<![CDATA[EL PAÍS]]>https://english.elpais.comSun, 17 May 2026 10:35:46 +0000en1hourly1<![CDATA[‘Sodomized’ gargoyles beside Spain’s world-famous Santiago Cathedral: The ‘aberration’ only the public noticed]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-05-15/sodomized-gargoyles-beside-spains-world-famous-santiago-cathedral-the-aberration-only-the-locals-noticed.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-05-15/sodomized-gargoyles-beside-spains-world-famous-santiago-cathedral-the-aberration-only-the-locals-noticed.htmlFri, 15 May 2026 19:36:41 +0000In the heart of Santiago de Compostela, steps from the city’s world‑famous cathedral, a restoration project has ignited a fierce debate over how Spain protects its heritage. Workers renovating the Hostal dos Reis Católicos — a 15th‑century pilgrim hospital turned parador — installed copper pipes straight through its Renaissance gargoyles, leaving the sculptures visibly impaled. The images have shocked locals and specialists alike, forcing authorities into damage‑control mode.

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]]>ÓSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[Veigas de Camba, the village submerged half a century ago that still celebrates pilgrimages and funerals]]>https://english.elpais.com/spain/2026-01-10/veigas-de-camba-the-village-submerged-half-a-century-ago-that-still-celebrates-pilgrimages-and-funerals.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/spain/2026-01-10/veigas-de-camba-the-village-submerged-half-a-century-ago-that-still-celebrates-pilgrimages-and-funerals.htmlSat, 10 Jan 2026 04:00:00 +0000On the first Sunday in September, around a hundred people from municipalities in Ourense, Madrid, Barcelona, and Ponferrada travel to a chapel and a cemetery on a special spot in the vast landscape of southeastern Spanish region of Galicia. The location is enveloped by the Serra Seca mountains (1,100 meters above sea level), the eternal route to Castile, and the Invernadoiro Natural Park (1,550 meters). There they venerate (ahead of the saint’s day itself) their patron saint, San Martiño; they visit the remains of their dead; and celebrate that Veigas de Camba, their beloved village, swallowed by the waters of the Portas reservoir more than half a century ago in 1974, remains alive in the collective memory.

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]]><![CDATA[‘Plan Marta’: The journey of 815 young women sent to Australia by Francoist Spain]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-08-10/plan-marta-the-journey-of-815-young-women-sent-to-australia-by-francoist-spain.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-08-10/plan-marta-the-journey-of-815-young-women-sent-to-australia-by-francoist-spain.htmlSun, 10 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000They went on an adventure, with a two-year contract as domestic workers. After that time, they were free to return. But they weren’t able to travel back from Australia for decades. Firstly, because the return ticket cost the equivalent of several years of work. Secondly, because the loneliness was so intense for them that many quickly accepted — with varying degrees of conviction and fortune — marriage proposals from men who had arrived a few years earlier. In Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane, they ended up settling down, becoming socially involved, starting families, and founding their own meeting places to combat homesickness and rootlessness. Huge Spanish social clubs were opened in several cities, even Basque pelota courts and gure txokos (social clubs), and later Galician cultural centers, and there were parties with paella and sangria, soccer tournaments, and even religious pilgrimages to pay homage to Our Lady of El Rocío in the middle of Oceania. For six decades, Spanish women have continued to meet on Saturdays in Sydney’s Centennial Park.

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]]>Archivo de la familia Altuna<![CDATA[The Russian cannons that guard the Spanish coast ]]>https://english.elpais.com/spain/2025-06-15/the-russian-cannons-that-guard-the-spanish-coast.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/spain/2025-06-15/the-russian-cannons-that-guard-the-spanish-coast.htmlSun, 15 Jun 2025 04:00:00 +0000The guide provided by the City Council has summoned visitors to the shadow of the gate of a walled enclosure. It crowns O Castro Hill, one of the largest urban parks in Vigo, Spain. But before entering the fortress that, for centuries, served to defend the strategic square from foreign sieges, the historian asks the tourists to dare to leave the coolness of the entrance for a moment. By doing so, they can observe two cannons that are heating up in the spring sun.

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]]><![CDATA[Ancient Roman mosaic returns to Spain after 8,768-mile journey]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-01-23/ancient-roman-mosaic-returns-to-spain-after-8768-mile-journey.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2025-01-23/ancient-roman-mosaic-returns-to-spain-after-8768-mile-journey.htmlThu, 23 Jan 2025 17:49:43 +0000It was created in the third century to remain forever in its original location, yet since its discovery on a private estate during construction work sometime before 1850, it has traveled at least 8,768 miles across the globe, only to return to its starting point in the Spanish city of Nigrán. Spanish lawyer Gonzalo Fernández-Turégano calculated this incredible journey and shared the details via WhatsApp, using the in-flight Wi-Fi on his way to New York. His message came just as the Roman Mosaic of Panxón was finally returned to its homeland this Wednesday, following a long and arduous odyssey.

