We should not be surprised that those convicted of the ERE fraud in Andalusia have received with indignation the announcement, strange and untimely, that the acting Government of Pedro Sánchez has decided to reactivate the pardon of all of them. Nothing should surprise us because dignity, when you have it, does not know about bars. Like that Andalusian day laborer, in times of the Republic, when the chief of the town approached him and threw him a handful of coins, the same ones with which he bought votes and wills.. The laborer looked at him intently and threw the coins aside: “in my hunger I am in charge.”. What is the point now that the Government of Pedro Sánchez announces that it has decided to activate the pardon of the ERE? It makes no sense whatsoever and gives off an unmistakable air of manipulation, which many of the condemned politicians of the ERE could well paraphrase the day laborer, in my prison I rule.

Above all, those who have already begun to enjoy the third degree in the prison regime, as happened last June with José Antonio Viera, one of the signatories, as advisor, of the famous document by which the reptile fund was created to grant subsidies and aid to companies, without any control. Or like the former president of the Junta de Andalucía, José Antonio Griñán, who is not even likely to go to jail, due to the serious illness he suffers from.. The last thing that the Provincial Court of Seville decided, which sentenced him, was to grant him a five-year suspension for his entry into prison.. If we think that Griñán is 77 years old, it is normal that, at the end of that period, at 82 years old, he will never have to go to prison. With which, we return to the first thing: now that many of them, all former senior officials of the Andalusian administration, have gone through the public humiliation of finding themselves behind bars, why does the Government say that it has given the order to reactivate their pardons? , although he cannot do anything either because he is in office.

All of the above would simply seem absurd if we did not suspect that, in politics, these types of announcements always pursue an end, which may be very different from what is proclaimed.. Let us think, for example, that some of the Moncloa advisors have thought it convenient to do so to see if news like that about the ERE, which always causes a stir in public opinion due to the multi-million dollar volume of fraud, serves to compensate or dilute the growing scandal of the amnesty for Catalan independentists. It wouldn't also be the first time this has happened.. Already in December of last year, when it was decided to modify the Penal Code, with the suppression of the crime of sedition and the reduction of embezzlement, those convicted of the ERE ended up exploding when they sensed that they wanted to be used.

It was, precisely, Griñán's lawyer, former socialist deputy José María Mohedano, who echoed the discomfort in an interview with Alsina on Onda Cero. Mohedano, a member of the Association for the Defense of Transition Values, then revealed that “some people from the Government or Government envoys” had tried to convince them that this reform could benefit them too, so that they would be in favor of the changes. But the ERE convicts rejected it outright: “Mr. Griñán and the other convicts consider that this embezzlement reform is an affront because it makes them enter into a package in favor of the independentists of Esquerra Republicana, and that is an indignity and an insult to them”.

The announcement by the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, full of contradictions and legal inaccuracies, abounds in suspicions of the tortuous use of the Andalusian socialists' request for pardon. What the minister said is that the processing of those nine pardons was being carried out “normally, in the same way as all the others”, and that, in any case, this Government could not resolve it “when it was in office.”. Neither statement is supported.. Firstly, a government in office can grant pardons because it is not the first time that such an issue has arisen and the Supreme Court resolved it almost twenty years ago.. It was the Third Chamber, in ruling 8303/2005, of December 2, that considered that the denial of a pardon is a matter that can be included within the concept of ordinary office because, as the pardon refers to a specific case , has no meaning of political orientation.

Aside from the discrepancies that may be had with that ruling, what is striking is that the Minister of Justice, nor her advisors, are aware of that ruling.. Nor is the statement that the ERE pardons are being processed “like all the others” rigorous.. The processing of pardons is not guided by an established rule, with set deadlines, but rather obeys the interest of the Government. Sometimes, the granting of pardons is accelerated and, in others, it lasts forever, and the files end up lost in some drawer of the Ministry. Pardons for those convicted of the 2007 Catalan sedition, for example, were only activated when President Pedro Sánchez considered it appropriate..

Until 2020, the president always repeated when asked that “pardons are not on the table” and that, furthermore, it made no sense.. “Once the sentence is known, the pardon debate falls under its own weight, first of all because of the position I established the day the Supreme Court's sentence was known.. But, secondly, even by the independence leaders themselves who have said that they do not want a pardon, some with very strong phrases,” Sánchez said at the end of 2019.. He was referring to statements by Oriol Junqueras in which he invited the Government to “put the pardon in wherever it fits.” A year and a half later, the criteria radically changed and the pardon for the independence supporters was accelerated. The case of the ERE is similar, but only in political intention: the request was made in September of last year, when the final ruling of the Supreme Court was known, and it has only been publicly activated on two occasions, at the end of that year. when the aforementioned reform of the Penal Code was being processed in favor of the Catalan independentists and now, when an amnesty law is being negotiated, in favor of them. That is to say, something more than coincidences to be able to conclude that yes, it is normal for those affected by the ERE of Andalusia to reject the use and abuse of their pardons, always to benefit third parties.

“Whoever wants us to give our votes to the PP, should vote for the PP”. Santiago Abascal's warning, repeated over and over again during the municipal and regional campaign of 28-M, marked subsequent negotiations in which Vox would achieve its greatest share of power. Six regional governments and up to 140 town councils have turned green since then, with a trickle of agreements without which the result of the general elections cannot be understood.. Now, five months after those elections, the party intends to squeeze even more out of its results.

