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MADRID — King Juan Carlos of Spain is abdicating in favor of Crown Prince Felipe, his 46-year-old son, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced on Monday. The king’s abdication, after almost four decades on the throne, follows health problems but also comes amid a decline in his popularity, particularly as a result of a corruption scandal centering on his son-in-law that has also put the spotlight on the royal family’s lifestyle and finances at a time of economic crisis and record joblessness. The king, 76, announced his abdication in a letter to Mr. Rajoy, who then made the decision public in...

Spain’s prime minister says his government will unveil a stimulus package worth €6.3 billion ($8.6 billion) to boost competitiveness. […] (Mariano Rajoy) said Saturday corporate tax would be cut from 30 percent to 25 percent. …

One of the biggest concerns of the Spanish navy about its future -- the 'expiration' of the Harrier fighters and their complicated succession – has now been solved by a 70-million euro plan to extend their service life beyond 2025. Their intended replacement, the American F-35B, must wait "until it becomes financially accessible" for Spain. Spain has secured the future of its naval air wing, after years of uncertainty about what vertical takeoff fighters it would operate after 2020. After the loss of the aircraft carrier 'Principe de Asturias’ -- an ideal platform for STOVL fighters, but which has now...

Antiquities and Archaeology Conservation News Spain Prehistoric hunting scenes unearthed in Spanish cave Threat of vandalism puts ancient paintings at risk By Belén Palanco. Web onlyPublished online: 23 May 2014 A cave painting of a bull, with colours accentuated by archaeologists. Credit: Courtesy of Ines Domingo A series of hunting scenes dating from 7,000 years ago have been found by archaeologists on the six-metre long wall of a small cave in the region of Vilafranca in Castellón, eastern Spain—but it is being kept a secret for now. A layer of dust and dirt covered ten figures, including bulls, two...

Twitter users in Spain posted 17,500 messages of anti-Semitic abuse after Israeli basketball team Maccabi Tel Aviv beat Real Madrid on Sunday to win the Euroleague Championship, Jewish associations said Tuesday.

Spanish authorities say around 700 African migrants have charged its barbed-wire border fences in the country’s North African enclave of Melilla, but all were repulsed by Spanish and Moroccan border guards. An official statement says about 500 rushed the border in the first wave Saturday. About 20 stayed atop the 20-foot (6-meter) high fences for 30 minutes, then were escorted away by Moroccan forces. …

While Christopher Columbus is generally credited with having discovered America in 1492, a 1521 Spanish report provides inklings of evidence that there were, in fact, Irish people settled in America prior to Columbus’ journey. […] In 1520, Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, a historian and professor, was appointed by Carlos V to be chronicler for the new Council of the Indies. Though Martyr died in 1526, his report, founded on several weeks of interviews, was published posthumously in a book named De Orbe Novo (About the New World). […] While interviewing Spanish colonists, Martyr took note of their vicious treatment of Chicora...

Well, this is a law every grown-up in the world may be willing to back. The Spanish parliament is considering a law requiring children to do their chores. The measure is part of a larger Child Protection Bill in Spain, and if it gets passed, children under 18 will be legally bound to do housework “in accordance with their age and regardless of their gender.” And it doesn’t stop there. Under the law, children in Spain will also have to “respect their teachers and fellow students,” “participate in family life” and “respect their parents and siblings.” …

I am outraged at this morning coverage made by CNN about the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria. I do not know what can be done in that particular situation but starting by reporting all the facts is definitely preferable at promoting wishful thinking hash-tags. Compare with the coverage of ABC in Spain where they report on organized rapes of these girls, forced conversions, forced spousals. Then go back to the CNN page and search for, say, the word "rape". That is right, the kidnapping is a clean one, just your normal ransom search, let's not tag Islam or...

Police in Spain arrested a French-Algerian man suspected of fighting for Al-Qaeda-linked groups in Syria, the Spanish interior ministry said on Wednesday. Spanish officers with the help of French police seized Abdelmalek Tanem, 24, in the southern city of Almeria on Wednesday afternoon, the ministry said in a statement. They said he was thought to have carried out "terrorist activities" in Syria with two jihadist factions: the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and the Al-Nusra Front. He is suspected of serving as a "combatant" as well as a "facilitator" on the Syria-Turkey border helping other Europeans travel...