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]]>Galería Carlton Hobbs<![CDATA[How the first mass tool workshop in history functioned 1.2 million years ago ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-04-19/how-the-first-mass-tool-workshop-in-history-functioned-12-million-years-ago.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-04-19/how-the-first-mass-tool-workshop-in-history-functioned-12-million-years-ago.htmlWed, 19 Apr 2023 02:13:36 +0000Amid the unstoppable river floods of the 2011 monsoon season in Thailand, the factories of several multinational technology companies like Sony and Western Digital were flooded and inaccessible. Millions of hard disks, graphics cards and external memory were lost under the mud in the disaster caused by the torrential rains, resulting in shortages around the world. Over 1.2 million years ago, forces of nature facilitated—and then fixed and saved forever—another large-scale workshop’s stock. Simbiro III, part of Ethiopia’s Melka Kunture archaeological site—a current candidate to become a UNESCO World Heritage site—has artifacts up to two million years old (from the Olduvayense and Acheulean periods). An Italian-Spanish research team—which includes researchers Eduardo Méndez-Quintas and Andrea Serodio of the University of Vigo (Spain) and Joaquín Panera and Susana Rubio of the Complutense University of Madrid—is studying the site. Led by Margherita Mussi, of Rome’s University of Sapienza, the group discovered the first known mass workshop in this enclave, which has a large stock of about 120 bifaces per square meter.

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]]><![CDATA[Loving to death: The fate of a mother octopus]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-02-28/loving-to-death-the-fate-of-a-mother-octopus.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-02-28/loving-to-death-the-fate-of-a-mother-octopus.htmlTue, 28 Feb 2023 23:16:46 +0000This story begins like so many others: with a sex scene. Or, as marine biologist Álvaro Roura put it, with “indifferent intercourse.” Roura, who has dedicated his life to the study of these clever creatures on the coast of Vigo (northwest Spain) and who worked for years at Spain’s National Research Council (CSIC), explained that “when octopuses have sex, there’s not a twitch, not even a change in color.” In this copulation, which can take up to an hour, there are no apparent signs of enjoyment. There is, however, a clear, selfless mission that the female octopus must complete during it, “from the moment she only weighs 180 grams” until she is “an eight-kilo adult.” Her goal is to get her tentacles on a good amount of spermatophores – sperm capsules – from different males, which then “explode like firecrackers” inside her when in contact with water.

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]]><![CDATA[Storms unearth hundreds of Roman artifacts in Spain ]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-02-26/storms-unearth-hundreds-of-roman-artifacts-in-spain.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-02-26/storms-unearth-hundreds-of-roman-artifacts-in-spain.htmlSun, 26 Feb 2023 11:20:38 +0000Between December 31 and January 1, 2023, a storm destroyed a famous fountain in Mondariz–Balneario, a spa town and municipality in Galicia, Spain. It also brought down more than 1,000 square meters of a wall called the Valença do Minho on the Portuguese border with Galicia, opening up the ground in the municipality of Nigrán.

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]]>Gustavo Pascual<![CDATA[How three friends in Spain discovered a heretofore unknown mineral called ermeloite]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-09-25/how-three-friends-in-spain-discovered-a-heretofore-unknown-mineral-called-ermeloite.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-09-25/how-three-friends-in-spain-discovered-a-heretofore-unknown-mineral-called-ermeloite.htmlSun, 25 Sep 2022 16:49:33 +0000Mineral collectors won’t be able to display a piece of ermeloite in their showcases. The first sample weighs just a few milligrams. Found in Spain by three friends who’ve long been passionate about mineralogy, the heretofore unknown mineral was analyzed and identified at Spain’s University of Santiago Compostela.

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]]><![CDATA[A community in Spain works to recover ancient Roman mosaic that ended up in New York]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-09-07/a-community-in-northwest-spain-has-organized-to-recover-a-3rd-century-roman-mosaic.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-09-07/a-community-in-northwest-spain-has-organized-to-recover-a-3rd-century-roman-mosaic.htmlWed, 07 Sep 2022 01:50:15 +0000Like most baby-boomers of the 1970s growing up in Vigo, a city in Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia, Gonzalo Fernández-Turégano used to spend long hours gazing at the black-and-white photographs of a thick book with greenish covers titled Vigo en su historia (Vigo in its history). That kid, who was born in 1976 and is now a lawyer, a banking executive and an art lover based in Madrid, used to pass the time at his aunt and uncle’s house turning the pages of the 676-page volume; however, time and time again, he got stuck – or rather, captivated – between pages 49 and 53. That was where a mullet and a couple of clams depicted with tesserae tiles awaited. The animals floated on an ocean floor represented by water flies, the same symbol (superimposed lines, with a kind of mustache at one end) found in other Iberian mosaics with a marine theme. The text that accompanied the image of the Roman Mosaic of Panxón included explanations from archaeologist Fernando Acuña Castroviejo, who had researched the origins of the piece.

