Spain ranked 8th country with most deaths from extreme weather
Over the last three decades, Spain has suffered 27,000 deaths and economic losses of around €24 billion as a result of extreme weather events such as DANA storms, droughts, floods and heatwaves.
This is the result of the new “Climate Risk Index”, which contains official data from 170 countries and is compiled each year by prestigious German research centre “GermanWatch”.
The impact of last year’s devastating floods in Valencia cannot be underestimated, as Spain was previously ranked in 32nd place worldwide.
‘Wolf pack’ rapists try to harness flawed law to reduce prison time
Two of the five rapists that formed the so-called ‘Wolf Pack’ (La Manada), the perpetrators of gang rape at Pamplona’s Running of the Bulls in 2016 which shocked Spain, have attempted to use the so-called ‘Only Yes means Yes’ law to reduce their sentences.
The controversial legislation, introduced in 2022 by Spain’s then-equality minister Irene Montero, effectively removes the legal distinction between sexual abuse and rape. By grouping rape and abuse together, the law has widened the range of potential penalties for both crimes.
More than 1,000 inmates convicted of sexual abuse have so far had their sentences slashed, including another member of the ‘Wolf Pack’.
READ MORE: Why is Spain reducing prison sentences for rapists?
Housing Ministry calls investigation into empty homes in big cities
Spain’s Ministry of Housing has asked the country’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) to investigate the state and usage of 400,000 empty homes in large municipalities with a population of over 250,000 inhabitants.
This has been confirmed by Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez, who has ruled out that the 3.8 million unoccupied properties across Spain are a solution to the existing housing crisis as many are in depopulated areas, as initially suggested by hard-left party Podemos.
Nonetheless, authorities will look into how the almost half a million vacant properties in large Spanish cities are being used, if at all.
No Ukraine Trump-Putin deal without Ukraine and Europeans: Spanish FM
The foreign ministers of France, Germany and Spain insisted on Wednesday that any peace deal in Ukraine could not be achieved without the involvement of Kyiv and its European partners.
"There will be no just and lasting peace in Ukraine without the participation of Europeans," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told a foreign ministers' meeting in Paris, while his German and Spanish counterparts added that no decisions could be taken without Ukraine.
The ministers spoke shortly after US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to immediately start talks to end the Ukraine war.
Germany's Annalena Baerbock and Spain's José Manuel Albares both told the meeting that no decision on Ukraine could be made "without Ukraine" and called on EU countries to show unity on this question.
Albares added: "We want peace for Ukraine but we want an unjust war to end with a just peace".
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