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  They say their pistols are 30 years old, bullet-proof vests are out of date and also safety equipment for motorbike police is seriously lacking.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."

Catalan mothers struggle to breastfeed their babies

Anna Pedraza, the chamber president of the Catalan Association of Pediatric Nursing in Spain, has warned the Catalan Parliament Tuesday that more and more mothers are malnourished, due to lack of financial resources.

This results in the mothers being unable to breastfeed their babies and they are then forced to turn to the social entities for commercial, artificial baby milk.

Pedraza stressed that the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends breastfeeding of babies up to the age of six months, stating, "These mothers cannot because they lack the necessary nutrients to feed their infants." She stated that she regrets that the Catalan government has cut many programs which could mitigate this phenomenon.

Speaking of a group of disadvantaged mothers and working mothers with low incomes, vice president of the association, Cristina Rey, said that it is impossible to guarantee the minimum six months of breastfeeding. She said that once breastfeeding is over, these needy children are then fed from food banks with "very little variety" of food which does not guarantee all the necessary nutrients.

Rey stressed that this trend is threatening the development of small children and that it is “very disturbing.” Rey urged the government to enhance the screening protocols to ensure that Catalan children eat at least one balanced meal per day, especially those under three years.

 Olga Vigo, a nurse and representative of the Association of Family and Community Nursing in Catalonia, says that there have been "no comprehensive studies" on the nutritional problems of vulnerable children and stressed the importance of differentiating between malnutrition from lack of nutrients as opposed to malnutrition from a poor diet.

Vigo also stated that the Catalan pediatricians are confronted daily with "very worried families that cannot afford to feed their children," and regretted that parents are in such a bad situation economically they have to reduce the number of meals they give to their children.

Spokeswoman for the Catalan socialist party (PSC), Eva Granados, lamented that the economic crisis in the country preys upon the most vulnerable groups and because of this the child poverty rate has now reached 30 percent.

According to a report by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights published last October there have been many accounts of "children fainting at school due to lack of proper meals" and "wearing the same clothes at school for three consecutive weeks," due to poverty.

As Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, insists that things are getting better in Spain, unfortunately the poor still suffer from the severe austerity measures imposed all over the country as well as high unemployment. While the above article is about Catalonia, the story is the same in all regions of Spain.

To the source

Watch Europe air travel from above (video)

We posted a beautiful image of Spain from space earlier this evening.  Well, how about seeing virtually ALL the air travel going on in Europe, as seen from above?  Not just Spain this time, but a lot of those planes are heading there...

"This data visualization was created from real flight data. It shows the air traffic which flies on a typical summer day and highlights the intensity of the operation in Europe - an operation which runs 24x7x365.

NATS and the UK are at the heart of the operation. With Heathrow as the busiest international airport in Europe, and Gatwick as the busiest single runway airport in the world, we play a key role in ensuring air traffic under our control in European airspace is as safe and efficient as it can be."

Enjoy this beautiful video!


Europe 24 from NATS on Vimeo.

A NASA view of Spain from space, in all its glory

The image below is one of several NASA photographs on Flickr that could, quite possibly, have inspired the movie "Gravity."

A remarkable and beautiful image showing Spain lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree.  Read more about the photo set following the links below...

"In the spirit of the 86th Academy Awards, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center posted a set of images on Flickr that people who have seen Gravity will find very familiar. The set shows extraordinary photos of and from the International Space Station, images of astronauts repairing space shuttles and beautiful shots of the planet below."

Moroccan girl kidnapped in Barcelona found in Bolivian rainforest

Seven months ago, a nine-year-old girl went missing from Hospitalet de Llobregat, close to Barcelona.  She has now been rescued deep in the heart of Bolivia's Amazon rainforest.

The girl went missing in August 2013 after her Moroccan parents, who also have two other children, allowed Bolivian neighbors and friends to take her on holiday with them. When the parents were unable to contact the couple several days after they landed in Bolivia, they became concerned and got in touch with local police.

Catalonia's Mossos d'Esquadra worked together with Spain's Civil Guard to solve the mystery.  Officials contacted authorities in Bolivia to try and find out where the girl and her captors were located.

Eventually, seven months later, police have found the couple in a remote area of Bolivia’s Cochabamba region.  Reportedly the area is so remote, it is barely reachable by car.  The child was transferred to Cochabamba city where she is currently undergoing medical and psychological examinations before traveling back to Spain, accompanied by two police officers.

The alleged kidnapper, Grover Morales, 35, is facing charges of human trafficking, sexual abuse and criminal association in Bolivia.