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]]>Galería Carlton Hobbs<![CDATA[Spanish police arrest fourth suspect in fatal beating of Samuel Luiz]]>https://english.elpais.com/spain/2021-07-09/spanish-police-arrest-fourth-suspect-in-fatal-beating-of-samuel-luiz.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/spain/2021-07-09/spanish-police-arrest-fourth-suspect-in-fatal-beating-of-samuel-luiz.htmlFri, 09 Jul 2021 10:17:10 +0000Spanish police have arrested a fourth individual in connection with the deadly beating of a young man by a group of at least seven people in the northwestern city of A Coruña last Saturday. The suspect is a man in his early twenties who is friends with the three people – two men and a woman – who were arrested over the brutal killing of Samuel Luiz, 24, outside a nightclub in the Galician city. The latest suspect is facing charges of homicide and for taking the victim’s phone.

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]]><![CDATA[Spain prepares for next phase change of coronavirus deescalation plan ]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-06-11/spain-prepares-for-last-phase-change-of-coronavirus-deescalation-plan.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2020-06-11/spain-prepares-for-last-phase-change-of-coronavirus-deescalation-plan.htmlThu, 11 Jun 2020 09:00:46 +0000Several regional authorities in Spain have filed their proposals to move to a new phase of the coronavirus deescalation plan to the central Health Ministry. The state of alarm in Spain will officially come to an end on June 21. After this date, Spain will be under the “new normality” following a prolonged coronavirus lockdown and deescalation process.

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]]>(Foto: Europa Press | Vídeo: Atlas)<![CDATA[Franco’s summer palace is handed to Spanish state amid legal battle]]>https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-12-11/francos-summer-palace-is-handed-to-spanish-state-amid-legal-battle.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-12-11/francos-summer-palace-is-handed-to-spanish-state-amid-legal-battle.htmlFri, 11 Dec 2020 12:29:32 +0000After 82 years in the hands of the Franco family, a country estate known as Pazo de Meirás was turned over to the Spanish state on Thursday following a court ruling declaring it public property. The dictator’s descendants have appealed the decision.

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]]><![CDATA[The story of the Spanish potato chip that walked Hollywood’s red carpet ]]>https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-03-03/the-story-of-the-spanish-potato-chip-that-walked-hollywoods-red-carpet.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-03-03/the-story-of-the-spanish-potato-chip-that-walked-hollywoods-red-carpet.htmlTue, 03 Mar 2020 07:32:06 +0000There’s an image that expresses the delirium that Bonilla a la Vista potato chips, a family-owned brand from northwestern Spain, caused when they arrived in South Korea in April 2016.

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]]>ÓSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[Spanish judge tells Franco’s heirs to return summer residence]]>https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-09-02/spanish-judge-tells-francos-heirs-to-return-summer-residence.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-09-02/spanish-judge-tells-francos-heirs-to-return-summer-residence.htmlWed, 02 Sep 2020 15:49:11 +0000A judge in Spain’s Galicia region has ruled that the Spanish state is the rightful owner of a rural property held for over 80 years by the family of the late dictator Francisco Franco.

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]]><![CDATA[Galicia ‘comarca’ becomes the latest area in Spain to be confined due to coronavirus outbreak]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-07-06/galicia-comarca-becomes-the-latest-area-in-spain-to-be-confined-due-to-coronavirus-outbreak.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2020-07-06/galicia-comarca-becomes-the-latest-area-in-spain-to-be-confined-due-to-coronavirus-outbreak.htmlMon, 06 Jul 2020 07:04:37 +0000The Galician regional government was forced on Sunday to confine the 71,000 inhabitants of the comarca of A Mariña in Lugo, due to new coronavirus outbreaks that have been detected in the area. The emergency measure came into effect at midnight on Sunday night, due to a rising number of infections that now exceeds a hundred. Citizens will not be able to enter or leave until Saturday, the day before Galicia goes to the polls to vote in regional elections.

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]]>Eliseo Trigo<![CDATA[Piñor: the Spanish ‘coffin town’ that cannot produce caskets fast enough]]>https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-04-28/pinor-the-spanish-coffin-town-that-cannot-produce-caskets-fast-enough.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-04-28/pinor-the-spanish-coffin-town-that-cannot-produce-caskets-fast-enough.htmlTue, 28 Apr 2020 06:06:10 +0000Three generations ago, the residents of Piñor, a village of 1,176 souls in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia, decided to use the surrounding pine forests to make wooden coffins. The villagers figured that their line of business would benefit from stable demand, free from the ups and downs of the furniture sector. It might even experience exponential growth in the event of wars, natural disasters or epidemics.

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]]>OSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[Jury finds ‘El Chicle’ guilty of murdering teenager Diana Quer]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/12/02/inenglish/1575291852_853283.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/12/02/inenglish/1575291852_853283.htmlMon, 02 Dec 2019 14:44:17 +0000After an 11-day trial and three-and-a-half days of deliberation, on Saturday the jury in the Diana Quer case found José Enrique Abuín Gey, better known by the nickname “El Chicle,” guilty of murder, sexual assault, and abduction.

