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Virtual rendition of the submarine S-80Plus. NAVANTIA The problems surrounding the bizarre story of the Spanish Navy’s new submarine, the S-80 Plus, have yet to be completely resolved. First, a design flaw meant that the vessel was so heavy that it could not resurface, forcing engineers at the Navantia shipyard to add 10 meters to its length and increase its displacement of water by 800 tons to improve buoyancy. Now it turns out that this larger version of the S-80 does not fit inside its naval base in Cartagena, in southeastern Spain. This will force the Defense Ministry to enlarge...

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has made clear his strong stance on unlimited mass migration after he refused to take part in an EU-wide effort to distribute the migrants of a fishing boat that landed on an Italian island Monday. Calling on the nations of Europe to work harder to prevent illegal migration to the continent, Kurz also pointed to the fact that migrant ships could be sent to countries outside of the European Union to disembark their human cargo. The comments came after 450 migrants were picked up from a wooden fishing boat on Saturday, and brought to Sicily to...

At least 1,000 people gathered at the grandiose tomb of the late Spanish dictator Francisco Franco on Sunday to protest against Madrid’s plans to move his body, an AFP photographer said. Franco, who ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975 when he died, is buried in a valley just outside Madrid in an imposing basilica carved into a mountain face with a 150-meter (490-feet) cross towering over it. Known as the Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen), it is a deeply divisive symbol of a past that Spain still finds difficult to digest. By late morning, a long line...

Spain’s Socialist government is seeking to erase gender bias in the constitution but the head of the Royal Spanish Academy, the custodian of the language, on Monday said the plan was unworkable. Last week, Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo asked the Academy to study updating the 1978 constitution with “inclusive” language. “We have a constitution in the masculine which dates back to 40 years ago,” she said, noting that it referred to “ministers and deputies” with the male form of the noun. The traditional Spanish use of male pronouns and noun forms to refer to both genders collectively has raised...

Spain has selected a beauty queen for 2018 – and it's a man in disguise!  That's right: Spanish people think a man looks prettier than all the women in Spain!  What does this say about the Spanish culture? After winning Spain's national beauty contest last month, [Mr.] Ponce will become the first transgender woman [sic] to compete in the Miss Universe pageant. "Having a vagina doesn't make a woman," [he] said in an interview.  "Even if many people don't want to see me as a woman, I clearly belong among them.  There are women with a penis and men with a vagina, because...

A Spanish public servant who skipped work for a decade without anyone noticing spent his free time running a male brothel and drawing erotic comics. Carles Recio, who was paid a €50,000 ($58,000) salary as an archives director in Valencia’s provincial government, would show up to the office every morning at 7:30 a.m. to clock in using the fingerprint scanner before heading home, only returning to the office at 3:30 p.m. to clock out. He kept up the routine for 10 years before colleagues began to raise suspicions. After Spanish newspaper El Mundo broke the story 18 months ago, Recio...

"This is one of the most face-palming countries I've covered so far; and you will learn why." "Free health care for 800,000 illegal immigrants? That's normal, right?" [And at the point of maxiumum face-palm:] "Spain wants these immigrants to have the right to vote."

The FBI has obtained secret wiretaps collected by Spanish police of conversations involving Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia’s Central Bank who has forged close ties with U.S. lawmakers and the National Rifle Association that led to a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. during the gun lobby’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky., in May 2016, a top Spanish prosecutor said Friday.

With the case of the Aquarius ship, Spain of the new socialist government of Pedro Sánchez showed its welcoming and open face. But quietly and far from the cameras, all concentrated in the port of Barcelona, ​​Spain itself was becoming the most hostile European nation to Israel. First there was the decision of the third largest city of the country, Valencia, to embrace the boycott of Israel by proclaiming itself a "zone free from Israeli apartheid". Then the leader of the third largest Spanish party, Pablo Iglesias Turrión, head of Podemos, defined the Jewish state as a "criminal and illegal...

First Lady Melania Trump welcomed King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain to the White House in a prim and proper summer dress that was a perfect fit for tea time. On Tuesday, Mrs. Trump rocked a Valentino leaf embroidered white and dark green dress, cinching her waist with a bright white belt to show off her small frame. The Slovenian-born former model paired her Italian frock with a pair of dark green Manolo Blahnik stilettos, matching Queen Letizia who wore a similar pink pair with her Michael Kors sheath dress.

