DNA dumps: Spanish town uses canine DNA to track owners who leave dog poop in the street

Anyone living in a Valencia town who leaves their pet’s poop on the pavement is facing heavy fines, after a DNA check system has been put into place.

Photo via Flickr by David Wormley / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

After many complaints about dog excrement on the streets of the town, dog owners in Mislata, near Valencia, have been ordered to register their dog’s DNA using mandatory blood samples, by December 31^st this year. The pets’ DNA will then be kept on a council database to be matched against samples of dog poop picked up by the city’s street cleaners.

According to The Local, the council put the following notice on their website:

"To avoid unpleasant feces that some owners forget on the street, the city has launched a DNA analysis system that identifies droppings."

Mislata street cleaners ordered to collect the poop for analysis

The notice went on to read that street cleaners will now be responsible for collecting samples, which will then be guarded by the local police and analyzed in a laboratory. When the errant dog owner is traced, they will then be fined a hefty €200 for their crime.

Desperate to clean up their streets, this is only the latest in a string of councils across Spain who have introduced the measures, including Hernani in the Basque Country and Tarragona in Catalonia. Colmenar Viejo, north of Madrid, even went so far as to hire a private detective to track down the poop culprits. Brunete, another town close by, introduced a scheme whereby they mailed the poop found in the streets directly to the dog owner’s home.

Mislata hace un censo de perros con su ADN para identificar los excrementos en la calle https://t.co/2UqCmzFu4i

— ABC Com.Valenciana (@ABC_CValenciana) October 31, 2016

Madrid city officials took a further step earlier this year by announcing a new plan to make dog owners work as street cleaners, or pay a fine of up to €1500, if they failed to pick up the dog poop.

Inflatable dog poop statue in Madrid town stolen

The Local also mentioned Torrelodones, outside Madrid, whose council positioned a giant, inflatable dog turd in front of the town hall to protest the increasing amount of dog poop found on the town’s pavements. The council reckoned that 15,000 separate poos producing some 500kg of excrement a day were being left on the streets. 

#nomascacas pic.twitter.com/5REtm4eO6R

— Luz Navarro Garcia (@luznaga) May 28, 2016

Needless to say, someone - either with a sense of humor or guilty of not picking up their pet’s piles - stole the darn thing.

Historical Egyptian Loot Seized In Spain In Europe-Wide Crackdown

Spain’s Civil Guard working with Europol has sized more than 2,200 looted and valuable artifacts, mostly from ancient Egypt, as part of a major crackdown in Europe. In the operation 35 suspected traffickers were captured in total, consisting of Spaniards and Egyptians.

Among the 36 looted items recovered by the police was a vase, covered in hieroglyphics, and a statue of the goddess Isis.  According to Captain Javier Morales, an expert in the field, probably the most valuable single item is a majestic bust of the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet, which is worth around $113,000.  In total, the various artifacts are apparently worth up to $340,000.

The curator of Barcelona’s Egyptian museum, Luis Manuel Gonzálvez, told The Local that since the revolution in Egypt at the beginning of the Arab Spring, it has been far more difficult for authorities in that country to take care of the many valuable and ancient sites.

“Many artifacts have been taken from Egypt to Europe and the USA, but as the situation improves in Egypt, we are likely to see fewer incidents on this scale.”

The discovery formed part of a major operation launched in 14 countries in an effort to prevent further looting and illicit trafficking of cultural artifacts of this nature.  These particular items were found hidden in a container load of cheap vases, shipped from Alexandria in Egypt to the Port of Valencia in Spain. 

Guardia Civil recupera 36 piezas arqueológicas expoliadas en Egipto http://t.co/EzLxwJlqru No te pierdas la galería! pic.twitter.com/EkR0pDbPEq
— Europa Press (@europapress) January 28, 2015

According to police, some of the items were most likely looted from the Saqqara burial site and ruins, close to Mit Rahina in Egypt.

Among the 35 suspected traffickers found, the discovery of the looted items led Civil Guard officers to arrest of arrested five members of the network in Barcelona and Tortosa in Spain (four Egyptians and one Spanish) and two more in Egypt. The criminals will all now face several charges, including the trafficking of historic objects, being members of a criminal group and money laundering.

La @guardiacivil desarticula un grupo dedicado al comercio internacional de bienes culturales expoliados en Egipto pic.twitter.com/kM9MzPXstJ

— Ministerio Interior (@interiorgob) January 28, 2015

During the operation, agents have inspected several thousands of art and antique dealers, second-hand sellers and auction houses in 14 European countries, including Britain, France and Germany.  Inspections have also been stepped up at border posts, ports and airports.

Besides the successful operation in Valencia, Spain, the Italian Government advised last week that their police had sized over 5,000 ancient artifacts as part of a $51 million haul after they dismantled a combined Swiss and Italian trafficking ring.

