may have shot his 42-year-old partner and then committed suicide. The couple, who had lived together for 10 years say neighbours, ran a local bar and had a 10-year-old son.
THE STATE public prosecutor’s office has requested that ETA terrorist José Ignacio De Juana Chaos – recently released after serving a prison sentence for several murders – be summoned by the High Court for encouraging terrorism in a letter he sent out to his supporters on the day he was released that was read out to a crowd in San Sebastián. Shortly after leaving prison, De Juan Chaos flew to Dublin and remains in Ireland according to the Garda.
THE PERCENTAGE of bank customers who are unable to face their loan or mortgage repayments has increased to 1.61% of the total amount, the highest index since August 1999. The data has been confirmed by the Banco de España.
NEWSPAPERS are the most reliable source of news in the opinion of 30.9% of Spaniards, says a recent survey of media credibility. Radio is the most reliable for 24.5%, television for 20.4% and internet, despite its rise, is only the most reliable source of news for 14.5% of those asked.
THE MINISTRY of Defence has obtained more than 1,460 million euros from the sale of homes no longer required for army personnel. The sale price is initially set at half the market value, while some are auctioned. More than 11,000 families have purchased homes from the Ministry of Defence.
A ONE-EURO coin engraved with the face of cartoon character Homer Simpson appeared at a sweet shop in Avilés, Asturias this week. A skilled carver had replaced the features of King Juan Carlos with those of Bart Simpson’s popular dad. The shop owner found the coin when counting the day’s takings.