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]]>Xoán Rey<![CDATA[In Spain, Galicia declares war on wild boars]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/02/25/inenglish/1551092933_162261.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/02/25/inenglish/1551092933_162261.htmlWed, 27 Feb 2019 11:29:27 +0000As a child, Manuel Vázquez made his own arrows by collecting firework shafts left over after local fiestas and feathers from the henhouse. He made their iron tips in one of the blacksmith forges that still ran in his village. Vázquez went from playing childish games to filling his house with trophies won in 3D archery competitions, which consist of firing at targets set up in the forest. Fifteen years ago, he started to hunt wild boar, and has now become the coordinator of a group of archers that plans to help the regional Galician government sacrifice a family of wild boars that has settled in the city of Lugo.

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]]><![CDATA[Galicia searches for killers of four wild horses]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/01/28/inenglish/1548673237_336392.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/01/28/inenglish/1548673237_336392.htmlWed, 30 Jan 2019 11:45:57 +0000The largest zoomorphic petroglyph of the Iberian Peninsula, located in the archaeological zone  Outeiro dos Lameiros (in the municipality of Baiona), depicts 78 horses, all walking toward an enclosure. Three of the animals are mounted by humans, who lived in the area 4,000 years ago. The scene depicted is remarkably similar to the Rapa das Bestas festival in Galicia, a tradition that involves cutting the manes of these wild horses.

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]]>Asociación de Gandeiros do Monte da Groba<![CDATA[Brutal killing of four wild horses shocks Galicia]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/01/22/inenglish/1548161809_342020.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/01/22/inenglish/1548161809_342020.htmlWed, 23 Jan 2019 15:37:59 +0000When Modesto Domínguez arrived on Saturday at 7pm, one of the mares was still breathing. Her skull was sunken in like her three other dead companions, but her suffering had dragged on since Thursday, the day when local ranchers suspect the killing took place. The four horses were squeezed into a deworming corridor for cattle, one after the other, alongside five others who managed to stay alive, in the municipality of Oia, south of Vigo in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia.

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]]>Asociación de Gandeiros do Monte da Groba<![CDATA[The Galicia supermarket murder mystery]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/01/11/inenglish/1547225449_709493.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/01/11/inenglish/1547225449_709493.htmlMon, 14 Jan 2019 07:55:22 +0000On April 30, 1994, Isabel López went to pick up her sister from the Cash Record wholesale store, located inside O Ceao industrial park on the outskirts of Lugo, as she did every Saturday.

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]]>Pedro Agrelo<![CDATA[When Franco’s army built the set for ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/10/19/inenglish/1539964308_611247.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/10/19/inenglish/1539964308_611247.htmlMon, 22 Oct 2018 06:43:45 +0000“In July 1966, the Spanish army built an enormous cemetery in Burgos. That graveyard had over 5,000 tombs... but nobody buried in them.”

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]]><![CDATA[Galicia: The Spanish region where the clocks are always out of sync]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/09/03/inenglish/1535970451_044327.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/09/03/inenglish/1535970451_044327.htmlMon, 03 Sep 2018 11:05:12 +0000Santiago Pérez, a farmer from Galicia, owns a property called Los Cuervos, where he grows tear peas, known as “green caviar” because of their high selling price, for 80 top-rated restaurants across Spain. His customers also buy all sorts of other exclusive vegetables that had been all but forgotten in Spain because nobody was growing them anymore.

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]]>ÓSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[Dear dairy: Galicia ditches zebras for cows at a city crosswalk]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/08/30/inenglish/1535632050_808401.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/08/30/inenglish/1535632050_808401.htmlThu, 30 Aug 2018 12:56:54 +0000The Spanish region of Galicia, located in the northwest of the country, is a land of cows. So much so, that in some municipalities, it is the human race that could be considered an endangered species. Around a million of the animals – one for every 2.7 inhabitants – live there, while more than 8,400 families run dairies that produce more than half of all the milk consumed in Spain.

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]]><![CDATA[More than 300 injured in Vigo after floor gives way during free concert]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/08/13/inenglish/1534151417_658263.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/08/13/inenglish/1534151417_658263.htmlMon, 13 Aug 2018 14:19:42 +0000More than 300 people have been injured, five seriously, after a seafront promenade collapsed at the O Marisquiño music and urban sports festival in Vigo, Galicia. The accident occurred after midnight when the promenade As Avenue, a wooden platform suspended by concrete pilings, collapsed into the water. In a matter of seconds, hundreds of young festival-goers, many of them minors, slipped down the 40-meter-long platform and into the water. The victims were trapped in the sea, unable to swim as more people fell on top of them.

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]]><![CDATA[How three Spaniards discovered a Nazi submarine in Galicia]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/07/09/inenglish/1531126146_043564.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/07/09/inenglish/1531126146_043564.htmlFri, 13 Jul 2018 06:57:23 +0000Finding a wreck at the bottom of the sea is no easy feat. For Spanish researchers Anxi González Roca, Eduardo Losada and Yago Abilleira it was a process that took almost a decade.

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]]><![CDATA[Case of murdered Dutchman goes to trial in northern Spain’s “Wild West”]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/06/19/inenglish/1529398583_385246.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/06/19/inenglish/1529398583_385246.htmlMon, 25 Jun 2018 00:37:28 +0000“There are places and then there are places, and Santoalla, at the far end of Galicia, is a world unto itself. Santoalla was the Wild West.”

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]]>Pedro Agrelo<![CDATA[Spanish police rescue Colombians kept in slave-like conditions on pig farm]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/04/25/inenglish/1524644819_177572.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/04/25/inenglish/1524644819_177572.htmlThu, 26 Apr 2018 08:43:31 +0000They lived right above the pigsty. A staircase in the barn led from the squealing animals to their so-called home – a small space consisting of “a mattress with broken springs,” a sofa bed and a kitchenette. They could only use river water, which was “mostly filled with mud.” The smell of the place was nauseating. The roof dripped with humidity. And dead rats were scattered across the floor.

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]]><![CDATA[Meet Neo, the first official canine pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/04/09/inenglish/1523267767_497591.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/04/09/inenglish/1523267767_497591.htmlTue, 10 Apr 2018 06:36:24 +0000Neo is used to overcoming obstacles in life. When he was born, his owner wanted to put him down because he had a light stain on his right iris, a terrible shortcoming in the world of pedigree breeding. Fortunately for Neo, he was adopted by Mari Carmen Astigarraga before his owner could carry out the deed.

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]]><![CDATA[Theory that New Zealand was discovered by Spain gains new traction]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/04/03/inenglish/1522757673_268792.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/04/03/inenglish/1522757673_268792.htmlWed, 04 Apr 2018 06:37:55 +0000A history book suggesting that the Spanish or Portuguese may have discovered New Zealand before the Dutchman Abel Tasman is causing a new stir in New Zealand.

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]]><![CDATA[Spaniard raised by wolves disappointed with human life]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/03/28/inenglish/1522237746_629465.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/03/28/inenglish/1522237746_629465.htmlThu, 29 Mar 2018 16:16:11 +0000Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja was once the “Mowgli” of Spain’s Sierra Morena mountain range, but life has changed a lot since then. Now the 72-year-old lives in a small, cold house in the village of Rante, in the Galician province of Ourense. This past winter has been hard for him, and a violent cough interrupts him often as he speaks.

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]]><![CDATA[The frenzied week that led to the capture of Diana Quer’s suspected killer]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/01/03/inenglish/1514977548_614520.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/01/03/inenglish/1514977548_614520.htmlWed, 03 Jan 2018 14:15:34 +0000If he had already been “the main suspect” since November 2016, a year later investigators were “completely certain” that José Enrique Abuín, better known by the nickname of El Chicle, was the man who had abducted Diana Quer, a Madrid teenager who went missing in August 2016 in the small Galician village where she was spending the summer with her family. The case received wide media coverage and police deployed extensive resources to locate the 18-year-old, but her fate remained a mystery.

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]]><![CDATA[Police confirm DNA from body found is that of missing teen Diana Quer]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/01/02/inenglish/1514889081_063002.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/01/02/inenglish/1514889081_063002.htmlTue, 02 Jan 2018 11:31:05 +0000The suspect in the death of Diana Quer, a teenager from Madrid who had been missing since August 2016, has been transferred to a prison in the Galician municipality of Teixeiro while the inquiry proceeds.

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]]>OSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[Jacki: a dog with a mission]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/10/27/inenglish/1509091397_809353.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/10/27/inenglish/1509091397_809353.htmlWed, 01 Nov 2017 12:24:09 +0000The flames towered 30 meters above him, laying waste to the flora and fauna in the Fragoselo countryside in Coruxo, Vigo. But Jacki, a tan-colored male dog, was not to be deterred. This was his turf and, undaunted, he threw himself into an operation that left his owners and their neighbors perplexed.

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]]><![CDATA[Solidarity after the fires]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/10/24/inenglish/1508833499_836811.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/10/24/inenglish/1508833499_836811.htmlWed, 25 Oct 2017 11:08:01 +0000Jose Serrano was getting into bed when the phone rang. It was his cousin Mark: “Do you not know that the town is on fire? Run!” Serrano, 83, went out wearing just his underwear to see if it was true. He couldn’t believe it because the news reports were saying the fire was 15 kilometers away. But above his house, in the tiny village of Saa, there was already a “10-meter-high flare” while “fireballs” fell like huge meteorites coming from the tops of the trees. Everything that he managed to save in a lifetime of work was consumed in half an hour.