MANILA, Philippines – Miss Universe Spain crowned a transman on Friday, June 29, the first for the beauty pageant. Angela Ponce, 25, will represent Spain in the upcoming Miss Universe pageant scheduled end of the year. His win comes as Pride Month comes to a close. This is not the first time Angela competed in a beauty pageant. He joined Miss World Spain in 2015 but did not win. Mireia Lalaguna, who won the contest, went on to win the Miss World title that year. Although he lost in 2015, Angela told the Daily Mail that he already felt like...

The reign in Spain of virtue-signaling on mass migration ended abruptly yesterday, after less than two weeks.  Even the socialists in Europe are starting to realize that their populace does not want millions more impoverished "migrants" from cultures and religions that shun assimilation and consider generous welfare subsidies as tribute from the infidels, a signal of weakness and submission.  Dramatic evidence is provided by Spain, which just this month installed the secretary-general of the Spanish Socialist Workers' party, Pedro Sánchez, as prime minister. When Italy's new populist government refused to allow the M.S. Aquarius, jammed with 629 North Africans, to land, and turned...

Why does this keep happening? Sexual assault occurs in all cultures, but only in Islam does it have divine sanction. One survivor of a Muslim rape gang in the UK said that her rapists would quote Quran to her, and believed their actions justified by Islam. The Qur’an teaches that Infidel women can be lawfully taken for sexual use (cf. its allowance for a man to take “captives of the right hand,” 4:3, 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50, 70:30). The Qur’an says: “O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves of...

Madrid (AFP) - Spain's new Socialist government is determined to remove the remains of Francisco Franco from a vast mausoleum near Madrid and turn it into a place of "reconciliation" for a country still coming to terms with the dictator's legacy. "We don't have a date yet, but the government will do it," Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said late Monday during his first television interview since being sworn in on June 2 after toppling his conservative predecessor Mariano Rajoy in a confidence vote. He recalled that a non-binding motion approved last year in parliament called for Franco's remains to be...

Spain's new socialist government promised on Friday it would restore free healthcare for undocumented migrants, a right removed by the former administration as part of cost-cutting. The move is the latest migrant-friendly initiative by the government of Pedro Sanchez, who offered on Monday to take in a rescue ship that was drifting in the Mediterranean sea with 629 migrants on board. Italy and Malta had refused to let it dock. The government will draw up a draft law with the proposal, it said, which must be approved by parliament. Although the Socialists have a minority of 84 seats in the...

Italy’s interior minister has sparked a new migration crisis in the Mediterranean by barring two rescue boats from bringing refugees to shore, a week . “Two other ships with the flag of Netherlands, Lifeline and Seefuchs, have arrived off the coast of Libya, waiting for their load of human beings abandoned by the smugglers,” Matteo Salvini, the leader of the anti-immigrant party the League, wrote on his Facebook page. “These gentlemen know that Italy no longer wants to be complicit in the business of illegal immigration, and therefore will have to look for other ports [not Italian] where to go.”...

VALENCIA, Spain (Reuters) - A migrant rescue boat turned away by Italy and Malta arrived at the Spanish port of Valencia on Sunday, ending a gruelling voyage which has made it a symbol of Europe's failure to agree on immigration. Spain swooped to help 629 mainly sub-Saharan Africans on board the Aquarius last week after Italy's new government, asserting its anti-immigrant credentials, refused to let it dock. Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who took office two weeks ago, took the opportunity to show a more liberal stance. But the plight of the Aquarius, run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) with...

Spain’s new socialist government promised on Friday it would restore free healthcare for undocumented migrants, a right removed by the former administration as part of cost-cutting.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Talks with the United States over how to reform the main U.N. rights body have failed to meet Washington’s demands, activists and diplomats say, suggesting that the Trump administration will quit the Geneva forum whose session opens on Monday. A U.S. source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the withdrawal appeared to be “imminent” but had no details. Diplomatic sources said it was not a question of if but of when the United States retreats from the Human Rights Council, which is holding a three-week session through July 6. A separate U.S. official in Geneva had...

Pedro Sanchez aims to remove Catholicism from public lifePolitical changes in the West mostly occur through the ballot box. A week ago, however, one exception to that rule took place in the Kingdom of Spain. On June 1, the governing People's Party lost a motion of censure which amounts to a vote of no confidence without an election, forcing Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to resign and the main opposition leader Pedro Sanchez to assume the post and form a government. The People's Party, which had won the last three elections in Spain, lost the vote to a coalition of opposition...