A 58-year-old man died this Friday while he was working on agricultural tasks in the town of Montilla (Córdoba), an area that has been on red alert for heat since this noon. He was harvesting and was autonomous, as indicated by the CCOO and UGT unions.

Sources from the 112 Emergency company have explained to EFE that around 10:00 a.m. this Friday they received an alert that a man was dizzy at his workplace and needed medical assistance..

Sources from the Civil Guard have reported that the man's body has been transferred to the Institute of Legal Medicine where an autopsy is being performed, to find out the causes of death and find out if it was due to heat stroke..

In the region where the death occurred, the Cordoba countryside, the red alert for heat has been activated from 1:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. this Friday.

The fourth section of the Court of Valencia has sentenced a woman who received the orphan's pension of her brother who had died for 24 years to 24 years in prison and without reporting the death to Social Security or the bank where they made the admission. The bank has been declared subsidiary civil liability for not verifying that the holder of the aid was alive.

The sentence considers it proven that the defendant, since before 1996, assumed the guardianship of her brother, who had an orphan's pension recognized by Social Security that, on that date, amounted to 675 euros and that in 2020 it was 726, which the administration entered him in a bank.

The brother died on May 1, 1996, the date from which the defendant hid that death from Social Security and the entity, so that, until March 2020, the monthly amounts of the pension continued to be paid into that account, with a total of 174,776 euros. The woman disposed of that money through cash withdrawals, card purchases and direct debit of receipts.

The court has considered it proven that the bank did not comply with its obligation to verify the survival of the pension annually, for which reason it did not notify Social Security of his death. It was the sister who on February 26 submitted a letter to this body in which she reported the death of her pensioner brother.

For this reason, the room imposes two years in prison for fraud, the payment of a fine of 844 euros and compensation to the Social Security of 135,805 euros with the subsidiary civil liability of the bank.

A minor under the age of 17 was injured at midnight this Thursday after being run over at a pedestrian crossing in Elche by a driver who fled, according to police sources..

The events occurred when the young man was crossing, in the company of some friends, a zebra crossing on Francisco Vicente Rodríguez street and was run over by a car that, according to eyewitnesses, was traveling “at high speed”..

In addition, the witnesses affirmed that, after the accident, the driver did not stop. Sources familiar with the event have specified to EFE that the adolescent presents “a bone fracture in the extremities and bruises”.

For their part, sources from the Local Police have explained to EFE that the investigation to identify the driver is still open and that the Judicial Traffic Police Unit “immediately” began the proceedings to locate him.

Two workers from the concessionaire company that manages the Benicalap municipal swimming pool, in Valencia, have been arrested for a hate crime after a complaint filed by a woman when they prevented her from accessing because she was wearing a headscarf.

The detainees are two men aged 32 and 50 who were declared this Thursday as alleged perpetrators of a crime against fundamental rights and public liberties and were released with the warning to appear before the judicial authority when required to do so. , as reported to EFE by the National Police.

Apparently, the woman went to the pool with her minor children and facility staff prevented her access, after which she filed a complaint with the Police.

As published this Friday by the newspaper Levante-EMV, the woman assures that when she arrived they asked her if she was wearing a swimsuit and she stated that she was only going for her children to bathe, and they denied her access. They later hurled racist insults at him, according to published testimony..

The Valencia City Council has opened an investigation into the concessionaire company of the Benicalap municipal swimming pool, Aquaval, to find out the events that have occurred and take the appropriate measures that may be necessary.

Municipal sources have indicated to EFE that the woman wanted to bathe in street clothes, something that is prevented by the regulations of the Municipal Sports Foundation (FDM), according to the verbal account of the events communicated by the concessionaire..

The City Council has issued a statement in which it indicates that, given the information known about a possible case of discrimination against a woman in the Benicalap municipal swimming pool, in this month of August, it has opened a joint investigation by the Municipal Sports Foundation (FDM) and the Office of Non-Discrimination (ONDIS) of the consistory, to “learn the events that have occurred and take the appropriate measures that were necessary”.

ONDIS was created to clarify cases of discrimination that may occur in the city of Valencia, specifies. During the investigation, both parties will be heard, according to the City Council, which recalls that the Benicalap municipal pool is managed by a concessionaire, a company outside the City Council that has the concession until February 2024..

This Friday, staff from the Municipal Sports Foundation went to the Benicalap pool and notified the concessionaire company of the opening of the investigation.