Vox is putting pressure on the PP to enter the big cities where it was left out of the municipal government. This is the case of Valencia and Seville, the third and fourth cities in Spain in terms of number of inhabitants.. With the PSOE governing in Barcelona and Almeida's absolute majority in Madrid, Valencia and Seville are the main municipalities where the PP needs the support of Vox to approve the budgets. After confirming the pact in the Region of Murcia, the last autonomy that was resisting, the party has issued the same warning in the two town councils where it has the most influence: if they do not come to govern, there will be no support for the accounts.

Vox has insisted during the last week on the importance of being in governments after what happened in Gijón, where Foro Asturias expelled the councilors of the coalition. The general secretary, Ignacio Garriga, did it first in Seville, where he pointed out the withdrawal of Juanma Moreno's Doñana irrigation law in Andalusia as an example of what happens when the PP governs alone; and then in Zaragoza, the fifth city in Spain—waiting for the INE update—and where the PP mayor's office also depends on its support.. In the case of the Aragonese capital, at the moment there is good understanding, although in both Seville and Valencia the order has already been launched to start managing as soon as possible..

It was precisely the Government of Mariano Rajoy that modified the Law on Rationalization and Sustainability of Local Administration in 2013 to make governance more comfortable in town councils with minority mayors.. The Governing Board of a town hall has tools to carry out day-to-day management without going through the plenary session. But issues such as municipal budgets or major decisions on urban planning require the search for consensus to gather majorities, a weapon that the ultra-conservatives now use to pressure the PP mayors..

The Vox representation in the Andalusian capital was the first to press, revealing a conversation with the PP after the municipal elections. According to the group's spokesperson in the Seville City Council, Cristina Peláez, the current councilor was willing to allow his entry into the Government, although he asked him to wait until August, when the general elections were over.. Not receiving any calls after the summer, Vox went on the counterattack. The mayor, José Luis Sanz, denies that commitment and, according to municipal sources, maintains his total determination to continue governing alone, despite the fact that integrating the three Vox councilors would guarantee him approving all the projects with an absolute majority —the PP has 14 of the 31 councilors—. Next week the round of contacts will begin to prepare the budgets and he will negotiate with all the groups, starting with the PSOE, the first party that Sanz will mention.

Vox has already left the PP alone in several of its proposals raised in recent weeks. Recently, he stopped the call for an emergency plenary session to approve a budget modification of 14 million euros. The party did not tolerate being warned less than 48 hours in advance and the PP accused it of “boycotting” Seville. “We want to enter to change the policies. The people of Seville placed us in the co-government and the mayor in the opposition”, summary from Vox in Seville.

Surrounding the mayor of Valencia

The approval of the municipal budgets will also mark a turning point in the relationship between the PP and Vox in Valencia, the third capital of Spain in number of inhabitants. Vox has been increasing the pressure on the mayor, the popular María José Catalá, to touch real power as the months have passed since her inauguration on June 17. Already then, the first mayor asserted the absence of an alternative with an absolute majority to be elected as the head of the most voted list, as established by Loreg, without the four votes of the ultra-conservative formation..

But in recent days, the Voxist spokesman, Juan Manuel Badenas, has warned that there will be no budget agreement without a prior governance pact, while he has put his party in opposition mode on issues such as the New Mestalla agreement, questioning even the Councilor for Large Projects, José Marí Olano, for his compatibility as councilor and partner in the Legal area of KPMG in the Valencian Community. “Things must follow their logic and the logic is that first a general agreement is reached and then agreements are made on particular issues, including those related to tax ordinances and the budget,” he said..

However, the PP has been taking steps in budgetary and fiscal matters that will test Vox's ability to maintain its resistance when matters have to be submitted to a vote by the corporation's plenary session.. The Government Board, controlled by the popular party, approved this Friday the tax ordinances for 2024, a step prior to preparing the budget, with significant reductions of 20% in the IBI, 8.5% in the circulation tax or the bonus 95% of the capital gain in the event of transmission by succession or family donation. The fiscal package will mean a reduction in income of 70 million for the municipal coffers and the same savings for the citizens' pockets, although the PP has inherited a healthy local treasury, with 300 million in cash on hand, thanks to the progressive reduction of debt made by the previous local government of Compromís and PSOE.

Vox has been critical of the package of ordinances, not because of its content, but because it maintains that it has barely been consulted for its preparation. Badenas has already announced that they will vote against, and has launched a first message knocking down the renewal and salary increases of the leadership of the Municipal Transport Company (EMT) proposed by Catalá. The question is whether she will maintain her position until the end by forcing a budget extension, something for which the mayor's team is already preparing, or will she finally vote in favor of accounts that reflect a large part of her political positions on tax matters.. Badenas insists that under current conditions his vote will be negative.

With its thirteen councillors, the position of the PP of Valencia has been to make decisions and reach agreements on specific issues without giving up management areas.. Catalá relied on Vox to carry out the tribute package to the deceased Rita Barberá in exchange for accelerating the changes in the toponymy, including the accent on the name in Valencian against the criteria of the Valencian Academy of Language. He assigned the Vox councilors exclusive dedication so that they could collect the maximum salary, up to 74,431 euros gross per year, but Badenas and another of the councilors, José Gosálbez, renounced the exclusive dedication after a complaint from the PSPV-PSOE to the Valencian Agency Anti fraud. Catalá's intention is to exhaust the options as much as possible before introducing Vox into the municipal government. In the ranks of his team they do not trust the intentions of Badenas, who is known for his tense relationship with the mayor.

