Erdogan Wants to Invade Jerusalem and Spain

 

Thousands March in Spain to Support Left-Wing Party

    

Botched Restoration Of Jesus Fresco Miraculously Saves Spanish Town

         

Nearly 81% of Catalans say yes-yes to independence vote

    

Catalan independence hopes high in symbolic vote on split from Spain

    

Basques form 123-kilometre-long human chain in bid for independence from Spain

    

Spain protests call for vote on monarchy

  

Immigrants moved to mainland Spain after Melilla break-ins - tragically video

 

Basque town votes in referendum on independence from Spain

 

Citizens of Etxarri Aranatz in Navarre voted in an unofficial referendum on Sunday over whether they wished to be citizens of a separate Basque country and secede from Spain.

Spain’s New ‘Holy Grail’: Jesus Couldn’t Afford That Kind of Bling

 

Catalans want independence referendum in 2014: poll

   

The majority of Catalans want the right to decide on independence in a referendum and believe Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy should authorize such a vote, a poll showed on Sunday.

Spanish public worker protesters clash with police over cuts (PHOTO)

 

Spanish riot police and protesters have clashed in the capital, Madrid, during a demonstration against government policies. At least 3 people have been hurt in clashes outside the Spanish Parliament.

SPAIN: Spain's scandal-hit royals pin hopes on prince

 AFP - Losing popularity and besieged by a corruption scandal that has reached an official in the palace itself, Spain's royals are looking to the dashing heir to the throne, Prince Felipe, to save their image.

 

At 75, King Juan Carlos shows no sign of abdicating as his contemporary Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has done -- but he said in a recent interview that Felipe was "well prepared" to take over when the time comes.

The palace spent last year turning Felipe, who turned 45 on Wednesday, into its most visible public representative. He had more official engagements than any other member of the family in 2012, while Juan Carlos recovered from operations to replace both hips -- one due to a fall during a luxury elephant-hunting safari in Botswana, for which he apologised to the nation.

Felipe spent part of his 45th birthday on Wednesday charming the crowds as he inaugurated a tourism fair in Madrid. In line with the palace's new recession-era regimen, no official celebration was announced.

A typical item on his diary of official engagements, it received less media coverage than the other news story concerning the palace: a corruption case affecting Felipe's brother-in-law, Inaki Urdangarin.

An investigating judge ruled on Wednesday that Urdangarin and an associate must post eight million euros ($11 million) in civil bail, while waiting to see if they will go on trial accused of embezzling public funds.

 

Separately, the palace reacted to the judge's decision to summon Carlos Garcia Revenga, secretary to the king's daughters Elena and Cristina -- Urdangarin's wife -- to be questioned in the case.

The palace said it was keeping Garcia in his post and would take no action until he goes before the judge on February 23 -- when Urdangarin himself is also due to appear, for the second time.

Juan Carlos won wide respect for helping guide Spain to democracy as a parliamentary monarchy after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, and for helping quell an attempted military coup in 1981.

It is a hard act for Felipe to follow. A generation after those historic events, the palace faces a challenge to convince the nation that the monarchy is still needed.

A poll in early January by El Mundo newspaper showed support for the monarchy as an institution overall fell to a record low of 54 percent.

Felipe said in a speech in 2011 that he wanted to "constantly adapt and adjust the institution to the times we are living in, working to unite our history with our future, to link our traditions to a cutting-edge spirit and progress".

The towering prince -- who according to Spanish media is 1.97 metres (almost six feet, five inches) tall -- appears smiling and approachable when greeting the public and can give speeches in English with a cut-glass English accent.

His wife Letizia, a former television journalist, and their blonde daughters, the Infantas Leonor, eight, and Sofia, five, are darlings of the glossy celebrity magazines.

Observers say Felipe needs to work his charms still harder to win over a sceptical nation, currently suffering its worst economic hardship since Juan Carlos helped steer the country to democracy in the late 1970s.

Abdication by Juan Carlos would be a risky move currently, "with the Urdangarin case up in the air and with Felipe still not having broken the wall that separates him from the public", said Pilar Urbano, a prominent author specialising in royal matters.

"Letizia represents an opportunity to make the monarchy more sociable. It is still all about balconies, protocol and the throne," she said.