The Valencia City Council “condemns all types of discrimination and works daily to avoid situations that could violate the rights of people”, and the municipal corporation is at the disposal of the National Police in the investigation that it is carrying out.

The pilot of a helicopter of the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) was slightly injured this Friday when he suffered an accident during a landing in the Almeria municipality of La Mojonera (Almería).

Emergencias 112 de Andalucía received a notice about 12:40 p.m. warning of this incident, which occurred in the car park of a bar in La Mojonera near the A-7 motorway.

🔴 Last minute

A #DGT pegasus helicopter crashes

📹 La Mojonera, Almería pic.twitter.com/X8y16cO3Ss

– SocialDrive (@SocialDrive_es) August 11, 2023

To the place, members of the Fire Department, Civil Guard, Local Police and health workers have been mobilized, and notice has been given to the Coordination and Rescue Center, the Air Traffic Control Center and the Almería airport.

Although at first it was indicated to 112 that there were no injuries, medical assistance was later requested because the pilot was “stunned” by the blow. The Civil Guard has taken charge of the accident.

The helicopter could have overturned laterally after hitting the tail against a bush, although the provincial head of Almería Traffic, José María Méndez, has pointed out to EFE that the accident occurred on an approach during the landing maneuver due to a Windstrike.

He explained that this helicopter serves the Malaga Traffic Management Center, but that it goes to the province of Almería to carry out support work periodically, for example with events such as the 'Dreambeach' festival that these days is held in Cuevas del Almanzora (Almeria)

The Malaga August Fair will be held without the shadow of a labor conflict. The unions and the hospitality employers, two hours after the demonstration called by the CCOO and UGT for this Friday, have reported an agreement to increase the remuneration of workers in stages until 2027.

These two organizations, together with the Association of Hotel Entrepreneurs of the Costa del Sol (Aehcos) and the Association of Hoteliers of Malaga (Mahos), have issued a joint statement deeming peace to have been achieved in the sector in a few hours the start of the main celebration in the capital of Malaga.

The agreement is based on the extension of the validity of the current collective agreement for two more years and places its new expiration date on December 31, 2027. The text, however, includes a modification of the salary tables of the previous framework, which was marked by a downward revision of salaries conditioned by the covid pandemic. “Not in vain, there are currently more than 105,000 people registered, which represents a historical record and almost a third —31%— of the Andalusian total —341,095 workers—”.

Massive hospitality assembly.
Today at the Civic Center of #Málaga @ugtmalaga @ccoomalaga #SalarioOConflicto@UGT_Andalucia@UGTSPmalaga@ugtficamalaga@UGTfesmcmalaga@SoledadRuizSeg pic.twitter.com/j8JG3ZIOoK

— UGT MÁLAGA (@ugtmalaga) August 11, 2023

This collective agreement has been renegotiated on the basis of the previous one, which was agreed in October 2020, valid until December 2025. Therefore, the years 2023, 2024 and 2025, which had already been agreed, are revised upwards and two more are included: 2026 and 2027.

“The objective is to combine union demands with the protection of companies against possible excessive increases in this reference, as has happened in the last year”. In this sense, for 2023 a salary increase referenced to the real CPI has been set, but with a minimum of 2.5%, if it were lower, and a maximum of 3.7%, if it were higher..

For the years 2024 and 2025, a minimum increase of 2.5% and a maximum of 4% will be applied in each of them.. While, for 2026 and 2027, salary increases have been agreed on the immediately previous year of 2% at least and 3% at most.

The initial proposal of the unions was that of 4-3-3: an increase in payrolls of 4% this year, 3% in 2024 and another 3% in 2025. Therefore, the agreement reached is lower than expected for this year, but it may be higher in the following ones, all depending on the evolution of prices..

The new labor agreement for the sector brings peace and puts an end to the calendar of protests that the CCOO and UGT had announced this Thursday. The first demonstration was called for this Friday morning and was to end at the headquarters of the Confederation of Businessmen of Malaga (CEM). At midnight, a fair with large numbers will begin.

The general secretary of the CCOO Services union in Málaga, Lola Villalba, and the general secretary of the FsSMC of UGT Málaga, Antonio Solano, have considered that the agreement “is positive because it allows the sector to be given the necessary peace of mind and to recover some of the purchasing power lost”. Both have thanked the employer for “the effort to increase wages, just like the one that the workers have already made by freezing their salaries due to the covid”.

The president of Aehcos, José Luque, added that hotel businessmen “are aware of the wage freeze situation during the pandemic and the loss of purchasing power of our collaborators”.

Economic impact

The sealed text clears the August Fair of a possible generalized conflict. An event that represents a great economic boost for the city, which these days will receive hundreds of thousands of visitors. According to a survey carried out by the Unión de Consumidores de Málaga, seven out of 10 people from Málaga will attend this massive event for one or two days and the average budget to spend each day is 65.38 euros..

92.3% of the sample valued the August Fair positively. The main reasons are tradition —58.3%—, fun —58.3%— and family and social gatherings (50%). The small percentage of people who object to it —7.7%— alleges high prices, crowds and possible conflicts as the main reasons.

Asked about the aspects of the celebration that most concerned them, the people from Malaga surveyed highlighted safety —73.1%—, the upward trend in prices —65.4%—, the safety of the attractions (34.6%) , the loss of traditions —15.4%—, the tourist priority —11.5%— and the commercial vocation to the detriment of the cultural one —7.7%—.

Army Major General Francisco Javier Marcos Izquierdo will assume command of the Emergency Military Unit (UME), “predictably” next week, replacing Lieutenant General Luis Martínez Mejide after his transfer to the reserve.

General Marcos was born in Toledo, where he was director of the Infantry Academy between 2017 and 2019, as reported this Friday by the Ministry of Defense in the press release announcing the appointment.

The division general of the @EjercitoTierra Francisco Javier Marcos Izquierdo has been appointed head of the @UMEgob, replacing Lieutenant General Luís Martínez Meijide after his transfer to the reserve. The new head of the #UME, who was director of the #ACINF and head of the #FAMET,… pic.twitter.com/9KXlCvApi1

– Ministry of Defense (@Defensagob) August 11, 2023

He had recently assumed command of the logistics centers of the Army, a position that he accepted after occupying for three years the headquarters of the Airmobile Forces of this land branch.

Among other destinations, Marcos was in 2010 head of the Afghan Helicopter Unit and in 1998 head of operations of the Spanish unit in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Throughout his career he has participated in other missions abroad such as those in Lebanon, Croatia and Sarajevo..

Likewise, he has been assigned to the General Staff of the Rapid Action Force, the Army General Staff, the JEME Cabinet and the General Directorate of Defense Policy.

Regarding his studies, he belongs to the XLIV Promotion of the General Military Academy and is a graduate of the General Staff. He graduated from the Unites States Army War College and has a master's degree from the US Institute of Strategic Studies, as well as a law degree from the University of Castilla-La Mancha, among other studies..

A 71-year-old woman has died at the Virgen de la Arrixaca hospital in Murcia as a result of the serious burns she suffered when she accidentally lit her body when she lit a cigarette, moments after drinking alcohol to cool off from the high temperatures..

As confirmed to EFE by sources from the Ministry of Health, the woman was a neighbor of Yecla and died this Thursday, hours after being admitted to the burn unit of the Murcian hospital.

More details about the event are unknown and there are no records in the 112 Emergency Coordination Center of the Region of Murcia, which suggests that the victim was initially helped by someone close to him and the police were not notified by telephone. medical emergency services.

This death, which has come to light this Friday, occurred the day the Region of Murcia was on red notice due to high temperatures, with records above 45 degrees in some parts of the community.

In 2018, I was considering the possibility of moving to Ecuador and one of the arguments that came up in all the conversations was its crime rate, among the lowest in Latin America.. Since then, the homicide rate has multiplied by eight. The country has gone from five to 40 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. To get an idea, in Spain it is around 0.6.

Analysts insist that there are hardly any contemporary precedents, that few countries have fallen into a similar spiral of violence in times of peace.. “It's so amazing that it seems like a mystery,” Adam Isacson, director of WOLA, a Washington organization that collects and processes tons of information on human rights on the continent, tells me..

In the reports, some secondary hypotheses are repeated. There is talk, for example, of the political instability created after the tortuous departure of Rafael Correa from power. Or the disappearance of state structures during the covid. Perhaps you have seen some of those videos that ran through WhatsApp with corpses cremated on the sidewalks of Guayaquil by the neighbors themselves because the authorities were not capable of removing them from the streets before they rotted..

But this is, at most, a regional problem enhancers: crime linked to drug trafficking.. Ecuador, like Venezuela, is not a cocaine-producing country, but has always been a transit country to the Pacific for coca grown in the industry's three global giants: Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia.. The drug highways were well-oiled and pacified for decades because they remained controlled by large organized groups, in collusion with the authorities..

But the balance was broken sometime in recent years and it is not clear what has happened.. Experts such as Daniel Mejía, an economist specializing in drugs at the University of Los Andes, attribute it to the demobilization of the FARC.. By weakening and withdrawing from the border areas, Ecuador became a disputed territory. The powerful Mexican cartels of Jalisco and Sinaloa entered into a whirlwind. Later, in troubled rivers, new regional actors appeared (for example, groups of ex-guerrillas in search of a new occupation) and even European ones, including Kosovar Albanian gangs.. Now they are in open war and no one has the ability to maintain order. Meanwhile, the Ecuadorian security forces are not prepared to face them either..

Arturo Torres, an Ecuadorian investigative journalist, believes that the fragmentation of organized crime also had a lot to do with the pandemic. “When the restrictions ended, there was a lot of drugs to sell and the gangs that controlled the traffic could not move it all. New groups were used. Others came from abroad. Thus, we went from two large gangs to 17 in a few months. And some began to be paid with cocaine, amplifying the problem. 90% of homicides occur during fights between these groups.” The destructive force of the drug trafficker and its tentacles in politics are already more of a regional phenomenon than a local one. It spreads like an oil stain that reaches more and more countries. “Political organizations have relations with gangs.

In summary, the fragmentation of the market destabilized the board and shot up crime, in a sequence of killings and impunity similar to that experienced in other countries.. And while the speed at which things have deteriorated in Ecuador is astonishing, it's also not something that hasn't been seen before..

In Mexico, where the government has lost control of several states in the country, something similar happened in its day.. For decades, it was a territory of transit in which there was not much violence linked to drug trafficking.. But the collapse of the corrupt structures of the PRI, the pressure exerted by Washington since 9/11, and the determination of successive governments to declare war on drug trafficking turned the country into a powder keg..

Institutionalized corruption and secret deals with drug traffickers gave way to something even worse: a battle between rival cartels in which the Army sometimes operates as one more player.. And not always the best armed. It happens that declaring war on drug trafficking is an idea that, intuitively, we all tend to support.. However, it can make the lives of millions of people hell and destroy the reputation of the politicians who encouraged it after being convinced by the promises of the United States..

It is pertinent to underline the extent to which the National Action Party (PAN) has sunk. There are few people more unpopular in Mexico than its two presidents: Vicente Fox and, above all, Felipe Calderón.. It also splashed the PRI reformists and weighed down the six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto, leaving the ground clear for the arrival of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. As in the Middle East or Afghanistan, Washington's recipes for fixing complex regions without understanding their idiosyncrasies have caused an unmitigated disaster..

In Colombia, the laboratory of everything that happened later, the story was not very different either.. During the cocaine boom, when the white powder became popular in nightclubs in the United States, neither in Medellín nor in Bogotá was there a security or crime problem due to drug trafficking. Organized groups grew and amassed gigantic fortunes with the corrupt approval of the authorities. The drug entered and was distributed on the other side of the Rio Grande without major problems..

Blood began to be spilled when Washington, aware of the public health problems that cocaine was causing, decided to press. Richard Nixon founded the DEA in 1973 and his agents gradually established themselves in Colombia, coordinating efforts to root out the problem.. The Caribbean country then entered a spiral of political instability and murders that became even more inflicted with the entry of the FARC into the business..

It is the great paradox of the fight against drug trafficking, the same one that is reproduced over and over again throughout the continent.. Tolerating and negotiating with the drug traffickers is the easiest way to keep the peace, but it feeds a monster that then, when it gets out of control, becomes impossible to stop.. If you decide to act forcefully, thunder breaks loose. By cutting off a head, another 100 appear that bite each other, dragging down the entire society. Between the Bukele-style heavy hand (which keeps 2% of the population in prison) and the legalization of drugs, there are countless intermediate recipes. They've all been tried and none seem to work.. “In the long term, we all know what to aspire to, to stabilize the situation and create States of law capable of truly controlling their territory,” says Isacson.. “But in the short term, there is no clean option”.

One last point: the cocaine that leaves Ecuador, via the Pacific route, no longer mostly ends up in the United States and Canada as it did ten years ago. Now it ends in Europe. And Spain is the country that consumes the most per capita in the entire EU. We snort the plague that ravages Latin America here.