• Jorge Rey warns of the change in weather that will arrive next week and which areas it will affect
• A “squall train” will parade through Spain on the Pilar bridge, leaving abundant rains

After a few days in which the summer of San Miguel has brought temperatures above what would be usual, now autumn has arrived with force and bad weather is a reality. According to the AEMET, Spain faces the arrival of storms in some areas of the country.

Starting this Saturday, October 14, but especially from Sunday the 15th, the rains will be widespread. The agency warns that we must be prepared and with umbrellas in hand for the drastic change that will be felt in the coming hours.

📢 #AEMET informs: change of time
➡️ Day 13, first weak rainfall and drop in temperatures in the northwest of the peninsula.
➡️ Day 14 general drop in temperatures except in the east, Canary Islands and Balearic Islands.
➡️ Day 15 widespread rainfall (see image)
🧵 pic.twitter.com/68qMWXrjEx

— AEMET (@AEMET_Esp) October 11, 2023

The storms will bring with them a drop in temperatures, strong wind and rain. The most affected areas will be Asturias, Catalonia, Galicia and the Balearic Islands, with a significant level of risk and precipitation of between 20 and 40 millimeters of rainwater accumulated in one hour..

What will happen in the rest of the country?

The worst of this storm will be seen from Monday the 16th, when the rains will be more widespread and alarms will go off in the other autonomous communities..

“The Peninsula and the Balearic Islands are expected to continue under cloudy skies with abundant rainfall and the occasional storm.. Although with uncertainty, it is expected that these will be more intense in Galicia, the central system, the Pyrenees, the Catalan coasts and western Andalusia.”.

Evolution of the situation on the surface for the next 72 hours, https://t.co/XZgPFkyP2Q pic.twitter.com/TqOFO8GZQ2

— AEMET (@AEMET_Esp) October 14, 2023

As for the Canary Islands, the AEMET has also indicated that a certain instability is expected with intense rainfall in the south of the archipelago and a drop in temperatures..

The circulation of the high-speed trains that link Madrid with Valencia and Alicante has been restored normally after having been suspended throughout this Friday due to an incident in the railway infrastructure that has affected the three operators that provide service on this line ( Renfe, Ouigo and Iryo).

Adif has communicated in a note that traffic has resumed on both roads once the repair work on an element of its electrical system, the catenary, in the vicinity of Monteagudo de las Salinas (Cuenca) has been completed.. Once circulation has resumed, Adif has indicated that it is analyzing the causes of the different incidents.

INFO: Suspension of circulation on the Madrid-Levante High Speed Lines.

👉🏻 https://t.co/zaZC19grne

For Renfe trains stopped along the way, a bus shuttle service is established between Albacete and Cuenca. In addition, Renfe has enabled empty material…

— InfoRenfe (@Inforenfe) October 13, 2023

In the middle of the Pilar bridge, the breakdown has affected thousands of travelers: Ouigo sources have explained to EFE that eight trains have been suspended and 3,983 passengers are affected; and from Iryo they estimate that 3,000 passengers have been affected by the cancellation of 12 trains, although two of them have relocated the passengers. Renfe has not provided figures. The tracks affected by the incidents were released this Friday afternoon, shortly after 6:00 p.m., once the trains stopped on the route have been removed and Adif has intensified the repair work, the railway infrastructure manager has reported..

This Friday morning, as reported by Adif, at 8:20 a.m., an incident at the facilities in Monteagudo de las Salinas (Cuenca) and, from 8:47 a.m., a lack of tension in the catenary between this municipality and Bifurcación Albacete forced to travel on a single track on this route. As a result of this lack of tension, a train operated by the operator Ouigo (of the French SNCF) has been stopped on the route..

Furthermore, since 11:56 a.m. yesterday, an incident that affects the electrification system (pantograph/catenary) has caused the stoppage of a high-speed train, which interrupts circulation on both tracks on the Monteagudo-Albacete Bifurcation section..

Due to an incident at the @Adif_es facilities in Monteagudo, the circulation of the High Speed trains on the Madrid – València and Madrid – Alicante lines is interrupted.
Customers who wish to change their ticket or cancel it may do so without…

— InfoRenfe (@Inforenfe) October 13, 2023

As a result of their evacuation, the railway infrastructure manager has announced that circulation on this high-speed line is suspended today..

Renfe has reported that a bus shuttle service is established between Albacete and Cuenca for its trains stopped along the route.. In addition, the public operator has enabled empty material from Fuencarral to rescue the passengers of the Ouigo train stopped on the route, who have already been evacuated. Likewise, it has reinforced information and customer service personnel in the affected stations..

Renfe is contacting affected travelers to save them the trip to their station of origin and to inform them that they can change their ticket to travel another day or cancel it free of charge..

Atocha and Chamartín remain open all night

Adif reported that the Madrid stations of Chamartín and Atocha will remain open throughout the morning “to accommodate travelers who need it”. In Atocha, in addition, a room on the first floor was kept open for travelers arriving from Albacete via the conventional network..