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]]>OSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[For Spain’s elderly living alone, how death can sometimes go undetected]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/17/inenglish/1500281145_365050.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/17/inenglish/1500281145_365050.htmlMon, 17 Jul 2017 11:04:23 +0000But on July 3, after a neighbor finally reported her missing, Civil Guard officers entered Otero’s apartment and found her mummified body lying in the hall. Based on the dates on the correspondence accumulated in her mail box and by the concierge, they calculate she had been dead “at least four years.” The neighbor who reported her disappearance believes it is more like five.

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]]><![CDATA[Nearly 600 prehistoric artifacts retrieved from trash container in northern Spain]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/05/inenglish/1499266342_497242.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/05/inenglish/1499266342_497242.htmlThu, 06 Jul 2017 12:40:36 +0000The local police were called in, and by the end of the day the stones had ended up at the Quiñones de León Municipal Museum, where employees began the arduous task of recovering a collection that has been described as “large” and “of scientific interest.”

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]]>Quiñones de León<![CDATA[Why people are dying for a place in this cinematic Spanish graveyard]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/06/19/inenglish/1497868681_556214.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/06/19/inenglish/1497868681_556214.htmlWed, 21 Jun 2017 11:40:16 +0000Soon to be declared an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC, to use its Spanish acronym), Sad Hill was allowed to fall into a state of disrepair after Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad And The Ugly wrapped in 1966. But, in a labor of love, volunteers have resurrected 1,500 of the 5,000 headstones that were carried there by the military during the Franco era and are now selling inscriptions for €15 a piece.

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]]>Guillermo Fernández de Oliveira<![CDATA[Elba, the 9,300-year old Spanish cowherd who was lactose intolerant]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/05/12/inenglish/1494584904_820305.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/05/12/inenglish/1494584904_820305.htmlMon, 15 May 2017 07:10:06 +0000Death caught up with Elba on a Spanish hillside 9,300 years ago. She is thought to have been following her herd of aurochs, an extinct breed of large cattle, along an ancestral trail that is now a paved road. In fact, it is the same road that Google suggests as the best route between the localities of O Courel and Pedrafita do Cebreiro, in Galicia’s Lugo province, in northwestern Spain.

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]]><![CDATA[Judge shelves case of missing Spanish teen Diana Quer]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/04/20/inenglish/1492680077_274396.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/04/20/inenglish/1492680077_274396.htmlThu, 20 Apr 2017 11:19:59 +0000EL PAÍS has learned that the Civil Guard has been trying to prevent the stay for weeks, redoubling efforts to find clues in the Galician location of Pobra do Caramiñal where the 18-year-old went missing on the night of August 22.

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]]>ÓSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[Doctor ordered to pay over €2 million to Spanish gymnast who lost leg]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/03/17/inenglish/1489741377_483554.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/03/17/inenglish/1489741377_483554.htmlFri, 17 Mar 2017 10:59:18 +0000He will also have to pay €2,154,685 in damages, all legal fees, and any future expenses caused by his former patient’s disability.

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]]>atlántico.net<![CDATA[Six months later, case of missing Spanish teen is going nowhere]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/02/20/inenglish/1487589359_229003.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/02/20/inenglish/1487589359_229003.htmlMon, 20 Feb 2017 12:41:35 +0000Although the last time anyone saw her alive was 2.40am, her white iPhone 6 continued to send out signals until approximately 5am, indicating a fast eastward journey toward an area known as Taragoña, in the nearby municipality of Rianxo, on the Arousa estuary. That is where the phone was eventually found, lying in the mud, by a local shellfish harvester.

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]]><![CDATA[A ghostly Galicia emerges from the waters]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/24/inenglish/1485253119_839632.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/24/inenglish/1485253119_839632.htmlTue, 24 Jan 2017 13:43:15 +0000Some in the area say that the oak, which has been submerged since the surrounding valley was flooded in 1967 under a policy of hydro-electric generation initiated by General Francisco Franco, was once the site of a number of grim events. Today, it stands alone on the edge of the once-prosperous village of Marquesado, if its sturdy walls, pillars and stone lintels now visible due to the lengthy drought in Galicia are anything to go by.

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]]><![CDATA[The Spanish observatory tracking space junk with lasers]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/11/10/inenglish/1478786108_285225.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/11/10/inenglish/1478786108_285225.htmlFri, 11 Nov 2016 07:58:58 +0000Spain’s Royal Navy Institute and Observatory (ROA) is playing a key role in an EU initiative to monitor the millions of pieces of space junk orbiting the Earth and prevent them from colliding with satellites or the International Space Station (ISS).

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]]>ESA<![CDATA[Swimming swine stake claim to a Galician desert island]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/10/31/inenglish/1477912033_827723.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/10/31/inenglish/1477912033_827723.htmlMon, 31 Oct 2016 12:48:54 +0000“They swim like Michael Phelps and their numbers are growing,” says José Luis Villanueva, member of the fisherman’s guild and president of the shellfish farms that farm the cockles and clams that have made Carril, in Vilagarcía de Arousa, Pontevedra, famous. “They come out at night and move in families. There’s one with eight members and another with around 14. And they have a strategy – the strongest keeps a lookout while the others eat. If you want to get close to them at low tide, you have to go against the wind because they have an extraordinary sense of smell.”

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]]>XURXO LOBATO<![CDATA[Cellphone of missing Spanish teen Diana Quer found]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/10/28/inenglish/1477642703_712149.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/10/28/inenglish/1477642703_712149.htmlFri, 28 Oct 2016 09:33:00 +0000A shellfish collector in Spain’s northwestern Galicia region has found the smartphone of missing Spanish teenager Diana Quer who went missing more than two months ago.

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]]><![CDATA[Missing Spanish teen’s mother given “tough interrogation” by police]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/09/14/inenglish/1473840458_594104.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/09/14/inenglish/1473840458_594104.htmlWed, 14 Sep 2016 09:55:08 +0000The Spanish Civil Guard, which is looking into the disappearance of Diana Quer, says it has ended a search of the area around the small community of A Pobra do Caramiñal in Galicia, where the 18-year-old went missing on August 22, and is now focusing on her mother, who on Tuesday was subjected to what sources close to the force describe as “a very tough interrogation due to the contradictions in her statements.”

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]]><![CDATA[Eight days after disappearing in Galicia, still no sign of missing teen]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/08/30/inenglish/1472550694_113073.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/08/30/inenglish/1472550694_113073.htmlTue, 30 Aug 2016 10:30:41 +0000The Spanish Civil Guard continues to search for a young woman from Madrid who went missing in the early hours of August 22 while vacationing with her family in Galicia.

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]]>Óscar Corral<![CDATA[When heaven is a green field for a Spanish donkey]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/05/11/inenglish/1462971145_785666.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/05/11/inenglish/1462971145_785666.htmlTue, 17 May 2016 07:18:49 +0000“Fernando loves being kissed. He appreciates being loved so much that sometimes he cries when you stroke him,” says Abigail, the co-founder of the Mino Valley Farm Sanctuary in O Saviñao, Lugo.

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]]>ÓSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[The lonely people buried in graves of garbage]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/04/21/inenglish/1461235439_369197.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/04/21/inenglish/1461235439_369197.htmlMon, 25 Apr 2016 06:58:07 +0000It was one of José Ángel’s 3,544 friends from the social networks who phoned the police in Vigo, Galicia, to report the 51-year-old’s absence from Facebook and WhatsApp. Acquainted only with his online persona, the woman was unaware he lived under a mountain of garbage that he added to every evening after making his rounds of the local dumpsters; nor that his home was so stuffed with trash that he had to climb in and out of it through a window.

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]]>ÓSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[Winter storms in Spain leave homes isolated and one person missing]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/15/inenglish/1455525780_972922.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/15/inenglish/1455525780_972922.htmlMon, 15 Feb 2016 17:07:46 +0000More snow, heavy winds and freezing temperatures are expected across the peninsula on Tuesday as winter storms continue to batter Spain.

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]]>SXENICK<![CDATA[Cattleman becomes fugitive after showdown at farm of horrors]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/10/inenglish/1455104072_947536.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/02/10/inenglish/1455104072_947536.htmlWed, 10 Feb 2016 15:07:20 +0000He is a “fugitive” to the justice system and a “missing person” to his family, who think he might even be dead.

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]]><![CDATA[The mysterious case of the dead priest and the tiny Virgin Mary]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/19/inenglish/1453199050_951512.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/19/inenglish/1453199050_951512.htmlTue, 19 Jan 2016 16:39:18 +0000“If this is the world that I created, let the devil take me.” Antonio Gómez, the new parish priest in the Galician hamlet of Vilanova dos Infantes (Celanova, Ourense), quotes the local poet Manuel Curros Enríquez, who wrote about a God looking out from behind the clouds and gazing down in deep disappointment at the humans below.

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]]>Brais Lorenzo<![CDATA[Asunta Basterra’s parents given 18-year prison terms for her murder]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/12/inenglish/1447323603_201908.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/11/12/inenglish/1447323603_201908.htmlThu, 12 Nov 2015 10:33:04 +0000A court in Santiago de Compostela on Thursday sentenced the adoptive parents of Asunta Basterra, a 12-year-old child who was found dead in 2013, to 18 years in prison.

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]]>EL PAÍS<![CDATA[Jury declares Asunta’s parents guilty at Galicia child murder trial]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/30/inenglish/1446201752_969758.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/30/inenglish/1446201752_969758.htmlFri, 30 Oct 2015 11:59:19 +0000A jury has unanimously found the parents of Asunta Basterra guilty of the 12-year-old’s death in September 2013.