Man signs up as organ donor, shoots himself in the head

It happened at the University Hospital La Fe in Valencia, Spain on Monday morning. A 50-year-old man walked into the transplant unit with a revolver concealed under his belt. He approached two nurses and told them he wished to donate blood. He then asked for forms with which to be signed up as an organ donor.... read more

Police in Valencia use "go-go" dancers to protest lack of equipment

Police in the city of Valencia are fed up with a shortage of both vehicles and equipment.  They say their pistols are 30 years old, bullet-proof vests are out of date and also safety equipment for motorbike police is seriously lacking.  There is also a lack of new uniforms.

They decided to bring attention to their bad working conditions by launching a protest.  200 Local Police officers protested outside the town hall in Valencia together with several "go-go" dancers wearing underwear and union t-shirts.  According to El Mundo, one officer even turned up at the protest in a pair of bright blue long johns.

While equipment has been lacking for some time, things came to a crux after an accident, in which four officers received light injuries when the 17-year-old van they were using suffered brake problems.  Valencia's town hall, however, blamed the driver of the van for the accident and 20 Minutos reported they said the local police force had "everything it needs to carry out its duty."

Spain to limit visitor numbers for 'La Tomatina' festival

Foreign party-people wishing to participate in the crazy La Tomatina festival in Buñol, Valencia in August will have to reserve a spot first through a newly introduced ticket-only system.

Buñol Town Hall has decided to restrict the number of international revellers at this year’s event by only offering 15,000 tickets to non-locals.

While previously organizers of this world-renowned and crazy event had allowed unlimited access to both locals and tourists alike, the whole La Tomatina festival has apparently become just too big for comfort. 

Crowds of up to 50,000 people partying in the narrow streets of this small Valencian town are just too much. When watching videos of the event, it does, indeed, look like an accident just waiting to happen.  

Estefania Palacios, organizer for the ticket distributor Spaintastic told The Local:  

"Although there haven’t been any incidents, it was starting to become unbearable for the locals and also potentially more dangerous for everyone."  

"As the tomato-pelting will only take place within one fenced off street, Buñol Town Hall has decided to halve the number of participants to ensure their safety and enjoyment."

For those who want to participate, but do not yet have a ticket, apparently 90 per cent have already been sold for this year's event. People will be traveling from as far away as Australia, India, Japan and the US to attend the madness on August 28th. 

The last tickets are avalable on this website, and cost €10. Attendees will be asked to show their ID before entering the “fight zone”. 

About the festival: 

La Tomatina is a food fight festival held on the last Wednesday of August each year in the town of Buñol in the Valencia region of Spain. Buildings in the street are lined with plastic as protection from the mess.

In exactly one hour, tens of metric tons of overripe tomatoes are thrown in the streets, with revellers slipping and sliding in the mess and throwing tomatoes at each other. Normally around 20,000–50,000 tourists come to find out more about the tomato fight, multiplying by several times Buñol's normal population of slightly over 9,000.

There is limited accommodation for tourists attending La Tomatina, and thus many participants stay in Valencia and travel by bus or train to Buñol, about 38 km outside the city. 

 

Most of these images courtesy flydime

 To the source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/355135

Teenage prank turns into 'kidnapping' scare

When a teenage girl decided to play a prank on her father, things went terribly wrong, as a Spanish police officer stopped his vehicle and pulled a gun on him. However, it could have been much, much worse.

A 13-year-old girl in Valencia, Spain decided to play a silly and childish joke on her dad. She held up a sign in the car, while they were driving along, which read: "Help. I'm being kidnapped."

 

Her father had no idea what she was doing, but when an off-duty Spanish Civil Guard officer got a glimpse of the sign he did not hesitate in his attempts to "rescue" the poor girl.

 

He swerved his car so as to block and force the alleged kidnapper's vehicle to stop. The officer then jumped out of the vehicle and pointed a gun at the girl's father's head, ordering him out of the vehicle, with hands on head.

 

The shocked father obeyed, all the time assuring the officer that he was the father of the girl.

 

It didn't take too long for the teenager to admit to the joke. However, the off-duty officer had already alerted the authorities to what he thought was a serious incident, which then drew a large deployment of police officers to the scene.

 

Once it had been established that they were, indeed, father and daughter, they were both allowed to leave the scene with no charge.

 

However, its pretty certain the teenage prankster will have quite a bit of explaining to do.

 

This isn't the only time that a faked kidnapping has gone wrong in Spain, as Digital Journal reported recently on a stag night prank that ended up in the Madrid headlines as an armed kidnapping.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/354540

Seeking the "Best Beach in Spain" for 2013

The Spanish television channel, Antena3.com, has launched a competition to find the very best beach in Spain and is inviting people to vote for their favorites this summer.

With an incredible choice of sun and sand locations in several regions, many with the coveted Blue Flag status, it will be a strong race for the final.

 

 The competition is free for everyone to vote for their favorite beaches, separated by Spanish coastal region, through the Antena3.com website and on Twitter...

Read more and see the main contenders:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/353871