CEO of failed Spanish bank to walk away with over $17 million

Bankers being bankers. Any government led bailout has to include terms for canceling luxurious pay plans like this. The bank in question, Bankia, is eagerly waiting for a massive bailout to stay afloat after only one year in operation.

Unemployment in Spain is over 23% with youth unemployment running over 50% and their economic situation is nowhere near stabilizing. The banks are on life support now and there is at least a decade of surplus housing on the market, plus years of bad loans that still need to be cleaned up.

There is absolutely no way Spain can or should provide any retirement for the CEO who led the bank into the ground so quickly. It would be immoral and a slap in the face to the million of unemployed to tolerate such gross mismanagement. Read the rest of this post...

First double leg transplant surgery

Absolutely amazing.

Spanish surgeons on Monday carried out the world's first-ever double leg transplant, authorities in the eastern city of Valencia said.

The operation lasted all night and was completed on Monday morning in the city's La Fe hospital, the regional health authority said in a statement.

"It is the first time in the world that such a transplant has been carried out," it said.

And to think such progress can occur in a so-called socialist health care country. And here I thought that such programs would destroy innovation, like the wingnuts like to suggest. Imagine that. Read the rest of this post...

Barcelona police resort to violence to move peaceful protesters

Somehow the excuse of "we need to clean the public square" doesn't sound very convincing, so it's no wonder some of the protesters decided to stay. Keep in mind that unemployment in Spain is over 20% and for the younger generation, it's over 40% so they have legitimate arguments against the political class. Who in the west isn't upset with the free ride that the bankers have received after the destruction that they left behind? The only real surprise is that the protests have been so limited. Read the rest of this post...

Socialists routed in Spanish local elections

Although they lost badly, it's hard to say how much real confidence voters have in the center-right to fix the problems of the Spanish economy. The unemployment numbers are staggering (21% but up to 41% for youth) and there are no easy answers to get out of this mess. It's easy to understand voter discontent because there's a lot of that going around in quite a few countries. The model of recent years simply doesn't work any longer. Al Jazeera:

Spain's ruling Socialist Party has suffered stinging losses in local elections, and now faces a balancing act between voter anger over sky-high unemployment and investor demands for strict austerity measures.

A week of protests by Spaniards fed up with the stagnant economy and the EU's highest jobless rate preceded Sunday's elections, which left the Socialists out of power in most of the country's cities and almost all the 17 autonomous regions.

Pressure could now grow from inside and outside the Socialist party for Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, to call for early elections, though he vowed on Sunday night to hang on to the end of his term in March next year.

While the outcome of local elections does not always forecast general elections, the centre-right opposition Popular Party (PP) will try to turn Sunday's momentum into a victory at the national level.

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Spanish protesters tired of politics as usual

While 60,000 people gathering is still relatively small, it's still large enough. What is even more interesting is that the protesters are fed up with the same old political parties and the same old politicians. That is something everyone can relate to including in the US. How many people really are that excited about either the Democrats or the Republicans? On the right we saw the Teabaggers rise (and now fall) and on the left, there's a lot of discontent with the Democrats on a number of issues including the failed management of the financial industry, human rights, and the wars. The Guardian:

Cynical and ingenuous by turns, the Madrid protesters and those who refused to budge from the city squares have torn up the rule book of Spanish public politics. The heavyweights of old – political parties, trade unions and media commentators – are not wanted here.

"I was sacked when the Madrid regional government closed down a women's centre last year when it imposed cuts," explained Beatriz García as she bashed a small frying pan with a wooden spoon. "The unions didn't even bother to turn up."

The political parties were worse still, she said. "There is no renovation. There is nothing new or different, just two parties who take it in turn to govern because our electoral laws favour them."

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Spain wants to change chewing gum so it's less sticky

It's easy enough to understand the financial consequences of having to clean it up, but adding vinyl sounds iffy.

A full cabinet meeting has decided that Spanish gum is just too sticky, costing local councils large sums of money as they try to scrub city streets back into a state of pre-gum purity.

The solution, says the government, is to employ a copolymer of vinyl acetate and vinyl laurate as the basis for Spanish gum.

"It sticks less, which makes cleaning easier," according to the health ministry.

Barcelona's city hall estimates it scrapes up 1,800 bits of gum a day from its streets - at a cost of more than €100,000 (£85,000) a year. It has introduced fines of up to €450 for gum-droppers.

Campaigners have claimed vinyl acetate could be dangerous to health, but regulators disagree.

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Over one million march in Barcelona for Catalan autonomy

It will be interesting to see how everyone reacts. The regional politicians will be under more pressure now to find a solution to the demands of the people who have been asking for more autonomy for years.

The demonstration comes a day after a constitutional court declared that there was no legal basis to recognise Catalonia as a nation.

The ruling also said the Catalan language should not take precedence over Castilian Spanish.

It followed a challenge to the region's statute by the opposition People's Party, which favours Spanish unity.

The statute of autonomy was approved by Catalan voters in a 2006 referendum.

It gave greater powers to the regional parliament in taxation and judicial matters.

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End of an era in Spain?

I've never been to a bullfight and don't have any plans to work it into my schedule. Apparently others are feeling the same about these events as Catalonia, Spain moves to ban bullfights.

Ten years into the 21st century, it seems extraordinary that a phenomenon like this still has a place at the cultural heart of a modern European nation. There is no underestimating the staying power of a spectacle that some would say forms part of the Spanish national DNA. Yet even in this most tradition-addicted society, the tectonic plates of custom are gradually shifting, and public opinion over the corrida de toros is polarised as never before. On one hand, the Spanish anti-bullfight movement, virtually non-existent 20 years ago, has made huge inroads into a society for whom the notion of animal rights was until recently a puzzlingly alien concept. A proposal is currently going through the Catalan parliament which, if and when it is finally approved this summer, will abolish the corrida once and for all in the region. On the other hand, the news value of the corrida has taken a surprising leap in the past decade, thanks mainly to matador José Tomás – front-page news across the world when he was nearly gored to death in Mexico in April, requiring 17 pints of blood after a bull called Navegante ripped a 15cm hole in his thigh. Not for decades has a matador captured the imagination of bullfight fans like this enigmatic and reclusive man, acclaimed as the saviour of bullfighting for the new dose of glamour he has brought to this most controversial and, some say, anachronistic of sports.

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Spanish doctors perform face transplant

It's amazing to hear what doctors are able to do these days. Since the partial face transplant a few years ago this type of surgery is developing quickly.

The Spanish patient, who was not identified, now has a completely new face from his hairline down and only one visible scar, which looks like a wrinkle running across his neck, said Barret, who headed the 30-member surgical team.

The man cannot yet speak, eat or smile, but he can see and swallow saliva, the surgeon said. He is expected to be able to eat and breathe on his own in about a week.

"If you look him in the face, you see a normal person," Barret said. "He sits up, he walks in his hospital room and he watches television."

Before the transplant, the 30-year-old patient had had nine surgeries and could only breathe with the help of a ventilator and get nourishment from a feeding tube. He also had problems speaking.

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Spain's top bullfighter in hospital after goring - fighting for his life

What is the upside to bullfighting and who really wants to pay to see bullfighters gored or bulls slaughtered?

The half-tonne bull caught the famously risk-taking torero in his upper thigh and dug his horn deep by raising his head before flicking the pink-stockinged, sequinned matador up into the air.

Doctors said the horn had penetrated 15cm (6in) into the 34-year-old bullfighter's thigh, damaging veins and arteries and causing a huge loss of blood.

"It is a very deep wound," his manager, Salvador Boix, said. "He has been operated on for three and a half hours. He needed a transfusion of eight litres of blood – the human body normally contains just five litres.

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Monday morning open thread

I'm back from Barcelona. Got in last night. It was a quick trip, unfortunately - my God what a gorgeous city - but it was an incredibly worthwhile experience. I got to meet so many interesting political Internet activists and consultants and just overall experts from around the EU, and even a few from the states. I'm jet lagging massively as I write this, but will write more about who I met and things I learned, and just the overall experience, over the day. And share a few more photos (though I didn't get that many - most of the trip was spent at the conference site). The photo above is of the Sagrada Familia church, and the surrounding grounds. A truly spectacular building. It's been under construction since 1883. Seriously. 1883. It's scheduled to be completed in 2026. Talk about taking a long view of history. Read the rest of this post...

Spanish winemaker faces the environment

The wine business is one of those industries that feels the effects of the climate variations more than many others. (Agriculture in general faces this issue, of course.) One progressive producer in Spain is making an effort to act responsibly today and plan for the possible changes tomorrow. It's a very interesting ready even beyond the climate change issue as he discusses how he runs the family business and what he considers fair to all of his workers.

Production of pinot noir and chardonnay at 1,200 metres above sea level has already started, showing no less quality than the wine produced on the gentle hills of the Penedès region, just south of Barcelona. Fears are growing, however, that lowland areas could be reduced to dust in a couple of generations. "Temperatures have already risen by one degree," Torres says. "If they increase by five, southern Europe will be full of arid steppes." This one-degree rise has already brought forward the harvest by 12 or 13 days, he says. "Vineyards are very sensitive."

Torres has donated €10m (£9m) of his own money to environmental issues, and is aiming to reduce the output of CO2 in the winery by 30% by 2020. He has a hybrid car and has bought them for his staff, invested in a wind park and is experimenting with the capture and use of CO2 from wine fermentation.

The businessman has not used synthetic chemicals in his vineyards for more than 20 years, instead using insect traps baited with sex pheromones secreted by females to trap the males and thereby stop reproduction.

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Spain removing final representations of Franco

It's hard to believe that some still have such high respect for the dictator Franco. It's a bit strange that a law had to be passed to put him in the past but it's even more bizarre that some still wanted him in view even today.

For almost four decades General Francisco Franco was someone Spaniards could not escape. He was there in school books, church prayers, statues, plaques, street names and thousands of other reminders of a violent insurrection that led to a vicious civil war.

Now his face and name are being erased from public view. Even the army, where nostalgia for the dictator survived long after his death in 1975, has pledged to remove all plaques, statues and monuments to the regime of a man it once revered as the saviour of the nation. A full list of the Francoist paraphernalia still lurking inside the country's barracks will be ready by the end of the year. Then the cull will start.

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Bank robberies on the rise in Spain

If only they had proper lobbyists to spin their criminal activities and receive government assistance or acceptance. Heck, they could probably even walk away with even more money and pretend that they were legitimate. Spain's Geithner would probably even hire them to work through the process, but then what would happen to all of those Citi people?

With Spain's economy in freefall and loans squeezed, desperadoes are resorting to robbing banks to solve their personal credit crunch.

Bank robberies have risen by 20 per cent in two years, Spain's banking association says; and those who adopt the tactic of the stick-up to pay their debts are novices rather than hardened criminals.

"In recent months, it has become apparent that Spain is suffering from an increase in bank robberies," Francisco Perez Abellan, the head of criminology at Camilo Jose Cela University in Madrid, told The New York Times.

"We are seeing people committing offences through necessity, first-time offenders who can no longer continue to maintain their lifestyle and so turn to crime," he said.

Instances where counter clerks are tied up at gunpoint while masked raiders empty the safe have become so common that Spain's government, prodded by the bank employees' trade union, has classified bank robbery as an occupational hazard.

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Spain launches Gitmo torture inquiry

This may get interesting. If the US is afraid to get serious about judging the legality of torture, at least Spain is not backing down. AP:

Spain's top investigative magistrate opened an investigation into the Bush administration Wednesday over alleged torture of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay.

Judge Baltasar Garzon said documents declassified by the new U.S. government suggest the practice was systematic.

Garzon said he was acting under Spain's observance of the principle of universal justice, which allows crimes allegedly committed in other countries to be prosecuted in Spain.

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Spanish unemployment up to 17.4%

And it is expected to become even worse. Ouch.

Unemployment in Spain jumped to 17.4% in the first quarter of 2009, bringing the total number of unemployed to 4,010,700, the National Statistics Institute reported on Friday.

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Spain officially in recession - first since 1993

Spain experienced impressive growth in recent years though they also significantly expanded the use of credit. Real estate was booming and was one of the hottest markets in Europe as many bought vacation homes or condos. Compounding the local credit problem was the large number of foreign buyers, British in particular. The British pound was much stronger than the euro but in the last 6 months that has changed, bringing it on par with the euro. In addition, the credit loving Brits also began struggling with their own credit problems at home and the first thing to go was the second home.

Globalization can offer plenty of benefits but it does not come without risks. This current recession is a tangled mess. Reuters:

Spain's economy shrank 1.0 percent during the fourth quarter and entered its first recession since 1993, setting the tone for an expected slew of bleak European growth data.

Spain was the first large euro zone economy to publish gross domestic product for the last three months of 2008 and its quarter-on-quarter contraction was slightly less than a Reuters forecast of 1.1 percent, according to the flash estimate released on Thursday by the National Statistics Institute.

It was the steepest decline since the first quarter of 1993 and followed a 0.3 percent contraction in the third quarter, putting Spain into recession alongside Germany, Italy and Britain.

Spanish year-on-year growth shrank 0.7 percent, compared with a forecast 0.8 percent decrease, marking the worst result since the second quarter of 1993.

Spain's economy grew just 1.2 percent in 2008, the weakest annual growth since its last annual recession in 1993, and bang in line with the government's 1.2 percent forecast.

Analysts are expecting even steeper quarterly contractions from Germany, Italy and France when they report GDP on Friday, ahead of wider euro zone data.

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Bike sharing programs continue to expand

I was impressed seeing so many "bicing" stations around Barcelona last week. It looks similar to the "velib" system in Paris and people were riding the "bicing" bikes everywhere. The bikes in such systems are not for pleasure riding but for point to point transportation. As long as you arrive in less than 30 minutes, they're amazingly cheap.

Over the last several years, the programs have sprung up and taken off in dozens of cities, on a scale no one had thought possible and in places where bicycling had never been popular.

The sharing plans include not just Paris’s Vélib’, with its 20,000 bicycles, but also wildly popular programs with thousands of bicycles in major cities like Barcelona and Lyon, France. There are also programs in Pamplona, Spain; Rennes, France; and Düsseldorf, Germany. Even Rome, whose narrow, cobbled streets and chaotic traffic would seem unsuited to pedaling, recently started a small trial program, Roma’n’Bike, which it plans to expand soon.

For mayors looking to ease congestion and prove their environmental bona fides, bike-sharing has provided a simple solution: for the price of a bus, they invest in a fleet of bicycles, avoiding years of construction and approvals required for a subway. For riders, joining means cut-rate transportation and a chance to contribute to the planet’s well-being.

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MNAC Barcelona

Joelle and I escaped the rain last Sunday in Barcelona and headed over to the MNAC. The Guide du Routard says the museum has the best collection of Roman art in the world and it did not disappoint. Anyone who visits Barcelona should see the MNAC.

As a side note, Barcelona is a city that really does a fabulous job with public transport. A ten ride Metro ticket is only 7,30 euro and it goes everywhere. You can even use the Metro ticket - a standard ticket, no less - to go to and from the airport.


She is a real beauty. We just stood there and appreciated her for a while.


Plenty of families and tours for children. In general I find Europeans promote and teach culture much more than we do in America. It always impresses me how people over here appreciate and seek out culture regardless of education or social background. Culture is just part of life so it's not as distant as it can be in the US.


The martyrs...being martyred.


The MNAC has rescued many ancient paintings from small churches around the country and rebuilt them in the museum.


You don't see a pregnant Virgin every day.


Perhaps this is where the expression "serving your head on a platter" comes from.


Not many can pull off this look.


Velazquez is perhaps under-appreciated outside of Spain, but after a previous visit to the Prado, I became a convert. One of the great painters of all time. Read the rest of this post...

Obama celebrated here in Barcelona!

I was hoping to make it to see this beach but my schedule became crazy on Monday, so for now, it's just a CNN link to this very cool project.

Barack Obama sometimes gets ribbed for his outsized ideas, like the massive stage built in Denver, Colorado, to accept the Democratic presidential nomination. But an artist in Barcelona, Spain, has outdone even the candidate himself.

The artist has created a gigantic face of Obama sculpted from gravel and sand, covering nearly 2.5 acres (1 hectare) of Barcelona beachfront before the U.S. elections.

"The size of the piece is intrinsic to its value," the artist, Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada, said.

"Obama's personality -- his youth, personal history and message of a new politics -- has fused with the historical moment to create someone larger than life," says the artist's dossier about the work, titled "Expectation."

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