"It would be good to see them both out shopping in the sales."

Fake photo of ailing Hugo Chavez forces newspaper El Pais to pull back edition

MADRID—Leading Spanish newspaper El Pais withdrew and reprinted its Thursday edition after discovering its front-page exclusive photograph supposedly showing ailing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez being treated in Cuba was a fake.

The poor-quality image showed the head of man resembling Chavez apparently on a hospital bed and with tubes in his mouth. The newspaper said it could not independently confirm how, when or where the photograph had been taken.

El Pais said it withdrew the edition and changed its website after it discovered the photograph was not of Chavez. Many copies had already been distributed, however.

The newspaper declined to give numbers on how many newspapers with the photograph had reached the streets. The paper prints some 340,000 copies daily. El Pais said the photograph was on the online edition for 30 minutes before the error was discovered and the edition changed.

El Pais said it had received the picture from an agency. It apologized to its readers for the mistake.

Venezuelan Information Minister Ernesto Villegas denounced the photograph as a fake in a series of messages on Twitter. He said the picture came from a video of another man, and he circulated a link. The video, uploaded to YouTube in 2008, clearly shows another patient.

“Would El Pais publish a similar photo of some European leader? Of its director? Yellow journalism valid if the victim is a South American revolutionary,” Villegas said in one of the messages. He accused the paper of systematically violating policies in its own style manual “to attack Venezuela.”

Chavez has not been seen in public since undergoing cancer surgery Dec. 11 in Cuba.

SPAIN: Spain's Catalonia Parliament passes symbolic declaration of sovereignty, referendum expected

MADRID –  The parliament of Spain's powerful northeastern region of Catalonia has approved a largely symbolic declaration stating the region is a sovereign entity, paving the way for a referendum on independence from Spain.

The proposal was carried Wednesday by 85 votes in favor, with 41 against and two abstentions.

Though symbolic, the declaration sets up a potential showdown with the central government in Madrid, which has said it will block any move toward Catalonian independence in the courts.

The declaration was backed by the region's governing Convergence and Union group and the Republican Left. It was opposed by the Catalonian Socialist Party and the Popular Party that governs Spain.

Polls show Catalonians are evenly divided over independence, but a majority opposes it if it means exiting the European Union.

SPAIN: Horses ride through fire to mark Spanish festival of patron saint of animals (PHOTO STORY)

A man rides a horse through a bonfire in San Bartolome de Pinares, Spain (Pic: AP)

These blazing saddles could have easily galloped out of a Hollywood western.

These spectacular scenes were caught in the small Spanish village of San Bartolome de Pinares, where hundreds turned out to celebrate St Anthony’s Day.

To mark the festival of the patron saint of animals, hundreds rode their horses and along the narrow cobbled streets during the ‘Luminarias’.

The steeds jump through bonfires to the sound of drums and Spanish bagpipes until midnight when the riding comes to a halt.

The bonfires are then turned into huge barbecues where locals cook a feast of black pudding and chorizo sausage.

 

 

 

 

Muslims Angry Over Spanish Citizenship for Jews

Muslims are now demanding reciprocity, demanding that the Spanish government grant automatic citizenship to millions of descendants of Muslims who were also expelled from Spain in the Middle Ages.

North Africa converts to Islam invasions into Spain

The Spanish government has announced that it will grant automatic citizenship to Jews of Sephardic descent, whose ancestors were expelled from Spain in 1492.

The measure has been welcomed by Jewish groups, who say the move is long overdue and that it rights a historic wrong.

But Muslim groups are now clamoring for reciprocity, and are demanding that the Spanish government grant instant citizenship to millions of descendants of Muslims who were also expelled from Spain during the Middle Ages.

The so-called Right of Return for Sephardic Jews (Sepharad means Spain in Hebrew) was announced in Madrid on November 22 by the Spanish Justice Minister, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, and the Foreign Minister, José Manuel García-Margallo.

Under existing Spanish law, Sephardic Jews already benefit from a preferential naturalization procedure that allows them to claim Spanish citizenship after having lived in Spain for only two years, a privilege that is also available to citizens of Spain's former colonies in Latin America and elsewhere.

The change means that Sephardic Jews -- wherever they live in the diaspora -- will have to present an accreditation from the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities (FCJE), a Jewish umbrella group, confirming their ancestry to claim a Spanish passport.