Spanish sources: 

La Vanguardia
ABC

Spain marks 10th anniversary of Madrid train bombings

Tuesday, March 11 marks the 10th anniversary of the Madrid train bombings in Spain, but many survivors of the terror attack are unlikely to attend the commemoration ceremony.

The Madrid train bombings, also known in Spain as 11M, consisted of 10, almost simultaneous, coordinated bombings on the Cercanias commuter train system in Madrid, the capital of Spain.

The explosions killed 191 people and wounded a further 1,800 and the attack happened three days prior to Spain’s general elections... read the full article

Naked Spanish sailors in bid for 2016 Olympics

Everyone has heard of skinny dipping, but have you ever seen naked sailing?   

Well, two Spanish sailors, in a bid to sail in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, ended up sailing in their birthday suits.

Onán Barreiros and Juan Curbelo, hoping to compete in the 2016 Olympics in Rio, tried an interesting online theory to improve their chances.

The two 470 class sailors from the Canary Islands posted a very intriguing message on their Facebook page back in January.

"If we get to 1,500 likes on our Facebook page before February 28th we will pose nude on our boat and post the picture," is what they wrote.

It only took just over a week to reach their goal and on Saturday they kept their promise.  They went sailing, totally nude, and posted a photo to Facebook, which is included here.  They have a couple more on their Facebook page for anyone who is interested.

Choosing which photo to use was a little difficult, apparently, with Barreiros telling Nauto360 magazine (in Spanish): "We didn't want to show too much, or too little and end up cheating people."

They seem to have made the right choice however, with Barreiros adding, "The image has been there a few days and more than 27,000 people have already seen it.”

"Now people stop us and say hi at our club in Gran Canaria to talk about the picture," said Curbelo. 

It seems Barreiros has already participated at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 and also in the London 2012 Olympics.  For Curbelo, if successful, it will be his first appearance in the all-important Games.

Spanish women defend abortion & labor rights on International Women's Day

Saturday was International Women's Day and to celebrate, thousands were out in the streets of Spanish cities, including Madrid and Barcelona.  

They were protesting for both women's equality at work and also against the governments new draft anti-abortion legislation.

This year International Women's Day was more important than ever in the crisis-ravaged country.  Despite the fact that Spain "exited recession" in 2013 and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's claims that things are getting better economically, the 26 percent unemployment rate is still being maintained.

On top of this, women are claiming that the right wing government wants them to stay at home with the children - in fact, you could use the old term "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen" as far as they are concerned.

According to one trade union spokesman yesterday, "Female unemployment has increased to a scandalous degree, with 200,000 women losing their jobs in the past year.''

Angela Barrios Manjon, 66, was part of the protest yesterday and she told AFP, "The labor reform and the abortion law are against women," she added. "The right wing wants women to stay at home and look after the children."

However the women were not only protesting women's unemployment, but also the Spanish government's new draft legislation to stop abortion in the country.

The existing law, which was introduced in 2010, allowed women to opt freely for abortion up to 14 weeks into the pregnancy. With the planned changes, however, abortion will only be allowed in cases of rape or a threat to the mother's health. The new draft law is expected to pass in parliament, where the Partido Popular currently hold the majority.

There have been delays in passing the legislation after dissent was heard from several high-profile party people. However, recently a proposal submitted by the opposition PSOE party to "immediately withdraw" the bill was rejected by 183 votes to 151. Reportedly, six lawmakers abstained from voting.

People against the abortion ban state it is likely to force women to seek back street operations, thus putting their lives at risk.

Several thousand protesters were seen marching through the center of Barcelona and Madrid, among other Spanish cities, banging drums and waving flags.  Banners in the crowd read,"No legislation in our wombs, no mistreatment of our bodies, no cutting of our rights" along with similar messages.

One Barcelona protester, Lara Rubio, 23, told AFP, "It is the first time I have come, but this year with the abortion reform it was more important than ever." 

While protesters were out in the streets, the government announced on Friday that it had approved a €3 billion ($4 billion) "strategic equal opportunities plan" to boost women's labor rights and protect them from violence.

Deputy leader of the ruling Partido Popular, Maria Dolores de Cospedal said at a conference on Saturday: "A woman can feel proud to know that her government is working for real equality for women."

"But a great deal remains to be achieved," she added, referring to access to equal salaries to men and to jobs.

However, the demonstrators and also the opposition Socialist party disagree with this magnanimous statement, with Elena Valenciano, the PSOE deputy leader, stating on television, "The Spanish right wing has never lifted a finger for women."

"Despite the trumpeting of the economic recovery, the job market for women in Spain is an ever-harsher reality."

An excellent photo gallery is available of the protests on 20minutos.

Protest in Madrid - March 8, 2014: