Spanish protests mobilize masses for political renewal

Spain's one-month-old protest movement was Monday seen as gathering momentum, after more than 200,000 people took to the streets around the country.
The movement demanding democratic reforms had demonstrated its capacity to peacefully mobilize large numbers of people, and could no longer be ignored by political and economic leaders, commentators said.
Demonstrations were held in about 60 cities Sunday to demand profound changes to the current political and economic system, which the protesters see as only serving the powerful.
The massive rallies echoed those on May 15, when the movement - known as 15-M - was launched, following calls on the internet by young activists.
People of all ages joined Sunday's rallies, calling for an end to Spain's 20-per-cent unemployment, corruption, the power of financial markets over politics and European Union policies involving cuts in social spending.
The peaceful nature of the protests restored the reputation of the movement, which had begun to lose its credibility on taking a violent turn in Barcelona last week.
In those incidents, demonstrators insulted and pushed regional lawmakers, sparking clashes with police. More than 40 people were injured.
Representatives of the movement condemned the violence, blaming it on infiltrators.
About 200 intellectuals warned against allowing the violent incidents to 'criminalize' the movement. In a manifesto published in Barcelona, they described the 15-M as a 'champion of democracy' seeking to give the power back to the people.
Some analysts on Monday stressed the heterogeneous nature of the movement, which does not have a clear joint programme. 'The 15-M runs the risk of becoming diluted,' the conservative daily El Mundo wrote.
The daily described some of the movement's goals as 'childish,' such as attempts to influence EU policy or calling a general strike without joining forces with trade unions.
Many analysts, however, see the 15-M as a ground-breaking phenomenon heralding historic changes.
The movement has already spread to other countries, with rallies echoing it being staged around Europe and the Americas.
The emergence of the 15-M signalled 'the end of a cycle' and the launch of a 'political renewal,' sociologist Lorenzo Navarrete said.
Demonstrators have now vacated most of city or town squares they had occupied for a month, and are diversifying their activities. The protests range from rallies to prevent evictions of people unable to pay mortgages, to weeks-long marches from different parts of Spain to Madrid.
Members of the movement even managed to enter a shareholders' meeting of Santander, Spain's biggest bank, telling its chairman Emilio Botin that financial speculation had 'sowed the seed of injustice.'
Sunday's demonstrators also chanted slogans against Botin - one of the favourite targets of the movement - who is under investigation over allegations that he and his family did not declare Swiss bank accounts to the Spanish tax authorities.
It was becoming increasingly difficult for decision-makers, ranging from bankers to politicians, to ignore the movement, the daily El Pais said.
Spanish political leaders have been wary of angering the young protesters. Some mainstream politicians have even begun adopting the language of the movement, with for instance Catalan nationalist Josep Antoni Duran Lleida admitting on Monday that financial markets had 'sequestered' politics.
The 15-M was bound to influence party programmes in the March 2012 general elections, analysts agreed.
The movement was 'the future,' said 94-year-old writer Jose Luis Sampedro, who is regarded as one of its ideological leaders.
'I want you to see that the (current) system does not have anything to offer, apart from money and the logic of benefit,' Sampedro said.

 

Spain Hires RBS to Privatize Airports

The Spanish government said Monday that it selected Royal Bank of Scotland PLC to coordinate the privatization of the country's airports, in the latest step to shed state-owned assets and cut spending to narrow Spain's hefty budget gap.

Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced a plan last year to privatize Madrid's Barajas and Barcelona's El Prat airports and sell a stake in AENA Aeropuertos, the world's largest airport group by passenger traffic. He also planned to sell off part of the publicly owned National Lottery. Spain expects to sell 30% of Loterias later in 2011 to raise some €7.5 billion ($10.73 billion).

The privatizations are a key component of Spain's plan to cut its budget deficit to 6% of gross domestic product this year and to 4.4% in 2012. The figure was 9.2% last year.

Investors are monitoring Spain's finances closely as the euro-zone sovereign-debt crisis rolls on. Greece, Ireland and Portugal have been forced to accept financial aid packages from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund after investors lost faith in the countries' ability to pay back fast-rising government debt.

Mr. Zapatero's government has pushed through reforms, cut public-sector wages and moved to shore up confidence in the country's banking industry, which suffered huge losses in the collapse of a decade-long real estate boom.

After its expansion in 2006 with an investment of €6.2 billion, Madrid's airport has some of the strongest growth prospects in Europe, particularly as a hub for connecting flights between Europe and Latin America with ample room for expansion.

Juan Ignacio Lema, AENA's president, said in a recent interview that after a recent expansion the Barajas airport has the capacity to increase its air traffic by nearly 30% and substantially boost its restaurant and other retail offerings, such as duty-free shops.

He added that neither Madrid's nor Barcelona's airports will require big infrastructure investment for at least 15 years. Spain invested some €1.2 billion to expand Barcelona's airport in 2009.

By letting the private sector take over the airports, the Spanish government is hoping to expand the revenue that the assets generate, which currently is far below what London's Heathrow airport, Europe's busiest, brings in, Mr. Lema said.

Mr. Lema says that airport fees in the major European countries are five times greater on average than those in Spain. "There's space to raise revenue, while maintaining competitiveness with the main European airports," he said.

But charging more for using Spain's airports could be hazardous at a time when low-cost airlines provide 40% of Spain's air traffic. The streamlined carriers typically demand lower airport fees while avoiding more expensive airports. Low-cost airline Ryanair Holdings Ltd. currently carries more passengers than Spain's flagship airline Iberia, now a partner of British Airways in the recently created International Consolidated Airlines.

Various Spanish infrastructure operators have said they would want to participate in the privatization of Madrid and Barcelona airports. They include Ferrovial SA, which controls BAA Ltd., the owner of Heathrow and other British airports. Abertis Infraestructuras SA, which operates London's Luton airport and is a partner of AENA in operating several airports in Latin America, has also expressed interest. Construction company Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas SA may also jump in, according to company executives.

These infrastructure operators may seek support from venture-capital funds or other investors seeking to provide funding for bids.

The government expects to award the licenses for Spain's two largest airports, in its two largest cities, by December. The plan as it stands now involves awarding the licenses for Madrid and Barcelona to two separate and competing companies.

Aside from handing over control of Madrid's and Barcelona's airports, Spain is seeking to sell a minority stake in AENA itself. Mr. Zapatero last December said the privatization would include offloading up to 49% of AENA, but the government has since scaled back its ambitions. Early in 2012 the government may sell 5% to 15% of AENA, Mr. Lema said.

The airport operator could go public sometime next year. Mr. Lema said that based on its operating profits, AENA could be valued at about €20 billion. The company has a debt load of €12 billion.

Many analysts doubt AENA could attract much investor interest for a non-controlling share, particularly after the airport manager no longer operates in Madrid and Barcelona. AENA has been registering losses since 2007 and says it will begin turning a profit again in 2012. Nevertheless, Mr. Lema said sovereign-wealth funds and other investment funds have already expressed interest in acquiring a stake, although he declined to provide specific details.

 

Four Spanish soldiers and an interpreter have been injured in Afghanistan in an attack on a ‘Lince’ Spanish armoured vehicle.

The Ministry for Defence says that two of the injured from the light infantry regiments Soria Nº9 and Palma Nº47, lieutenant A,G,B and soldier J.G.L. have each had one of their legs amputated. Soldier A.Q.S. suffered injuries including a broken leg and has undergone surgery with two others in the Role 2 Hospital in Bala Marghab. Some of the injured are expected to be transferred to hospital in Kandahar.

They were travelling with a Lince armoured vehicle which was equipped with a frequency inhibitor close to the town of Ludina.
The vehicle was attacked on the dangerous so-called ‘lithium route’.

Spanish troops have been operating since last year in Afghanistan with the new armoured vehicles RG-31 and the partially armoured Lince. Both these have replaced the old BMR which were fiercely criticised as not offering protection against mines and improvised explosive devices.

Spain is expelling the Libyan ambassador to Madrid and three other Libyan diplomats

Spain is expelling the Libyan ambassador to Madrid and three other Libyan diplomats here, the Spanish Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday.
"The government of Spain has decided to put an end to the mission of the ambassador accredited in Madrid by the authorities in Tripoli (Libya), because the Gadhafi regime has lost all legitimacy due to its continual repression of the Libyan population," the statement said.
The Libyan ambassador to Madrid, Ajeli Abdussalam Ali Breni, "has 10 days to leave" Spain, the ministry said.
The government also is expelling three other diplomats at the Libyan embassy "who undertook activities incompatible with their diplomatic status," the statement said.
But Spain has not broken diplomatic relations with Libya, said a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, who by custom is not identified.
Spain still has an embassy in Tripoli, although it evacuated its personnel from the city, like many other nations, as fighting between the regime of Moammar Gadhafi and rebels intensified in late March.
The Spanish Embassy in Tripoli, staffed only by local Libyan personnel, "is not closed in a diplomatic sense," the spokeswoman said.
It was not immediately clear, she added, how many Libyan diplomats or local Spanish personnel might remain at the Libyan Embassy in Madrid, after the expulsion of the ambassador and the three other Libyan diplomats.
Spanish Foreign Ministry Trinidad Jimenez on June 8 visited the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi , where she declared that Libya's rebel National Transitional Council was a "valid interlocutor" and a "legitimate representative of the aspirations of the Libyan people," the spokeswoman said.
Spain has been participating in United Nations-mandated, NATO-led military operations in Libya. Spain has deployed four F-18 fighter jets and a refueling plane to help enforce a no-fly zone, and a frigate, a submarine and a surveillance plane to help impose an arms embargo against the Gadhafi regime.

Spain's indignant protesters rise up against home repossessions

Spain's peaceful "indignant" protest movement, which saw its image tarnished by outbursts of violence in Barcelona this week, has turned its attention to stopping banks from repossessing people's homes.

On Thursday morning a crowd gathered outside the home of 74-year-old Luis Domínguez, in the Madrid dormitory town of Parla, and prevented court officials from serving him with the order to leave his home immediately.

Domínguez, who walks with crutches and is being treated for a heart condition, said he would have been left on the street if protesters had not come to his aid.

"I only heard about them helping people to fight off the banks last night, and this was all organised in a few hours," he said in his apartment, shortly after protesters had seen off the court officials. "It is amazing that I am still here."

An appeal put out on Twitter overnight for a flash protest at his front door gathered enough people to prevent officials entering Domínguez's home.

On Wednesday a crowd of several hundred had also stopped police and court officials repossessing the home of a Lebanese immigrant family in the Madrid neighbourhood of Tetuan.

Plummeting house prices have left some Spanish property owners with negative equity and threaten to push more into the same position as Domínguez – who can no longer pay his mortgage.

"I remortgaged my home for €145,000 and I still have the document showing it was valued at €280,000 three years ago," he said. "Now the bank wants to take the apartment and make me pay them €90,000 on top."

At the height of Spain's decade-long property boom banks were handing out loans of up to 100% on the value of homes. But a crash that hit in 2008 has left more than 700,000 newly built homes unsold. Prices have fallen and banks have become major residential property owners, mostly because of unpaid loans by developers.

The number of house repossessions is swelling as unemployment hits 21% and eurozone interest rates rise. Now campaigners say about 278 homes a day are being repossessed.

"This man was too ill to be left without a home," said Eloi Morte, part of a Madrid-based anti-repossessions campaign born just two weeks ago. "Thanks to the protesters we are able to gather a lot of people in a very short period of time."

"Yesterday court officials and police simply turned around when they saw us in Tetuan," he said. "Today we were able to tell Parla officials that we had presented a writ in the court explaining that Luis was too ill to be thrown out without plans to rehouse him."

The movement to stop repossessions in Madrid has emerged from the Spanish capital's Latin American immigrant community. Immigrant labourers flocked to Spain during the construction boom but are now among those most likely to lose their homes. Campaigners want Spanish law changed so mortgage debts can be cleared simply by giving banks the keys to the property – as they are in the US.

A similar campaign against repossessions has been active in Barcelona for much longer, but the "indignant" movement that emerged after tens of thousands of protesters occupied Madrid's Puerta del Sol square last month has provided a new wave of activists ready to help out across the country.

The Madrid branch of the movement has denounced violence by some of those who blocked access to the Catalan regional parliament in Barcelona on Wednesday as it voted through spending cuts affecting education and health. "We radically condemn any violence and especially what has happened at the Catalan parliament," it said. Objects were thrown at police, deputies were attacked with spray paint and a blind politician said protesters had threatened to take away his guide dog. Protesters claimed police provoked incidents.

"This was an unprecedented event in the 30 years since democracy was restored," Barcelona's La Vanguardia newspaper said in an editorial.

 

Hussein Salem, a close business associate of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, wanted by Egypt on corruption charges, has been arrested in Spain

Egyptian businessman Hussein Salem - who has been on the run since last February – was detained in Spain on Thursday on an international arrest warrant issued by Interpol and is set to be deported to Egypt to stand trial.

“Hussein Salem is detained in Spain. He has been arrested in his villa at Majorca and we will send all the documents to the Spanish authorities in order to bring him back to Egypt to face trial,” Major General Magdy El-Shafie, Director General of the Egyptian Interpol told Egyptian state agency MENA on Thursday.

Salem is facing several accusations of bribery, corruption, squandering public money, and winning lucrative land and other major deals, including gas exports to Isrea, because of his connections to the Mubaraks. He has also been accused of handing over substantial kickbacks to the Mubarak family, including their Sharm El-Sheikh villas, which allegedly Hussein Salem sold them at well below market price.

Mubarak, for his part, gave Salem the lucrative natural gas export deal with Israel.

The 77-year old - who is one of Egypt's most secretive businessmen – left Cairo on 3 February, just a few days before the fall of the regime, and has been on the run since then.

 

Arrested a 70 year old man for trying to abduct two girls in a shopping mall

A man in his 70 years has been arrested for allegedly trying to take two girls in the Rose Garden shopping center. Initially, you will be charged an alleged illegal detention, 
The incident occurred around seven pm on Tuesday. The two children aged between five and seven years, were at the establishment with an aunt. At one point, taking advantage of the two girls were alone, the suspect approached them and would have asked them to leave with him.
The man allegedly started walking toward the door with two small hand in hand. Then one of them began to kick and help. The man covered her mouth so he had to let the other girl, this took time to escape.
The minor ran until he saw a security guard who was shopping nearby. Asked for help and said that it wanted to take. The guard reacted quickly and caught the subject with the other girl. Apparently, still according to the sources, the man tried to apologize saying that both were with him.
The security employee detained the suspect and alerted the National Police, which sent a patrol to the site to clarify what happened. After verifying that small had been the center accompanied by a relative, and they did not know of anything that man, he was arrested for an alleged illegal detention. He was taken to the dungeons of the Provincial Police Station, where it has opened an investigation.
According to information from Vastned, one of the companies that own the mall, the guard's intervention could frustrate a "possible abduction attempt." "The company can only show their appreciation for the success of our protocol security that has been able to avoid an incident that perhaps could have grave consequences," said in a statement to this newspaper.
Sources for this company, who chairs the residents' center, confirmed that the CCTV cameras also revealed that the detainee had been a while loitering around the premises before allegedly trying to take the two girls. Other sources added that the images he is seen approaching other children.

 

June 13th is the Day for Prevention of skin cancer

June 13th is the Day for Prevention of skin cancer, a malignant tumor that will face one in five Spanish throughout his life and whose incidence has increased "significantly" in recent years, say dermatologists, to display "concerned" about the situation.

Skin cancer in Spain has increased "substantially", especially in the last 15 or 20 years, so "concerned" to specialists who have worked to reverse this increase and have gotten better diagnostic techniques, told Servimedia Miguel Aizpún, spokesman for the Spanish Academy of Dermatology.

The specialist pointed out, however, that early detection of skin cancer is more or less, healing 95% of cases, therefore emphasized the importance of sensibilizazión campaigns and, above all, to go specialist at the slightest shift of skin.

In this respect, he said to watch for moles and consult your doctor if you change color, size, itch or bleed, and that such change can lead to melanoma, skin cancer "more worried" to dermatologists.

But melanoma, whose incidence is about 4,000 new cases per year in Spain, can also arise spontaneously, ie not from the alteration of any mole, making it necessary to visit a dermatologist if there are spots or injuries skin previously unavailable.

Another aspect that experts insist on the occasion of European Day for the Prevention of Skin Cancer and the arrival of summer is the correct exposure to the sun, and take it inappropriately can also cause cancer.

In this sense, dermatologists remember that they are "more likely" to suffer from malignant tumors of this type who have a family history, those who spend much time in the sun, the white-skinned blondes and people with many moles, so recommends that all show the utmost precaution against the sun.

In this regard, Dr. Aizpún wanted to make clear that dermatologists are not against taking the sun as it is a necessary source of vitamin D, essential for healthy bones, but do not control.

So advise against exposure to sunlight in the middle of the day, always do it with sunscreen, head covering and sunglasses.

The jobless rate for people under 25 in Spain is 44 percent - the highest in the European Union

While in many European countries, the level of unemployment among people from 15 and 24 is well above the national average, young people in Spain are particularly frustrated.

The jobless rate for people under 25 in Spain is 44 percent - the highest in the European Union. Many young people in Spain feel like they belong to a "lost generation" that is bearing the brunt of a crisis that wasn't of their making.

In Madrid, Barcelona, and other major cities, they have taken to the streets in recent weeks to express their discontent.

One reason behind the high jobless rate is an end to the boom in the construction industry - one of the key sectors of the Spanish economy. After the real estate bubble burst, new apartment construction fell by 70 percent.


Unemployment has reached record levels in Spain
During the boom, many young people left school early, because they could earn good money working on the country's many construction sites. Now they are out of work.

Spain's situation, while severe, is not unique in Europe. In Greece, Ireland or Italy, around 30 percent of young people are out of work. In December the youth unemployment rate in 19 of the European Union's 27 states was above 20 percent.

Young hit hardest

According to Holger Schäfer, a labor market expert with the Cologne Institute for Economic Research, young people are often the first to lose their jobs when economic crisis hits.

"In crisis situations, young people have a harder time than other age groups because they haven't been with their companies as long," he said.

These workers are often on short-term contracts and often haven't had time to develop special skills and knowledge that are specific to that company. Thus, they are often the first to lose their jobs when downsizing becomes necessary.

According to Schäfer, there's not much that politicians can do about this in the short term. The most important thing for them to do is to take steps to help get the economy and the entire labor market moving again.

"When the overall labor market improves, the market for young people also improves significantly," he said.

In 2006, before the economic bust, Spain had a youth unemployment rate of 18 percent - less than half the current 44 percent.

German success

Compared to most other EU states, Germany has coped with the economic downturn quite well.

Germany's economy is growing, exports are booming and consumers are spending. The youth unemployment rate is under 10 percent - only Austria and the Netherlands boast comparable figures.

Many experts point to factors beyond Germany's robust economy for the low rate. Germany has a well-developed system of training young people for a trade in which they split their time between the classroom and workplace.

"I believe that the dual vocational training system is one of the best in the world, and gives young people who don't go to university good career opportunities," said Rene Rudolf, the head of the department of youth and youth policy at the German Federation of Trade Unions.


A strong German economy has helped keep the unemployment rate down
 

But at the same time he warns that the low unemployment figures for young people in Germany don't tell the whole story.

"Overall the rate of youth unemployment is very low in comparison with other European countries. But a high number of young people are in entry-level jobs, in precarious situations like temporary employment and are poorly paid, because there is still no general minimum wage," Rudolf said.

"This also means that if the German economy worsens again, they will be the first to face the threat of unemployment."

For now though, the German economy is booming, which has encouraged some unemployed Spanish academics to start looking for work in Germany.

But they're up against one major barrier - the language. Without German or at least English-language skills, their chances of breaking into the German work force are extremely limited.

Health officials in Germany said Friday that bean sprouts caused the E. coli outbreak, as earlier suspected.

Health officials in Germany said Friday that bean sprouts caused the E. coli outbreak, as earlier suspected. The head of Germany's disease control agency said the pattern of the outbreak pointed to the sprouts as the cause. After the announcement, Russia said it will lift its ban on European Union vegetables in return for EU safety guarantees. An earlier story follows.
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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.
European agriculture ministers met in Luxembourg this week to discuss the spread of E. coli bacteria. E. coli infections have killed at least thirty people since late May. Nearly three thousand others were sickened. Most of the victims were in Germany.

Russia says it will lift its ban on European Union vegetables imposed in the wake of the deadly E. coli outbreak.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso made the joint announcement Friday following a two-day Russia-EU summit in the central Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod.

The EU is to provide Moscow with documents certifying the vegetables' safety.

German public health officials say new data show that contaminated sprouts are the source of the outbreak, which has killed at least 30 people and sickened nearly 3,000 others.  All but one of the deaths and the majority of those infected have been in Germany.

The head of Germany's national disease control center said Friday the pattern of the outbreak points to the sprouts as the source.

Health officials initially blamed the bacterial infection on Spanish cucumbers and other vegetables and then spread the blame to other European countries, costing EU farmers millions of dollars as produce was left to rot in fields and warehouses.  Russia is one of the EU's largest markets for vegetables and other produce.

German authorities are now lifting the warning against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce, but they say the crisis is not over and people should not eat bean sprouts.

Russian officials gave no specific timeframe for resuming vegetable imports from the European Union, saying it depends on how quickly the EU sends the documents.  The EU has promised to send the safety certificates in the next two days.

E. coli symptoms include stomach cramps, diarrhea, fever, vomiting, and in extreme cases, kidney failure and death.

Barclays boss Bob Diamond eyes a gamble on Spain

Not for the first time, Bob Diamond is displaying a gambler’s instinct at a time of crisis.

Faced with severe and mounting losses in Spain, the boss of Barclays has so far resisted the urge to cut and run.

Instead, he’s looking increasingly eager to double his bets through a takeover of one of the Mediterranean nation’s most troubled mutual lenders.

If the past experience is anything to go by, the American will have sewn up a deal for the Caja del Mediterraneo (CAM) before the Madrid banking world decamps to Puerto Banus for August.

It was Diamond, after all, who swooped on the carcass of US giant Lehman Brothers following its 2008 collapse.

That deal was fraught with risk but it ultimately catapulted Barclays Capital into the Wall Street big league – and secured Diamond’s elevation from investment banking supremo to chief executive.

 

Spain has already estimated its own growers have lost 200 million euros in sales in the week since Germany initially blamed the outbreak on Spanish cucumbers.

European Union will propose offering at least 150 million euros ($219 million) in compensation to farmers affected by the E.coli outbreak, the European commissioner for agriculture said on Tuesday.

Arriving for a meeting of EU agriculture ministers in Luxembourg, Dacian Ciolos said the money would go to growers of fresh vegetables such as tomatoes, lettuces and cucumbers whose businesses have been affected by the outbreak of the disease in Germany last month.

"I'll start our proposition at 150 million euros," Ciolos told reporters, but indicated that the figure was likely to go higher and was just a starting point for discussions.

Spain has already estimated its own growers have lost 200 million euros in sales in the week since Germany initially blamed the outbreak on Spanish cucumbers. The source of the infection, which has killed 22 people so far, has not yet been identified.

EU fresh produce association Freshfel Europe said the latest estimates put the weekly economic damage at about 80 million euros in the Netherlands, 20 million Germany, 4 million in Belgium and 3 million in Portugal, not to mention the 200 million in Spain.

As well as a headline figure for any compensation, EU agriculture ministers are expected to haggle over how any sums would be paid out and to whom.

Any decision on Tuesday is likely to be taken only in principle, with the details worked out later, EU officials have said.

head of a German farm facing an inquiry over a deadly E.coli outbreak has denied that bean sprouts grown at his farm could be to blame.

Klaus Verbeck, managing director of the "Gaertnerhof Bienenbuettel", told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung that no fertilisers are used to produce his bean sprouts and that there are no animals on his organic farm.
German officials said on Sunday his bean sprouts could be behind an E.coli outbreak that has killed 22 and made more than 2,200 people ill across Europe. The farm has been shut, produce recalled and further test results are due on Monday.
"I can't understand how the processes we have here and the accusations could possibly fit together," Mr Verbeck told the paper. "The salad sprouts are grown only from seeds and water, and they aren't fertilised at all. There aren't any animal fertilisers used in other areas on the farm either."
Neither Mr Verbeck, himself a vegetarian, nor anyone else from the farm would talk on Monday to journalists and television crews, including Reuters, outside his farm in the rural town of 6,600 that is located about 70km (40 miles) south of Hamburg.
German officials, under intense pressure to identify the source of the E.coli outbreak, have warned consumers for weeks to avoid tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, and at one stage said Spanish cucumbers might be the source of the outbreak. The rare E.coli strain has killed 21 Germans and one Swede.

 

German beansprouts likely cause of E. coli outbreak

Blame for the deadly outbreak of E. coli in Europe has fallen on bean sprouts from northern Germany, the likely culprits in thousands of poisonings that have killed at least 22 people.

"Bean sprouts have been identified as the product that likely caused the outbreak," said Gert Hahne, spokesman for the German ministry of agriculture. "Many restaurants that suffered from an E. coli outbreak had those sprouts delivered."

Authorities had previously eyed tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers as the cause of the trouble, though previous warnings against eating those foods are expected to stand.

The sprouts, which are often used in mixed salads, were grown on a farm in Lower Saxony, said Hahne. No further details were immediately available though a press conference is expected later Sunday.

The outbreak is the deadliest in modern European history, and has centered on Germany.

E.coli has killed 22 people in Germany and one in Sweden, say officials. More than 2,200 have fallen ill, some with a rare complication that can cause kidney failure.

The outbreak has reached 10 other European countries and appeared in the U.S. on Friday when four people fell ill upon returning from Germany.

The outbreak has overwhelmed German emergency rooms and put health officials under fire for both the unsanitary conditions in hospitals and for their slow response to the unfolding crisis.

Health officials waited a month before interviewing patients, leading to bans or limitations on European fruit and vegetables in Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Qatar.

Despite capacity problems at some hospitals and reports of horrendous conditions, medical workers and northern state governments are doing "everything necessary" to help E. coli victims, said Health minister Daniel Bahr on Sunday.

"I witnessed how the employees in the institutions have been working intensively and informing patients early and transparently" about their conditions, said Bahr upon touring the University Medical Centre in Hamburg-Eppendorf.

Doctors and nurses have been working overtime and double-shifts for weeks since the crisis began on May 2.

"Some employees even cancelled their vacations and they are highly motivated to help in this serious situation," said Jan Kielstein, a nephrologist at a hospital in Hannover, speaking to the Tagblatt newspaper.

 

The E. coli outbreak concentrated in northern Germany has spread to 11 other countries, including the U.S.

The E. coli outbreak concentrated in northern Germany has spread to 11 other countries, including the U.S., the World Health Organization said Friday, amid increasing concern about the new strain's virulence.

The German government said a "European solution" will be found to compensate vegetable growers and traders who have suffered losses as consumers avoid raw vegetables and salads.

By Thursday, 1,122 cases of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli had been reported, while 502 cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a form of kidney failure caused by this E. coli strain, had been reported, the WHO said.

In all but two of the cases the patients lived in or had recently visited northern Germany.

But the number of cases of HUS in the country had increased to 520, German authorities said Friday.

So far, the outbreak has killed 18 people in Germany and one in Sweden. Most of the victims have been women.

Health officials said four people in the U.S. might be linked to the outbreak.

All four were in northern Germany in May and officials are confident that they were infected with E. coli in that country. Three of them -- two women and a man -- are hospitalized with a kidney complication that has become a hallmark of the outbreak.

Besides Germany and the U.S., the countries affected are: Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland and Britain.

Though Spanish cucumbers were cleared of blame for spreading the bug, described by Chinese researchers as a "new super-toxic" bacterium, a German Consumer Ministry spokesman repeated that consumers should avoid eating raw cucumbers, tomatoes and salad.

The difficulties doctors experience in treating the rare infection was raising concerns Friday.

"The severity of this strain has resulted in great pressure on the health services," said Winifred Kern of the University Hospital in Freiburg.

In northern Germany, hospitals were "experiencing a problem with availability of intensive care beds due to the high number of cases with life threatening complications," he said.

Doctors also questioned Europe's preparedness to deal with future outbreaks.

"This most recent E. coli epidemic, of a strain previously unseen in an outbreak, shows us yet again that new bacteria and infections are just around the corner," said Giuseppe Cornaglia, president of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. "The pan-European nature of this E. coli outbreak ... reinforces the need for concerted cooperation across borders to tackle not only this outbreak, but also future ones."

Qatar has banned the import of cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce from Spain

Qatar has banned the import of cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce from Spain and Germany amid an E. coli outbreak that has killed 19 people.
The Supreme Council of Health (SCH) said it decided to impose a temporary ban on the three products, but would not "hesitate to ban all vegetables from all European countries if necessary", an official said, Qatari media reported.
All but one of the fatalities since the outbreak of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) poisoning began last month have been in Germany. A patient who died in Sweden had recently returned from Germany.
The decision to ban the imports was taken on the recommendations of the Joint Human Food Control Committee at an emergency meeting, a SCH source said.
A health certificate must attest that fresh vegetable and fruit shipments coming from other European countries are free from EHEC.
The SCH called upon all food importers to abide by the ban and urged residents to wash all vegetables and fruits thoroughly before consuming them.
The SCH also reminded doctors and health workers at Hamad Medical Corporation and the Primary Health Care to investigate closely any patient who suffers from diarrhoea with blood in stool accompanied by stomach colic, especially those who had recently come to Qatar from the European countries that had reported EHEC cases.
The Department of Public Health at the SCH advised passengers who are travelling to the infected countries to avoid having fresh and raw vegetables until things settled down. They are also advised to wash their hands repeatedly, especially before preparing and eating their food, and after using the bathroom. Children's caretakers were particularly advised to observe these precautions.
The SCH said it would, in co-operation with the Joint Human Food Control Committee, "monitor the situation closely on the basis of the regular reports issued by competent international organisations"

ANGRY farmers will hit the European Commission with huge claims for compensation in the wake of E.coli panic

ANGRY farmers will hit the European Commission with huge claims for compensation in the wake of E.coli panic crippling the fruit and vegetable industry on the Continent.
Spanish and Dutch growers have been hardest hit, losing hundreds of millions of pounds in revenue since the outbreak of a mutant strain of the deadly food poisoning bug in northern Germany three weeks ago.
The epidemic has left 18 dead and nearly 2,000 people desperately ill. Four more British cases took the total here to 11.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed Spanish calls for compensation from Brussels after wrongly blaming Spanish cucumbers for the E.coli outbreak.
Italian, Polish and Belgian producers have also been hit hard and British wholesalers are suffering from the dramatic drop in prices for salad goods, such as cucumbers, lettuce and tomatoes. But the panic has not spread to Britain, where produce is hitting the shelves to coincide with warm weather.
The glut of produce has been caused by Russia imposing a ban on all imports from the EU – the vegetable trade to Russia is worth £605million a year.
Mike Knowles, editor of Eurofruit magazine, said: “People across Europe will now have much more choice with fresh produce at cheaper prices.”

Spain to Clamp Down on File-Sharers

A bill that would allow Spain’s authorities to close down illegal websites with limited judicial oversight has caused anger among the country’s Internet users.

The law, known as Sinde’s bill (after the current culture minister Ángeles González-Sinde) is designed to close the loophole that sharing sites such as Roja Directa have exploited.

If you go to the website today, you will find a pithy warning against Internet piracy, courtesy of the U.S. authorities. The U.S. has exerted considerable pressure on Spain over what it sees as Madrid’s failure to tackle Internet piracy.

A banner with the seals of the U.S. Department of Justice, plus two other bureaucracies, informs Internet users that the Spanish domain name, formerly a hub of illegal sports content, has been seized in accordance with U.S. copyright law.

But if you do a search, it takes very little to realize that Roja Directa is alive and kicking. It just has been moved somewhere else and, much like Sweden’s The Pirate Bay, continues to put global file-sharers in contact, so they can download recent sports games, movies and more from each others’ computer.

Before the U.S. authorities shut down its main website in February, Roja Directa survived a legal challenge in Spain, as a local judge ruled that the website doesn’t break the law by putting file-sharers in contact with each other.

The Spanish authorities are getting fed up with this kind of thing. So despite some serious backlash from organized Internet users, they are set to make Sinde’s bill into law over this summer, aiming to get the ultimate tool to get rid of the likes of Roja Directa, and other notorious file-sharers.

“This is clear breach of the separation of powers,” says Enrique Dans, a professor in Madrid’s prestigious IE Business School.

The bill has had a troubled birth. A previous attempt to introduce the bill at the end of last year faltered after the government failed to attract enough support, as critics zeroed in on a proposal to let the government shut down the website without judicial oversight. Having watered down this proposal—a judge will now have to approve the government’s decision before it’s implemented—the government is confident it can secure enough support to pass the bill.

Alejandro Ramos, an Internet security expert in the SecurityByDefault website, estimates that 41% of the 517 webpages engaging in some sort of file-sharing in Spain will come under threat from the new law.

Those opposed to the law note that it comes on top of existing copyright regulations, which are among the most restrictive, and widely flouted, in the developed world. For years, Spain has been adding a surcharge on the price of CDs and DVDs payable to the country’s powerful artists’ unions.

The government’s anxiety over piracy may be explained by a desire to keep in with these unions, as they have a knack for making political statements.

However, there are more direct concerns—according to the Paris-based consultancy TERA Consultants—Spain’s creative industries generate about €62 billion in annual added value for Spain’s €1 trillion economy. They also employ 1.2 million, in a country with five million unemployed, just over 21% of the working-age population.

All the same, Sinde’s law will only affect Spanish-based websites, which may dampen its impact. As for Roja Directa, it’s been overseas for a while, and its email contact has an Indian domain extension.

 

Spain cracks down on bank interest rate war

Spain's government Friday announced a crackdown on a war between commercial banks offering ever higher deposit rates in a cut-throat battle for customers.
The government introduced a new regime to curb the competition, fearing it may further damage profits at Spain's banks, many of them still mopping up the bad loans from an exploded property bubble.
Under the new rules, banks are encouraged not to offer interest rates too far above the eurozone's benchmark Euribor rate, with variations allowed depending on the deposit period.
On average, the maximum deposit rate allowed under the new regime is now about 3.0 percent.
Any bank that takes the risk of offering deposit rates above the government-imposed ceiling would be forced to offset the liability at punitive levels.
For every euro a commercial bank accepts into such high-rate accounts, it would be forced to set aside another five euros into a deposit guarantee fund.
Acting in line with a Bank of Spain request, "we are introducing a new risk-linked regime for contributions to deposit guarantee funds," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
The authorities had been concerned about astronomical rates on offer for new deposit accounts of 3.5 percent, 4.0 percent, even 4.75 percent a year. Few other European countries offer such returns.
In addition to the high rates, Spanish banks also offer gifts for new customers from iPads to Blu-ray recorders.
Financial markets, worried about the weakness of the Spanish economy, have tightened -- and in some cases closed off entirely -- banks' access to the interbank market for overnight loans, their classic financing mechanism.
Many banks, therefore, started offering high-rate deposit accounts as a new source of funds.

 

Spain's king in hospital for knee op

Spain's widely loved 73-year-old king, Juan Carlos I, entered hospital Friday for surgery on his painful right knee, the royal household said.
The operation to restore movement and reduce pain in the knee is known as artheroplasty and can involve a complete joint replacement, but the palace has given no further details.
"His Majesty the King entered the San Jose Clinic of the city of Madrid at 7.50 am (0550 GMT) where during the morning an artheroplasty will be performed on his right knee," a palace statement said.
The results would be released to media after the operation by the head of the hospital surgical team Angel Villamor and by the king's personal physician Avelino Barros, it said.
The royal household announced plans for the operation May 30, saying the king suffered "joint pains on the right knee that make his usual physical activity difficult."
The joint pain was the result of "old injuries caused by his sporting activity", it said. The king is a great lover of sailing and has had skiing accidents in the past.
News of the planned surgery led to a flurry of questions about the king's health from Spain's journalists, provoking an outburst from the monarch that was widely reported in the Spanish press.
"I am feeling terrible, as you can see," the king said when asked how he felt by journalists the day after the operation had been announced.
"What you like to do is kill me," said Juan Carlos. "This what you in the press are doing."
Born January 5, 1938 in Rome, Juan Carlos was proclaimed king November 22 1975, two days after the death of General Francisco Franco who had designated him as successor since 1969.

 

Germany, Spain Agree to Seek Aid for Farmers

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero have agreed that Germany and Spain will try to get aid on a European Level for farmers affected by the deadly Escherichia coli outbreak in Germany.

Ms. Merkel, in a phone call to Mr. Zapatero Thursday, expressed her understanding about the economic stress that the Spanish vegetable sector has come under due to consumer backlash related to the outbreak, a German government release said late Thursday.

Spain's government earlier this week said it may seek compensation from Germany on the grounds that Spanish vegetable exporters were unfairly blamed for the unusual E.coli outbreak that caused the deaths of at least 17 people in Northern Europe, mostly in Germany.

The source of the outbreak, which has hit at least 11 European countries, remains unknown but authorities believe it comes from infected produce and warned people to avoid eating raw lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Countries including Russia and Belgium have continued to ban imports of some Spanish agricultural products.

A Spanish farming lobby earlier this week said Spanish farmers stand to lose as much as €200 million ($287 million) a week if recent measures against Spanish agricultural products aren't removed. Fernando Marcén, head of Agricultural Cooperatives, a Spanish farmers' group, on Tuesday said the outbreak is endangering 70,000 jobs in the country, which already has the highest unemployment rate in the developed world, at 21.3%. The poorer agricultural regions of Andalusia and Valencia have been most affected, he said.

In 2010, Spain exported €11.8 billion in fresh vegetables and fruits, accounting for 6.3% of total Spanish exports. Exports had risen strongly through April, the latest data available, as international demand for Spanish products helped the euro zone's fourth-largest economy stave off stagnation.

The withdrawal of agricultural products from the market is also affecting German farmers, who are losing around €30 million a week in sales, according to the German Farmers' Association.

Ms. Merkel and Mr. Zapatero agreed that identifying the source of the infection is a priority in order to take measures to protect the population, the statement said.

Germany, Spain Agree to Seek Aid for Farmers

Several large Spanish banks have reportedly been financing the manufacture of cluster bombs.

As more NATO bombs rain down on Libya, it has come to light that companies from one NATO member state have been supplying banned bombs to Muammar Gaddafi. Several large Spanish banks have reportedly been financing the manufacture of cluster bombs.
In just one strike, each cluster bomb can spread up to 2,000 smaller explosives, called “bomblets”, over a wide area. Fired into populated areas, they almost guarantee civilian deaths. This is why 57 countries have banned their use, stockpiling, production and transfer, ratifying the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), which is a binding international law. A total of 109 states have signed the Convention.
As such devices often fail to explode on impact, children sometimes mistake the unexploded bomblets for something to play with.
According to the Human Rights Watch organization, the markings on shells found in the Libyan city of Misrata belonged to Spanish company Instalaza SA.
“There were arms, MAT-120s, that are prohibited, that were purchased by Gaddafi and used against the residential area in Misrata, and they were produced by a Spanish company and financed by Spanish banks,” claimed Annie Yumi Joh, an anti-war campaigner from Madrid.
In 2007, when the Tripoli regime fell back into favor with the West and decades-old international military sanctions against Libya were lifted, Instalaza won a contract to supply Gaddafi's forces with the MAT-120 weapon and did so until 2008, when Spain signed-up to the CCM.
But with Libya now once again the enemy, Spain as part of NATO finds itself fighting a regime the country itself helped to arm.
But the trail goes back further, to Spanish banks, which provided the financial firepower to Instalaza to make their deadly weapons of war. It turns out there is a loophole in the CCM banning the production and use of the cluster bombs – but not banning investment into their production.
“There is one article in the Cluster Munitions Convention, article 1C that speaks of a prohibition to assist, and a lot of countries have already interpreted this article as also containing investment. Spain has not yet done so,” said Esther Vandenbourcke, author of the report "Worldwide Investments in Cluster Munitions: a Shared Responsibility".
It means that while Instalaza can no longer produce and sell cluster munitions, Spanish banks can continue to invest in their manufacture.
Spanish NGO SETEM's investigations have uncovered that Spain alone had 14 banks involved in financing 19 makers of cluster bombs.
BBVA is the Spanish bank that has been most active in funding producers of controversial weapons. And it is exactly this large-scale funding that has pushed campaigners to call for more robust policies that ensure the banks are held accountable.
“Banks are not that transparent about what they are using the savers' money for, and it’s not that easy to find out,” added Esther Vandenbourcke.
Many of the banks named in the investigation are now coming forward to say their policies on funding arms production are going to change.
However, until that happens, in the murky world of arms production, war remains a profitable business.

Spain's government said it may seek compensation from Germany

Spain's government said it may seek compensation from Germany on the grounds that Spanish vegetable exporters were unfairly blamed for a deadly outbreak of Escherichia coli, as European authorities said Spanish cucumbers weren't contaminated with an aggressive strain of the bacteria that is blamed for the deaths of 17 people in Northern Europe.

The death toll rose to 17 on Wednesday from 16 after authorities determined a German woman's death Sunday was due to an E. coli infection.

The Robert Koch Institute, which is funded by the German health ministry and is tracking numbers for all of Germany, reported 97 additional severe cases on Wednesday, bringing the total to 470 severe E. coli infections and an additional 1,064 less-severe cases.

After several days of tests, the source of the outbreak hasn't yet been found. A strand of E. coli initially found in Spanish cucumbers doesn't match the one causing the outbreak, health authorities in Hamburg, Germany, said Tuesday. Countries including Russia and Belgium have continued to ban imports of some Spanish agricultural products. On Thursday, Russia extended that ban to cover all food imports from the European Union.

Lyubov Voropayeva, spokeswoman for the Russian Agency for the Supervision of Consumer Rights, told the Associated Press that the ban had been imposed immediately for no definite period of time.

The agency's chief, Gennady Onishchenko, told Russian news agencies that this "unpopular measure" would be in place until European officials inform Moscow of the cause of the disease and how it is being spread.

EU Health Commissioner John Dalli said the outbreak seems to be in decline. "The tests that have been carried so far indicate that cucumbers in general, and cucumbers coming from Spain in particular, because they were tested, do not test positively for this particular strain," said Mr. Dalli. "Intensive work is taking place to pinpoint the source of contamination," he added. Mr. Dalli said the EU would look into compensation for farmers who have been affected financially, but that it was too early to give details of how much money had been lost.

Mr. Dalli also stressed that applying normal food hygiene rules, such as washing fresh vegetables, would help protect consumers.

Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba said Wednesday that comments last week by Hamburg authorities that the E. coli outbreak was triggered by cucumbers from Spain or other European countries have resulted in heavy losses for Spanish vegetable exporters.

"In Spain there hasn't been a single case...which indicates the bacteria...is not coming from Spain," Mr. Rubalcaba told Spain's Cadena Ser radio.



He said Spain's government is in contact with EU authorities and is seeking to have the EU lift a health warning in effect since the outbreak began last week.

A farming lobby says Spanish farmers stand to lose as much as €200 million ($287 million) a week if recent measures against Spanish agricultural products aren't removed.

Mr. Rubalcaba also said Spain may request compensation from Germany, but he didn't give further details. In 2010, Spain exported €11.8 billion in fresh vegetables and fruits, accounting for 6.3% of total Spanish exports.Exports had risen strongly through April, the latest data available, as international demand for Spanish products helped the euro zone's fourth-largest economy stave off stagnation.

Hamburg authorities say the city was in the right to warn about the cucumbers, said government spokesman Jörg Schmoll. Even if the strain of E. coli it detected didn't turn out to be the culprit, it could still kill someone, Mr. Schmoll added.

Fernando Marcén, head of Agricultural Cooperatives, a Spanish farmers' group, said the outbreak is endangering 70,000 jobs in the country, which already has the highest unemployment rate in the developed world, at 21.3%. The poorer agricultural regions of Andalusia and Valencia have been most affected, he said.

The withdrawal of agricultural products from the market is also affecting German farmers, who are losing around €30 million a week in sales, according to the German Farmers' Association.

Landgard, a German farm-marketing company that works with 3,200 farmers, says its farmers destroyed half a million heads of lettuce last week. "And that was just the beginning," said Stephan Weist, Landgard's managing director. "These numbers will go up."

Landgard is Germany's biggest tomato producer, with 20% of the market. Lettuce and tomato sales were down between 40% and 70% in May, amid the high season for Germany's farmers, compared with last year. Cucumber sales are down more than 80%, according to Landgard.

Spain could launch legal action against Germany over accusations that Spanish cucumbers caused the E.coli outbreak

Spain could launch legal action against Germany over accusations that Spanish cucumbers caused the E.coli outbreak that has so far killed 16 people in Germany and one in Sweden.

Spain's Deputy Prime Minister, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, said that the government in Madrid may issue a legal challenge to officials in the German port city of Hamburg, "who have questioned the quality of our products".

Spain has complained that German authorities pointed the finger of suspicion at Spanish produce before the result of tests were known. The latest death came in Germany and officials have said more than 1,500 people in nine nations – mostly all in Germany – have now been infected.

The German allegations have virtually paralysed exports of Spanish fruit and vegetables. After days of uncertainty, Hamburg officials said on Tuesday that tests showed that Spanish cucumbers had traces of E. coli bacteria, but not the strain that caused the outbreak.

But growers are still reeling from the so-called "cucumber psychosis" that turned the suspect Spanish vegetable into a market pariah throughout Europe and placed all Spanish produce on an unofficial blacklist.

Spanish farmers say the wave of panic cost them as much as €200m a week. The transport industry lost another €15m as delivery trucks were turned away at Spanish borders. Roughly 3m kg of unwanted fruits and vegetables rotted as the accusations surfaced. According to Spain's trade unions, the scare also jeopardises as many as 70,000 jobs, mostly in Almeria, Malaga, and other regions hard-hit by Spain's economic slump. "The damage is so enormous because the brutal alarm has affected so many products. We don't know how we'll recover," said Carlos Blazquez, president of Asaja Malaga, a farming co-operative representing the 4,000 vegetable growers whose losses total €6m so far.

"We just got word that Russia has closed its doors to the Malaga lemon and that the United States has started to raise entry barriers for our citrus growers, causing incalculable losses," he added.

The Spanish government says the accusations were made "without any proof". Brussels is now studying how to compensate the industry.

Spain's agricultural sector generates 15 per cent of the country's GDP and creates more than 300,000 jobs. Each year, the country produces roughly 16 million tons of fruit and vegetables, more than half of it for export to the rest of Europe. This large external market makes it especially vulnerable to a panic-provoked boycott.

And so, as the death toll in Germany mounted, the Spanish media flashed image of goats feeding on mountains of discarded cucumbers. A photo in El Mundo on Wednesday showed a sign at a Berlin marketplace boasting: "Here we don't sell Spanish products!"

"Yesterday I had two trucks of cucumbers and tomatoes loaded for Romania, but they told us that they didn't want anything grown in Spain," a worker for an Almeria grower, MartiGarcia, complained.

Following news of the outbreak, Russia prohibited imports of all Spanish vegetables, while Austria, Belgium, Germany and the Czech Republic instituted partial bans. Vegetable deliveries to France were put on hold, too. Vendors in several countries even cancelled orders for summer fruits like peaches and nectarines. Cucumber sales plummeted from the usual high of 70,000 tons to a meagre 2,000 tons.

Farmers now worry about a drop in prices for all produce. Before the cucumber scare, watermelon sold for €0.35 to €0.38 cents per kilo, for instance. Now the price is roughly half that.

Echohal, an association of produce vendors in Andalusia, announced that "hundreds" of workers have been fired, including 550 packagers in Almeria, Granada and Malaga. Warehouses in Almeria have already given an unpaid "day off" to more than 100 workers.

But there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. Juan Antonio Diaz, a produce distributor in Almeria, said: "We're happy. One of the biggest supermarkets in Germany and Austria just ordered from us again."

Spain's king lashes out at reporters

Spain's King Juan Carlos was visibly annoyed when reporters began inquiring about the state of his health, officials said.

The subject of the king's health came up Tuesday at a meeting of the Business Confederation of Madrid at the La Zarzuela palace. Spanish reporters asked him about his health in light of an operation he had last year and his impending knee surgery Saturday at a Barcelona hospital, El Pais reported.

"You are determined to say that I'm feeling awful. You would like to kill me and bury me every day," said Juan Carlos.

The Spanish king had surgery last May to remove a benign tumor from one of his lungs. Press coverage of the ruler's hospitalization was intense.

The decision to undergo knee surgery was decided weeks ago, but the royal palace delayed the announcement until after the May 22 elections.

 

lenders can seize not just the house but all the assets of its owner that it needs to cover an unpaid mortgage debt.

“There’s a growing feeling that the banks have played a big part in the problems now facing Spain,” said del Rio, 37, who gathered with a throng of people in the town’s main square last week as protests that began May 15 swelled across the country. “There’s real anger with banks that got out of control.”
A five-fold surge in bank lending in the decade up to 2007 has left its scars on customers as Spain’s property-fueled boom turned to bust, pushing unemployment above 21 percent and driving companies and consumers into default.
At least 28,000 people gathered in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol central square in the run-up to Spanish regional elections on May 22, according to organizers including the 15-M Movement, which says it’s protesting against “the way bankers and politicians have mismanaged the socio-economical crisis.” An assembly of demonstrators agreed on May 29 to continue the protest camp in Puerta del Sol this week after the movement also formed committees to take their message into city neighborhoods, Dante Scherma, a 15-M spokesman, said by phone.
Many Spaniards, asked by the government to sacrifice living standards and years in retirement to help fix public finances, have been incensed by Spain bailing out savings banks that were crippled by bad loans linked to real estate, said Luis Garicano, a professor at the London School of Economics.
Bailout Costs
“The anger of the youth is real because there’s this feeling that the system is rigged so that bankers make mistakes and don’t suffer the consequences -- while they do,” he said in a phone interview. “Anti-banker sentiment is serious because it risks clouding the judgment of politicians when it comes to taking serious decisions.”
The cost of succoring Spanish savings banks with loans from a government rescue fund has risen to about 11 billion euros. The Bank of Spain has identified a further capital shortfall of about 14 billion euros, some of which will be covered by the rescue fund, known as FROB.
So far, that amount pales in comparison with the money spent in countries such as the U.K., where Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc alone needed a 45 billion-pound government bailout. At about 1 percent of gross domestic product, the cost of Spain’s rescue in the form of loans from a government fund compares with as much as 100 billion euros to be spent by Ireland on cleaning up its banks, a bill that’s about two-thirds the size of the country’s economy.
‘Banco Sintander’
To be fair, Spaniards need to consider their own role in the country’s economic story of the past decade before singling out people such as bankers or politicians for blame, said Aleix Salo, a cartoonist who has published a short film and comic book called “Espanistan” that satirizes modern Spain.
His comic book tells the story of Fredo, a 20-something without work and his quest to cancel his mortgage that takes him to regions of the fictional country including the sinister “Financial District” where business lobbies dictate the country’s future.
There, a character named “Amalio Botin,” who runs a lender called “Banco Sintander,” transforms into a troll when Fredo and friends ask him to annul the loan. In real life, Emilio Botin is chairman of Banco Santander SA, Spain’s biggest bank. Botin faced protests from about 60 placard-wielding students on a May 30 visit to Madrid’s Carlos III University, El Pais reported.
‘Played Their Part’
A spokesman for Santander declined to comment in a phone interview. Santander, which hasn’t tapped any rescue funds, employs about 34,000 people in Spain and earned 8.18 billion euros last year.
“All sectors of Spanish society have played their part in what has happened in this country,” said Salo, adding that he was still glad people were demonstrating because that meant they were participating in politics. “I’m quite sure that just about everyone who’s out there on the streets protesting still has a bank account.”
The 15-M movement and other organizers of street protests are calling for action against banks among demands that include cuts in military spending and closure of nuclear power plants.
Proposals approved May 20 at a general assembly called in Puerta del Sol included demands for “multiple measures” to stem banking abuses and immediate nationalization of lenders rescued by the state. From 17 percent in 2007, unemployment among Spaniards aged under 25 stands above 44 percent, a rate that compares with 7.9 percent for Germany, according to European Central Bank data.
Interest-Rate Swap
The protesters also asked for changes to Spain’s mortgage laws so that people who take out home loans can cancel the debt by handing over their house to the bank in the event of non- payment. At present, lenders can seize not just the house but all the assets of its owner that it needs to cover an unpaid mortgage debt.
Del Rio said she felt compelled to join the protest in Soria after her experience in 2008, when she bought an interest- rate swap from Caja Rural de Soria at the same time as she took out a mortgage for a new apartment.
She said the bank, which told her the product was to protect her against rising interest rates, saddled her with rising costs when 12-month Euribor, the benchmark rate for most Spanish mortgages, plunged to 1.2 percent by March 2010 from as high as 5.5 percent in October 2008.
Court Rulings
Judges across Spain have been ruling against banks in cases brought by individuals and companies who claimed they were sold swaps without being informed of the risks. So far, 247 cases have been resolved in favor of clients against 55 for banks, according to the Association of Users Affected by Swaps and Financial Derivatives.
“I think there’s been an explosion of rage against the banks,” said del Rio, an electrical engineer. “In my case it comes from personal experience of being sold what turned out to be a complex derivative.”
Six calls seeking comment from Caja Rural in Soria, including one to the chairman’s office, were unanswered