The extension of the business hours of some restaurants at the Chamartín station was also managed to serve travelers.. Specifically, the Navelgas cafeteria extended its hours from 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.; and Areas will keep the Coffe And Bakery location open until that time. The opening hours in the morning will be at 6:30 a.m.

The coalition government, formed by PSOE and Unidas Podemos, has given the green light to contracts worth more than 16,000 million in defense matters since it has been in office.. In the nine meetings of the Council of Ministers that have been held since last July 23, there have been numerous agreements or contracts on this matter and their nature is very diverse.. They range from the agreement that will allow, for up to 4 years, to finance support for the Navy's S-80 submarines to the acquisition of a maritime surveillance aircraft system. And all this has happened without the Morados or Sumar raising their voices in a very strident manner despite the anti-militarist component of these formations..

It must be taken into account that this amount does not appear in full in the General State Budgets of a single year.. In many cases these are commitments that extend over several years and even beyond one legislature.. This is what happens, for example, with the program to acquire 25 new Eurofighters that will replace the American-made F-18s that now serve in the Armed Forces.. This measure is included in the modification of the spending ceiling that received the green light at the Council of Ministers meeting on September 12 and, in the case of the replacement of the fighters, will be extended until 2035.. By then, the State will have dedicated more than 4.5 billion euros to this task.

The meeting of September 12 is the one that included greater spending on its agenda, with some 8.8 billion blocked in the next decade for the purchase of materials and programs for the three armies.. Within the package was also the conclusion of the contract to acquire “an aerial multi-sensor surveillance system” to replace the current maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft.. According to the reference that is published after each Council of Ministers, the processing of the file to purchase these 16 aircraft will serve to “recover the military capabilities necessary to meet NATO objectives for Spain.”. And here, in this sentence, is the key that explains the deployment of spending launched by the Government of Pedro Sánchez in terms of defense..

NATO is the key

The objective of many of these purchases or increases in the spending ceiling is to “guarantee the national commitments acquired” with the Atlantic Alliance. This is nothing other than achieving the objective of dedicating 2% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to defense. In 2022, the last full year, the percentage dedicated to the area directed by Margarita Robles was 1.47% and Pedro Sánchez's commitment to NATO has a limit of 2029, so logic says that these types of contracts will not make more than multiplying in the next legislature if the socialist manages to be invested again and form a Government. An Executive of which Sumar will be a part with complete security if it is formed.

It must be taken into account that many of the programs that have received the green light in recent weeks come from previous commitments, but the fury of defense spending has a lot to do with the geopolitical scenario. The war waged by Russia, under the mandate of Vladimir Putin, in Ukraine, has turned the paradigms that existed just two years ago on its head.. Analysts, as this media has previously reported, find another explanation for this investment vigor: the State of the materials that the Armed Forces have, which has made it almost mandatory to launch some of these contracts..

The coalition government, reports Enrique Andrés Pretel, has promoted in this legislature some 25 new weapons programs (more than 26,000 million euros for future exercises), in addition to allocating resources to more than a dozen of those that were ongoing. But getting them ahead requires bureaucracy.. The arms plans must go through the Council of Ministers twice, once to receive the green light and once for the authorization of the contract.. Defense had promoted 18 new projects since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine and the sector was preparing to digest more than 15,000 million euros pending final green light before the electoral advance.

What has happened later is that many of these programs are those that have received the blessing of the Council of Ministers after the electoral call.. Unidas Podemos has protested these decisions, although without much fuss. Ione Belarra, General Secretary of Podemos and Minister of Social Rights, published a tweet on September 15, two days after the meeting that gave the green light to 8.8 billion in spending, to show her disagreement.. “Every euro that is allocated to increasing military spending is not dedicated to health, education or economically protecting families,” said the purple leader on her X account, the old Twitter. Sources from Unidas Podemos add that Belarra showed her rejection of the contracts and agreements within the Council of Ministers.

The PSOE, for its part, avoids the military debate and promotes this type of decisions protected by Sánchez's commitments to NATO, which have not been affected by the elections or by the almost three months that the Government has been in office, as demonstrate the dozens of agreements approved on these dates. These types of decisions do not have to go through Congress, where they could even garner the support of the PP, which has shown itself open to doing so. However, taking the debate to the Lower House would give rise to dissension between the partners of the Executive and the PSOE with some of the potential allies who should support Sánchez's investiture. This practice also includes the decision to modify the agreement with the US to expand the number of ships stationed at the Rota base, which has not passed through the San Jerónimo Race.

No full democracy today would choose as a national day the holy war of a Christian king of the 13th century or the conquest of new transatlantic territories for the Trastámara of the 15th century.. However, the disease of origins, which infected nineteenth-century romantic Europe, caused the new national and regional collective identities to search for a remote past that would legitimize their contemporary political and cultural purposes.. Thus, after a long process, between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, national spirits, mass commemorative exercises, nationalisms and their consequent industrialized wars germinated..

In 1855, during the Crimean War between the Russian Empire and a British and French coalition, for the first time in history a journalist captured war snapshots. Photographer Roger Fenton was sent by the British crown to show, in the Illustrated London News, the friendly side of the battle. The anti-war story of the popular newspaper The Times had to be neutralized with images of soldiers posing relaxed, talks in the camps and arid landscapes of Balaklava that conveyed calm and pride to British public opinion.. The founding act of war reporting turned out to be government media manipulation. Just seven years later, American photographers would reflect the massacres of their Civil War.

For almost two centuries, war photojournalism has shown the harshness of armed conflicts, and year after year World Press Photo rewards some of these captures. On October 17, the contest will arrive at the Chirivella Soriano Foundation of Contemporary Art, in Valencia, with an image of the Ukraine contest as the winner. In the 2006 edition, Benito Pajares (Palencia, 1954) was one of the winners.

This photographer, Valencian by adoption, developed his entire professional career in the city of Turia. Now, retired, he works as a volunteer in the local NGO Together for Life, with which he traveled to Ukraine on March 1, 2022. “I came to Valencia in the mid-eighties, following the woman who is now my wife.. And it was here where the photography bug hit me.. I set up a store with a studio on Avenida del Cid and started traveling to make photo reports.. Around 1995, I started working in the Valencian delegation of El Mundo and until the 2008 crisis my work as a photojournalist worked well.. The World Press Photo is something like the Oscars of photojournalism and has a certain prestige, but I continued with my work without more or less offers.. It was anecdotal although it is still an honor,” remembers Benito..

That distinction came after a report in the Sahara. Among the destinations of the Palentine are nations such as Ethiopia, Madagascar, the Philippines, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Mozambique, the Philippines, Cambodia and India.. “I was looking for a topic on which to focus my report and, once this was resolved, I traveled to the country in question. Above all, I was interested in social and documentary themes, but I also came across conflict zones, such as Donbas in 2015.. The Together for Life foundation has been bringing Ukrainian children from the Chernobyl region to Valencian territory for decades twice a year.. When the Russian bombings began throughout Ukraine, in 2022, we went to Medyka, on the Polish border, to try to transfer refugees to Spain,” says Pajares, “in March, 3,000 to 5,000 people passed through there every day, we told all our contacts that if they arrived in Medyka, the buses would be waiting and we would provide them with shelters in Valencia”.

When the avalanche of refugees over the border stopped, Pajares entered Ukraine, along with his companions, to supply food, medicine and clothing to the population that decided to remain in their homes.. It was April 2022. “Every month a truck from the foundation continues to arrive in Ukraine. I have seen missiles flying over us daily, but people act as if life continues as normal, despite the escalation of the conflict. Many do not consider leaving there even if we make it possible for them, they want to live in their houses even though they are destroyed,” explains the cameraman, “the first time we heard an alarm in Lviv, people ran looking for protection wherever they could.. Now the alerts are sounding and the Ukrainians lead a normal life, unless a bomb falls in their area.”.

Pajares' intention was not to make a photographic report, but to help as another volunteer.. Even so, over three months he portrayed the Ukrainian reality and the consequences of the bombings on the civilian population, capturing one of the few Valencian professional documents related to the Russian-Ukrainian war.. His work “Destination life. Photographic chronicle of the Ukrainian exodus” was inaugurated at the La Nau Cultural Center and is currently exhibited at the Alboraia House of Culture. “The time I was there, from March to May, I carried a humanitarian aid box in one hand and my camera in the other.. On the Polish border I found fellow journalists, but in April it began to empty of press. Today's freelance reporting involves risking your life in a fire zone to earn a pittance, as I confirmed with a young journalist, with hardly any experience, who made connections for a private Spanish television.. Now, with a new open conflict in the Middle East, the media focus will shift and we will probably forget Ukraine for a while,” concludes the veteran photographer..

Íñigo Errejón begins to take steps to surrender his —modest— castles to the organization that Yolanda Díaz plans to build. In a good part of the territories, Más País has no organization and has few staff. And Movimiento Sumar continues to be an “instrumental party” without bodies, which waits for a government to be formed before even announcing the date of its first assembly, scheduled for the end of 2023 or beginning of 2024.. In this framework, the deputy has already celebrated the dissolution of Más País Andalucía, last weekend, to join a formation that has not yet announced concrete steps in any territory. It has barely made public that it wants to establish itself in Euskadi, and it is foreseeable that it will do the same in Galicia, given that next year there will be elections in both autonomous communities..

The operation, in the words of a former leader of one of the organizations within the confluence led by Díaz, involves integrating “nothing” into “nothing.”. And this, they add from the second vice president's party, whenever those responsible for piloting the construction of Sumar in the different territories decide to open the doors to them.. In Andalusia, where IU (specifically, the PCE) took the majority of starting positions for the general elections of 23-J, they interpret that the movement makes sense, but they warn that each territory must follow its own logic. Sumar's “objective” is to “expand democracy” and “the political space,” they say, paraphrasing Díaz, and “not integrate other parties” without further ado.. There have been approaches in regions such as Murcia, but they affirm that today there are no accessions, as such, on the table. The intention is that they continue to occur, and the second vice president's team knows it..

“We have decided that, instead of working for the brand with which we have done it these three years, we are going to put our strength into motion Sumar, providing it with a base and structure that has yet to be defined,” he said last weekend Esperanza Gómez, leader of the party in Andalusia. On Monday, the spokesperson for Díaz's party, Ernest Urtasun, praised the step taken by Gómez: “It is excellent news that the parties are involved in the construction of Sumar.”. In the same press conference, he encouraged the rest of the formations to participate in the constitution of the party. To “paddle in the direction of building a winning project”.

The political decision of Más País, advanced by eldiario.es and confirmed by El Confidencial, is to join the construction of the organization in the rest of the territories, but there are several areas that are prohibited from doing so.. Nobody contemplates that the second vice president tries to land her own project in Catalonia, in the Valencian Community or in Madrid. They are the fiefdoms of the Comunes, Compromís and Más Madrid, the group that Errejón helped found, with which he participates in events and rallies, but in which he does not hold organic power.. If Mónica García's party obtained 18% of the votes on March 28, Errejón's Más País barely obtained 7.7% in Asturias, and did not reach 3% in Murcia. The small print is also important: in the first region it participated together with IU, which is the organization of its political space with the greatest weight in Asturias.. In the second, it fell behind the coalition of IU, Podemos, Alianza Verde and Equo, and did not even achieve representation in Parliament..

Errejón entered Congress as number 4 for Madrid, within the Más Madrid quota, but does not have a specific role in this party. More Madrid is facing the Congress these days in which García will revalidate his leadership and update the direction, which is expected to end at the end of November. The former leader of Podemos, who resigned from being the purple candidate for the Madrid Assembly to create his own brand, left Más Madrid months later to make the jump to the general elections. He made it an ally with Compromís, and they barely achieved three seats.

Today, his role in Sumar also raises questions: of all the parliamentarians aligned with Díaz, he is the only one with experience as a spokesperson in Congress, but he does not hold any of the four spokespersons that were available to him.. Nor does he hold the title of spokesperson, which Urtasun has inherited from the campaign period.. He usually appears on television every week, and even attends interviews that Sumar distributes on its press channels, but it is Urtasun and Marta Lois, along with Díaz, who monopolize the spotlight.. Unlike Enrique Santiago (IU) and, of course, any representative of Podemos, his speech is almost identical to that of Urtasun or Díaz.

The animosity generated by the Madrid politician in Podemos is taken for granted, but there are other organizations in the Sumar space that are already looking askance at this movement.. And what makes him ugly is that in his day he tried to take the reins of the purple party, but without openly disputing Pablo Iglesias for leadership.. They understand that it seeks to “control” the future structures of space, even before the first stone has been officially laid to begin its construction.. They remember that García has already made it clear to her that she is the one who makes the decisions in Más Madrid, and they interpret that Errejón opts for this route to secure organic power that she could not obtain by other means, given that her political project has not taken off..

Publicly, only Podemos and IU have demanded that Díaz address the construction of decision-making and debate bodies within the space, but off camera other parties in the coalition criticize Urtasun's boasting that decisions are made “democratically”, when in good part of the opportunities are informed when they have already been taken. It happened with the legal opinion on the amnesty law, whose pillars IU barely knew, and Podemos, Más Madrid and other parties of the electoral confluence did not know.. The Más País deputy is in the core of trust, he has defended tooth and nail bets such as the universal inheritance that Díaz championed in the campaign, which are not liked in his space.

While the purple ones are taking steps that point to a possible breakup, IU has asked the second vice president to take steps to establish her party as “one more” within the coalition, and to turn it into a “broad front” that guarantees voice and vote to all its members. Errejón's maneuvers are viewed with skepticism among some voices in Sumar, who warn that it is time to generate organization, and not distribute seats.

They are also perceived with distrust by those who do not bless the fact that Díaz has him among his close friends.. Or that he left Podemos to participate in two different elections, regional and general, with two new acronyms, the same year. Or that its subsidiary in the Canary Islands decided to break ties, amidst criticism. With one eye, they observe Errejón's movements, and with another those of Sumar in territories like Euskadi, where the groups that make up Elkarrekin Podemos question that Díaz wants to build his own space, when they already have an “established” brand. Tension grows, but no one expects an explosion until there is a government.

It is worth remembering here and now that Pedro Sánchez wrapped himself in the national flag to debut as a candidate for Moncloa (on June 21, 2015, at the Teatro Circo Price in Madrid). Pay attention to the precedent, because it illustrates the inconsistency of the character: appearing alongside the heavyweights of the PSOE with an enormous reddish background was a scenographic display intended to reinforce his objective of “uniting all Spaniards” under the same flag, to warn to Catalan nationalism from possible secessionist adventures – the challenge had already been launched with Artur Mas in the Generalitat – and to distance himself from his predecessor, Zapatero, who had established doctrine with his famous psalm on the “discussed and debatable” concept of the nation..

Nothing remains of Sánchez's attack of Spanish nationalism. Today it is recognized in its deferential treatment of peripheral nationalisms on which its continuity in power depends.. Although the treatment is not always reciprocated, he insists with a stubbornness worthy of a better cause.. In the name of the governability of Spain, while these groups get tired of proclaiming their undisguised desire to stop being Spanish.

For the day after the National Holiday, yesterday, was the last turn of Sánchez's round of trials with the parliamentary groups that will be photographed at the investiture.. It was the turn of the hardest to beat. One Basque, Bildu, and the other Catalan, Junts, the most belligerent against a poorly defended institutional order, because the one who governs and the one who can govern from the centrality of the system, where the vast majority of the Spanish.

Since a dear colleague told me “never bet against Sánchez again because you will lose again”, I have been tempting my clothes before risking deciphering the plans of the acting president after the jug of cold water from the Junts spokesperson, Míriam Nogueras, with which the round of consultations was closed, although everything depends on the work of the respective negotiating commissions that will try to achieve the white smoke of the agreement. As a result of Sánchez's “capacity for dialogue” with those who are different, some say, or his “capacity for giving up,” according to others..