Spain's offer applies only to those who identify themselves as Jewish. It does not apply to Sephardic Anousim(anousim in Hebrew means "coerced"), the descendants of Jews who were compelled by the Spanish Inquisition to convert to Roman Catholicism (they are sometimes also called crypto-Jews or Marranos). Secular anousimmust seek religious training from the FCJE and undergo formal conversion to Judaism before they can obtain Spanish citizenship.

The Spanish government has not said how many Jews it expects will apply for citizenship (a total of 698 Sephardic Jews obtained Spanish citizenship during the period 2006-2010). There are an estimated three million Sephardic Jews around the world today. Most live in Israel, the United States, Belgium, Greece, France and Turkey, but there are also sizeable communities in Latin America, especially in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela.

No more than 45,000 Jews currently live in Spain -- out of a total Spanish population of 47 million -- which is only a fraction of the number of Jews who lived in the country before 1492, when Jews were forced to convert to Roman Catholicism or go into exile.

The Edict of Expulsion, issued on March 31, 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon), and also known as the Alhambra Decree, ordered Jews to leave the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, and their territories and possessions, by July 31 of that same year.

Up to 800,000 Jews are believed to have left Spain as a result of the decree. Another 50,000 chose to avoid expulsion by converting to Roman Catholicism.

Spain first began granting citizenship to Sephardic Jews -- on an individual basis, not en masse -- in 1988, when the government of Felipe González modified the Spanish Civil Code. The concessions were halted in 2009 by the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, but the procedure has now been revived and amended by the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy.

Reacting to the Rajoy government's pledge to expedite the naturalization process for Sephardic Jews, Isaac Querub, the president of the FCJE, declared that November 22, 2012 would "pass into history as a day of clear blue sky and intense luminosity."

For his part, Foreign Minister García-Margallo emphasized the historic links of the Jewish people with Spain. At a ceremony at the Centro Sefarad-Israel in Madrid, he said: "Our relations have never been forgotten and have intensified the more tolerant and democratic Spain has become."

But Spanish political commentators have been speculating about both the reason and the timing behind the government's move.

Just one week after announcing the Right of Return for Sephardic Jews, Spain voted in favor of upgrading the status of the Palestinian Authority at the United Nations. The November 29 vote was a major blow to Israel; some commentators have speculated that Spanish government announced the citizenship measure as a "gesture" to minimize the impact on bilateral relations.

Others say the Spanish government is seeking to attract Jews as a way help remedy the country's severe economic problems. Just days before welcoming Sephardic Jews back to Spain, the government announced on November 19 that it would offer residency permits (the equivalent of a US green card) to foreigners who buy houses priced at more than 160,000 euros ($200,000) as part of its efforts to revive a collapsed real estate market and divest itself of hundreds of thousands of unsold homes.

Meanwhile, Muslims are now demanding that the Spanish government grant automatic citizenship to millions of descendants of Muslims who were expelled from Spain in the seventeenth century.

Much of the Iberian Peninsula was occupied by Muslim conquerors known as the Moors from 711 until 1492, when the Moorish Kingdom of Granada surrendered to Ferdinand and Isabella. But the final Muslim expulsion from Granada, known in Arabic as Al-Andalus, did not take place until over a century later, beginning in 1609, when King Philip III decreed the Expulsion of the Moriscos.

The Moriscos were the descendants of the Muslim population that converted to Roman Catholicism under threat of exile from Ferdinand and Isabella in 1502. From 1609 through 1614, the Spanish government systematically forced an estimated 350,000 Moriscos to leave Spain for Muslim North Africa.

Today there are an estimated 5 million descendants of the Moriscos living in Morocco alone; there are millions more living in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Tunisia and Turkey.

In a December 3 essay published by the Morocco-based newspaper Correo Diplomático, the Moroccan journalist Ahmed Bensalh Es-salhi wrote that the "decision to grant Spanish citizenship to the grandchildren of the Hebrews in Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, while ignoring the Moriscos, the grandsons of the Muslims, is without doubt, flagrant segregation and unquestionable discrimination, as both communities suffered equally in Spain at that time. The decision could also be considered by the international community to be an historic act of absolute immorality and injustice…This decision is absolutely disgraceful and dishonorable."

