The Spain Report
By Matthew Bennett
issues
The problem is the TV footage, not a pencil and paper
The provincial court judge in Huelva, Florentino Ruiz Yamuza, today published his order with the arguments for throwing all journalists out of the entire Laura Luelmo murder trial. All the parties asked him to do it, he asked the jury and then of course argue…
Andalusia Court Turns Murder Trial Into News Blackhole
Another public authority in Spain, in this case judicial and not political, decided on Monday that it is best to close everything off to journalists and that society should neither see nor know anything about what is happening inside. Instead of regional gove…
Spain trying to acquire 50 F-35 fighters from US
Spain is one of three European countries trying to acquire Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters from the United States, Janes reports. The other two are Greece and the Czech Republic.Janes reports Spain wants 50 of the super fighters, 25 x …
Spanish farmers warn on agriculture inflation
Spanish farmers have warned agriculture production costs are skyrocketing and want "urgent" help from the national and regional governments to stop producers being crushed by wholesale buyers trying to keep prices in supermarkets down.COAG says the "brutal" r…
Conversation with Rupert Cocke on Spain, fascism, democracy, politics, media
We chat about his recent article "Dismantling the narrative that Spain is a fascist state". Spain, Franco, the Transition, Zapatero, Catalan separtism, the evolution of media, politics, technology, the economy and the rise of Vox.Dismantling the narrative tha…
Pablo Iglesias, a Nazi pistol and accusation in the mirror
Pablo Iglesias, the former Podemos Deputy Prime Minister of Spain, has published an article on an online site called Context. Clearly with the approval of the editor of that publication, Miguel Mora, the shocking thing about it is the image they've chosen to …
News reporting in democracy is a right, not a luxury
We must talk for a minute about the perception some readers have about the media coverage of news events when they are mixed up with institutions and governments. One example has been the zero original reporting in Spanish in Kabul in recent weeks. Another al…
Why did Spanish media not go and report from Kabul?
Three weeks ago, the first videos and information out of Kabul about the then rapid Taliban advance towards the Afghan capital were mostly mobile phone videos shared on different social platforms, and tweets. Then correspondents for some of the largest media …
Vox goes after three senior judges and court clerk
Either this is a gigantic waste of court time to try to win the political narrative, or the high court in Andalusia got something wrong.It can't be both. Vox can't have been notified of the time of the hearing in Seville about Abascal's controversial rally in…
Spain solves Ceuta crisis without Vox
Faced with the chaos and uncertainty of the past two days, calm has returned to Tarajal beach in Ceuta, in Spanish North Africa. The latest official number of people sent straight back to Morocco is up to 5,600 and the number of children to somehow be managed…
Sudden diplomatic disaster for Sánchez in North Africa
Morocco does not seem to have a problem with what is happening in the Spanish North African city of Ceuta. Its police forces allowed up to 9,000 people (TVE report) to rush across the border into Spain and Europe over a period of about 36 hours. At least 1,50…
Spain's glorious multicoloured political pluralism
"Spanirds are fed up with the lies", Vox wrote in a tweet recently; "our next mission: to get Spain back". "Sánchez has abandoned Spaniards", announced the Popular Party spokeswoman. "Pablo Casado and the Popular Party are the first choice for Spaniards", the…