Holidaymakers taking a break to Majorca this summer are being warned they face fines of up to £500 if they wander from the beach still wearing their swimwear. New island regulations will see penalties handed out for anything from riding a bicycle on the pavement to wearing a bikini, swimsuit or Speedos or swimming trunks in the street. Aimed at both tourists and citizens, the laws are part of Palma City Council's 'Ordenanza Civica', otherwise known as the 'Good Citizen Plan'. cebook

A baby Java mouse-deer, one of the smallest hoofed animals in the world, has been born at a zoo in southern Spain. The newborn deer is "no bigger than a hamster" and weighs about 100 grams, according to staff at Bioparc Fuengirola, in Andalusia. Adult Java mouse-deer are rarely bigger than rabbits or weigh more than 1kg (2.2lb).

CASTRILLO MATAJUDIOS , Spain, April 14 (UPI) -- Families in a Spanish village who have been living with the name Castrillo Matajudios (Kill Jews) since the Spanish Inquisition may finally be changing their town’s name back to what it was originally, Castrillo Mota de Judios (Jews Hill). -snip-According to Haaretz, area residents often say “killing Jews” when they are referring to “the traditional drinking of lemonade spiked with alcohol at festivals held in city squares at Easter, or drinking in general.”

When the Phoenicians arrived on the Iberian peninsula, probably at the end of the ninth century B.C., they came into contact with an indigenous people called the Tartessians... The structure at Cancho Roano... was not a palace at all; it was simply a Tartessian sanctuary, which over time became influenced by Phoenician culture. Scholars have only recently begun to separate Tartessian history from myth. When the Greeks reached the Iberian peninsula a few centuries after the Phoenicians, they called the land Tartessos... According to the fifth-century B.C. historian Herodotus, Tartessian civilization was discovered accidentally by a Greek named Kolaios, who...

EL Pais reports Spanish Public Debt Threatens to Exceed 100% of GDP in 2014 Via translation General government debt accumulated through February was 987.945 billion euros, an amount that represents 96.5% of gross domestic product (GDP). This represents a new record in the amount of money the state, communities, and the municipalities have to return to financial institutions and investment funds. In February alone, the government liabilities increased by 8.130 billion, up 8% from the previous month. The debt problem is not just that you have to pay, but the difficulty to stop the frenzied pace to growing-has risen from...

Spanish-Style Riots Coming To A Country Near YouJames GuzmanDollar Vigilante BlogApril 15, 2014 Screams and sirens pierce the air as rocks, firecrackers, and sharp glass go flying in every direction. Police try to beat back the hordes of protesters by smashing indiscriminately into the crowd with their billy clubs. This was the scene recently in Madrid, Spain, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets to fight against the budget cuts and tax increases put into place by Mariano Rajoy, the current Prime Minister of Spain. The protesters chanted “no more cuts” as they demolished storefronts and threw...

Myths of British ancestry October 2006Stephen Oppenheimer Everything you know about British and Irish ancestry is wrong. Our ancestors were Basques, not Celts. The Celts were not wiped out by the Anglo-Saxons, in fact neither had much impact on the genetic stock of these islands The fact that the British and the Irish both live on islands gives them a misleading sense of security about their unique historical identities. But do we really know who we are, where we come from and what defines the nature of our genetic and cultural heritage? Who are and were the Scots, the Welsh,...

It’s finally happening. An entire municipality will utilize online-only voting in the next election with all balloting to be run via Scytl, the tech company based in Barcelona, Spain. The controversial rollout is being deployed not in the U.S., where Scytl two years ago acquired 100 percent of SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management solutions in the United States. The online-only vote will take place Oct. 27 in Canada, when Leamington, Ontario, will become the first Canadian municipality to cast all ballots via an Internet-only voting process. Every registered voter in Leamington, with a population of about...

After Crimea, what next? In an unauthenticated audio, Ambassadors Chubarov and Sergei Bakharev laugh about taking over areas in Alaska, Venice, Scotland, Catalonia and Miami. Watch out, the Russians are coming! ... The pair...joke that Russia will take control of Alaska, Venice, Scotland and Catalonia, a region of Spain which wants a vote on independence, reports The Guardian {link at URL]... The recording has been posted on Youtube, reports The Guardian [link at URL] ...

Woman falls into well during outdoor sex session in Spain Woman left in bottom of well by lover after falling through cover during outdoor sex session in Spain Spanish police are looking for a young man who abandoned his lover in a well after she accidentally fell in during a bout of al fresco lovemaking. The couple met on Friday night in Ciudad Real, a city in Castilla-La Mancha region of central Spain at a park where young people gather for outdoor drinking parties known as "el botellon".