If you didn't mind the selfie with Bildu (there was no precedent), a week after this pro-independence coalition refused to condemn the desecration of the tomb of the socialist Fernando Buesa (vilely murdered by ETA in 2000), you shouldn't either. import to imitate his vice president, Yolanda Díaz, and dance the water to the Waterloo fugitive, Carlos Puigdemont. At least in a telephone appointment, as he already did with Oriol Junqueras, another accredited activist against the constitutional order.

Therefore, I will limit myself to being descriptive: the possibilities of returning to the polls increase after the meeting of the candidate Sánchez with Míriam Nogueras, who represents the will of Carles Puigdemont and shepherds the vote of the decisive seven Junts deputies in the upcoming investiture of the Acting Prime Minister.

The negotiating positions remain “far away,” according to the spokesperson for this pro-independence force in Congress. He does not consider anything closed, but he continues to ask for the moon in the terms expressed by Puigdemont on September 5 in Brussels, to which he refers. Basically, preconditions that have been half fulfilled until now, amnesty without renunciation of unilateralism and a “self-determination referendum agreed with the State”, as the only way to replace the political mandate of the illegal consultation of October 1.

We return to the pools that have stunned us since July 23, due to something as serious as the governability of the State, which continues to be in the hands of the enemies of the State. I insist: it is not an opinion, but a pure description of a moment that increasingly reminds us of the immobilization of the collapse in the famous painting Explosion in the Cathedral (17th century) that inspired the surrealists..

Izquierda Unida and Podemos have been absent from the five minutes of silence called in memory of Maya Villalobo, the young woman from Seville who died in Israel during the Hamas attack. In a tribute called in Seville, the city of her paternal family, the left has avoided appearing in the photo along with the rest of the municipal Corporation and the relatives of the Spanish-Israeli, who was carrying out compulsory military service near the Gaza Strip. The gesture joins what happened in Madrid, where Más Madrid and the PSOE have organized a parallel minute of silence “for each and every one of the victims”.

The Seville City Council, governed by the PP, had called for five minutes of silence “as a sign of rejection and solidarity for the death of the young woman from Seville and all the victims of Israel”. Although they included the rest of the municipal Corporation, the two councilors of Con Podemos-IU avoided being in the photo because the call did not take into account the suffering of the other side.. “The pain and suffering of so many decades of the Palestinian people has been ignored due to a situation of occupation and apartheid by an oppressive government such as Israel,” said the spokesperson for the municipal group, Susana Hornillo..

Maya Villalobo had permission to be in Seville this Thursday to celebrate her father's birthday. “But the birthday is going to be a funeral,” said José María Villalobo, Maya's uncle and brother of the father, who is already in Israel, where the young woman's funeral will be held.. Although she lived there with her mother, Maya spent long periods of time in Seville with her paternal family, which is why the City Council wanted to make this tribute. Despite the gesture, Hornillo was present at the rally and took advantage of the Control and Inspection Commission to justify his absence in the photo.. Before asking his question, he wanted to express his “deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of Maya Villalobo, who has been murdered,” in addition to his “solidarity with the Palestinian people.”.

The left also wanted to mark distance from the rest of the parties in Madrid. After observing a minute of silence dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attacks, the leader of Más Madrid, Mónica García, asked for a second tribute for “each and every one of the civilian victims”. The alternative had the support of the PSOE, which also put its deputies on their feet to support the initiative. The president of the Assembly, Enrique Ossorio, tried to interrupt the alternative minute of silence and recalled that it would be a time that would be deducted from the interventions, although he did not take any measure or sanction, reports Ignacio Calleja.

“It was unconscious to have her on the front line”

Maya's family members were also present at the minute of silence held in Seville.. Her paternal uncle José María Villalobo described it as “absurd” and “tremendous unconsciousness” that the young woman, who was doing mandatory military service at the Nahal Oz base, was on the “front line” in Gaza.. The young woman was completing her mandatory military service and had published photographs with her Army colleagues until shortly before her death.. In Israel, military service is mandatory for all young people and, in the case of women, they must serve a minimum of 24 months.

Maya liked to travel and was, in the words of her family, a teenager “eager to see the world.”. Also “in love with Spain”, a country that she knew not only through her relationship with Seville, but also through her visits to other destinations. The family has thanked all the people around them, dismayed by what happened. After losing track of him, his closest circle had joined the father, the Biology professor at the University of Seville Eduardo Villalobo, in trying to ask for help through social networks. After several days investigating what happened, Foreign Affairs confirmed his death this Wednesday.

The number of complaints and victims of gender violence increased more than 5% in the second quarter of 2023, as reported this Friday by the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) in the 'Quarterly Report on Gender Violence' of the Observatory of Domestic and Gender Violence.

Specifically, according to the CGPJ, between the months of April and June of this 2023, a total of 47,063 women were victims of gender violence, 5.66% more than in the same period of 2022, in which 44,543 were recorded..

Likewise, Spanish courts received a total of 48,227 complaints, 5.43% more than in the same period of the previous year, in which 45,743 were registered.. In addition, the report also shows a year-on-year increase of 2.9% in the number of protection orders granted by violence against women courts and by courts on duty; Regarding the sentences handed down, the figure barely changed, reaching 15,393, 0.22% more than a year ago. Eight out of ten sentences, 80.73%, contained a conviction for the aggressor.

Likewise, it is reflected that, for another quarter, two out of every three victims (65.35%) have Spanish nationality, while the remaining 34.65% come from other countries.. On the other hand, the number of minor victims under guardianship rose to 136, a figure 16% lower than that registered in the same quarter of 2022 (162), but 17.2% higher than that of the first quarter of this year (116).

In the same way, the CGPJ indicates that the rate of victims of gender violence per 10,000 once again experienced an interannual increase, with the national average for the second quarter of the year standing at 19.2 compared to 18.4 a year ago. and 16.6 in the first quarter of 2021.

The Balearic Islands were above the national average, with a ratio of 31.4 victims per 10,000 women; Murcia, with 25.7; Valencian Community, with 25.5; Canary Islands, with 25.2; Andalusia, with 21.9; Madrid, with 20.2; and Navarra, with 19.9. The rates lower than the national average were recorded in Galicia, with 12; Castilla y León, with 13.1; Asturias, with 14.1; Basque Country, with 14.3; Catalonia, with 14.5; Castilla-La Mancha, with 14.7; La Rioja, with 14.9; Cantabria, with 17.8; Aragon, with 17.9; and Extremadura, with 18.5.

The majority of complainants, the victim themselves

Regarding the complaints presented depending on who the complainant was, these remained practically unchanged during the quarter analyzed. Thus, once again, in two out of three cases (34,089, 70.68%), the complaints were filed by the victim herself, either in court or at the police station..

Complaints filed by the victim's entourage were once again much lower in number (891), barely reaching 1.85% of the total, although complaints arising directly from police reports and those originating from injuries increased slightly, which represented 15.73% and 8.19%, respectively, and, finally, those presented by third parties (1,712) which represented 3.55% of the total.

Likewise, the document states that the percentage of victims who took advantage of the exemption from the legal obligation to declare increased “significantly”, specifically 13.8% compared to the same period in 2022, which means that they made this decision ten out of every hundred female victims. In the quarter analyzed, there were 4,742 those who refused to testify against their attacker; Of them, 2,665 (56.2%) were Spanish and 2,077 (43.8%) had other nationalities.

2.08% more requests for protection orders

Likewise, between April and June of this year, a total of 12,763 protection orders were requested from judicial bodies, 2.08% more than a year ago.. Of them, 10,606 were initiated by the violence against women courts and 2,157 by the courts acting as guard..

The protection orders adopted, according to the document, totaled 8,915, 2.9% more than a year ago.. That is, as in the second quarter of 2022, seven out of ten (69.8%) requested protection orders were agreed. The violence against women courts adopted 7,284, 68.7% of the requests they received, while the duty courts agreed to 1,631, 76% of the registered requests..

In 47.1% of the cases, the relationship (spouse or emotional relationship) was maintained at the time of requesting the protection order from the judicial body.. Two out of every three women (6,673, 63.8%) who requested protection were Spanish and 226, 2.1% of the total, including Spanish and foreigners, were minors..

Restraining orders, the most frequent measure

The judicial bodies also agreed, derived from the protection orders and other precautionary measures, a total of 16,352 criminal judicial measures to protect the victims (women and minors).. In the criminal sphere, the most frequent were restraining orders (6,168), which represented 65.86% of the total protection orders and precautionary measures agreed, and the prohibition of communication (6,110), 65.68 percent. of the total.

Likewise, the judicial bodies issued 5,354 civil precautionary measures, whose purpose is the protection of women and minors while the criminal process is resolved.. The most frequent were those related to the provision of food (1,692), which represented 21.73% of the total civil measures adopted, and those related to the attribution of housing (1,128), 14.46% of the total. In both cases, the percentages decreased slightly compared to 2022.

In addition, in the second quarter of this year, 1,011 civil measures to suspend the visitation regime were also agreed.. These types of measures, which represented 12.73% of the total civil measures adopted, were 15.2% less than in the same quarter of 2022.

Carmona asks to reissue the State Pact

The president of the Observatory against Domestic and Gender Violence, Ángeles Carmona, has expressed her concern in a statement about the increase in murders of women at the hands of their partners or ex-partners since the end of 2022 and, in addition, has warned of the “extreme risk” situation. Likewise, he has shown his rejection and has called on all institutions “to increase vigilance” and on society as a whole “to collaborate decisively in the prevention of these very serious events.”.

In the same way, Carmona has pointed out the importance of citizens “assuming and becoming aware” that they can save a person's life.. “In the hands of each one of us may be the life of a victim of gender violence and the life of their daughters and sons.”. In most of the murders that we sadly have to regret, there were no prior complaints,” he recalled..

Likewise, Carmona has asked all institutions involved in the fight against sexist violence, “for a renewed effort to more effectively confront this scourge and to approve measures that focus on the prevention of crimes.”. For his part, he has demanded “unity and consensus” from the political class, since, in his opinion, “it is essential to remove gender violence from the partisan struggle and reissue the State Pact to continue advancing along the path that “Spain, a world pioneer in this matter, started with Law 1/2004 and continued with the agreement of a very large parliamentary majority in 2017.”.

Finally, Carmona highlighted that training and education “are fundamental tools for the eradication of sexist violence.”.