Bensalh then went on to threaten Spain: "Is Spain aware of what might be assumed when it makes peace with some and not with others? Is Spain aware of what this decision could cost? Has Spain considered that it could jeopardize the massive investments that Muslims have made on its territory? Does Spain have alternatives to the foreign investment from Muslims if they ever decide to move that capital to other destinations due to the discrimination against Muslims?"

Bensalh's article is the latest salvo in an escalating battle being waged by Muslim historians and academics who are demanding that Spain treat Moriscos the same way it treats Sephardic Jews.

In a letter addressed to Juan Carlos, Al-Ahmar calls for a "full legal and historical investigation of the war crimes that were perpetrated on the Muslim population of Andalusia by the French, English, European and papal crusaders, whose victims were our poor miserable people, after the collapse of Islamic rule in Andalusia."

The letter speaks of "the injustice inflicted on the Muslim population of Andalusia who are still suffering in the diaspora in exile since 1492."

Al-Ahmar wants the Spanish monarch to apologize "on behalf of his ancestors" and to assume "responsibility for the consequences" that this would entail. He says it is necessary "to identify criminals, to convict retroactively, while at the same time to identify and compensate victims for their calamities and restore their titles." This process would culminate with "a decree that allows immigrants to return to their homes in Andalusia, and grant them full citizenship rights and restoration of all their properties."

Spain:Catalan separatists push referendum on independence from Spain

The leaders of Catalonia's two biggest political forces have signed a pact to overcome their enormous divide on economic and social issues and defy Madrid by holding a referendum on secession from Spain in 2014.

 

Growing Catalan separatism is a political headache for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is struggling to keep Spain's finances on track and dodge an international bailout. Vice President Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said today the government would try to block the referendum in the courts.

It is still unclear how and when the vote can be legally organised but the deal will have more direct consequences for Spain's push to control regional finances as the two parties have agreed not to implement more spending cuts.

The agreement between the centre-right Convergence and Union alliance, or CiU, and the radical Republican Left, or ERC, falls short of a governing coalition but the ERC will support CiU's budget and the two will push together for the referendum.

"We will face a lot of adversaries, powerful ones, without scruples," CiU leader Artur Mas said at the signing. But he said that acting together the CiU and ERC had enough power in the local parliament to push ahead with the vote.

A deep recession and unemployment have stoked separatism in Catalonia, a region in northeastern Spain that generates one-fifth of the country's economy and has its own language and distinct culture.

Mas, who has implemented unpopular spending cuts, held early elections November 25 to test support for his new drive for independence for Catalonia. Many Catalans believe that their region will be better off economically if it leaves Spain, saying that too many of their taxes go to help out poorer regions.

In the election Mas's CiU alliance ended up with 50 seats in the local legislature, losing 12 seats, while the traditional separatist party ERC gained 11 seats and has 21.

Together they have an absolute majority in the 135-seat Catalan parliament.

However, it will be an uneasy alliance. The ERC has opposed CiU's policy of deficit cutting, which has hit social services, schools and hospitals in the last two years.

To win over the ERC, CiU has shown willingness to place levies that will hit the wealthiest Catalans and impose a tax on bank deposits. The ERC has signalled it is willing to make concessions in order to get to the referendum.

Analysts said shared passion for the referendum could make the unlikely alliance hold for two years.

"I'm not naive enough to say it will be easy, but I believe the pact will last through the referendum," said Salvador Cardus, professor of sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

"There is a strong personal commitment between the two leaders for Catalans to express their opinion about their political future."

Constitutional scholars said that there will be many legal twists and turns over the next two years, but that Catalonia will probably be able to hold some form of public consultation, though it may end up being a non-binding or symbolic vote.

Unlike the self-determination effort in Scotland, which has received the go-ahead from the conservative government of British Prime Minister David Cameron, Catalonia will probably have to test various alternatives, said Ferran Requejo, political science professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.

Mas's government will likely pass a Referendum Law in the Catalan legislature, Requejo said, which is likely to be struck down by the Constitutional Court.

"Eventually this will probably be played out in an international legal context, beginning with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," he said, referring to the United Nations agreement in force since 1976 that allows for self-determination.

"Spain signed that pact."

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