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]]>EL PAÍS<![CDATA[Many clues but no conclusive proof at Asunta Basterra murder trial]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/15/inenglish/1444917421_862616.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/15/inenglish/1444917421_862616.htmlThu, 15 Oct 2015 14:43:13 +0000There was a lot of circumstantial evidence and no conclusive proof on day 12 of the Asunta Basterra murder trial, which is trying to determine whether the 12-year-old was killed by her adoptive parents, the main suspects in the case. 

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]]>ÓSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[Defense for Asunta’s parents seeks to exploit semen evidence debacle]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/09/inenglish/1444378980_971524.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/09/inenglish/1444378980_971524.htmlFri, 09 Oct 2015 08:59:12 +0000The Asunta Basterra murder trial on Thursday reviewed one of the most puzzling episodes in the investigation into the September 2013 death of the 12-year-old girl.

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]]>ÓSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[Surveillance cameras debunk story offered by Asunta’s mother]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/07/inenglish/1444216072_741362.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/07/inenglish/1444216072_741362.htmlWed, 07 Oct 2015 12:50:53 +0000In a session extending over 10 hours at the Santiago court overhearing the trial over the mysterious murder of 12-year-old Asunta Basterra, Civil Guard officers provided a reconstruction of events that debunks the tale given by the victim’s mother, a prime suspect in the case.

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]]>lavandeira jr<![CDATA[Sales ticket provides Asunta’s father with new alibi at murder trial]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/06/inenglish/1444121912_979547.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/06/inenglish/1444121912_979547.htmlTue, 06 Oct 2015 10:06:45 +0000On the afternoon of her death, Asunta Basterra could not have been in two places at the same time.

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]]>Óscar Corral<![CDATA[Adoptive parents of Asunta Basterra begin trial for her murder]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/01/inenglish/1443706840_464578.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/10/01/inenglish/1443706840_464578.htmlThu, 01 Oct 2015 16:39:16 +0000The adoptive parents of  Asunta Basterra began their trial for the 12-year-old’s murder on Thursday, at a court in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia. Rosario Porto and her ex-husband Alfonso Basterra are accused of drugging and suffocating the Chinese girl in 2013.

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]]>lavandeira jr<![CDATA[Is it safe for women to walk the Camino de Santiago alone?]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/09/24/inenglish/1443098944_960415.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/09/24/inenglish/1443098944_960415.htmlMon, 28 Sep 2015 14:06:16 +0000The arrest earlier this month of Miguel Ángel Muñoz Blas over the murder of Denise Thiem, who went missing in April while walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail in northern Spain, has highlighted the growing number of attacks against women, most of them from overseas, traveling one of the country’s best-known tourist routes.

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]]><![CDATA[220 people claim ownership of lost lottery ticket worth €4.7 million]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/09/18/inenglish/1442567538_848884.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/09/18/inenglish/1442567538_848884.htmlFri, 18 Sep 2015 09:59:51 +0000This is the story of someone who was lucky yet unfortunate at the same time. It is also the story of someone else who feels absolutely terrible about the prize money he is now likely to come into.

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]]>ÓSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[Twelve-year-old girl becomes seventh victim of Galicia rally crash]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/09/07/inenglish/1441608045_603243.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/09/07/inenglish/1441608045_603243.htmlMon, 07 Sep 2015 06:59:01 +0000The death of a 12-year-old girl in hospital from head injuries has raised the number of victims of an accident at a rally in A Coruña on Saturday to seven. The incident took place when one of the drivers competing in the race in the northwest of Spain lost control of his vehicle and slammed into a group of 20 or so spectators.

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]]>Cabalar<![CDATA[Mountain biker’s death highlights dangers of Spain’s cycle-path traps]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/08/17/inenglish/1439823282_867390.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/08/17/inenglish/1439823282_867390.htmlWed, 19 Aug 2015 08:25:58 +0000Jesús Ángel Santos, a 43-year-old cycling enthusiast, was killed on July 25 after he rode into a cable that had been strung at hip height across a specially marked cycle route in Arenillas de Ebro, a small community in the northern region of Cantabria.

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]]>Santi Burgos<![CDATA[The tough task of becoming a mom in crisis-hit Spain]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/06/23/inenglish/1435051750_396013.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/06/23/inenglish/1435051750_396013.htmlTue, 23 Jun 2015 10:36:18 +0000Elvira gave birth to Sara in 1982 when she was 23 and studying for official examinations to become a conservatory music teacher. And now Sara, at age 32, has just given birth to Serea despite having no job security as a kindergarten teacher.

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]]>ÓSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[Two months on, no sign of US woman missing on Spanish pilgrimage route]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/06/09/inenglish/1433841950_755878.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/06/09/inenglish/1433841950_755878.htmlWed, 10 Jun 2015 12:43:17 +0000After more than two months of searching, Spanish police have still found no sign of Denise Pikka Thiem, a 41-year-old American woman who went missing while traveling the Camino de Santiago pilgrims’ route in northern Spain.

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]]><![CDATA[13 men found guilty of distributing sexual video of young female neighbor]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/06/04/inenglish/1433433705_992928.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/06/04/inenglish/1433433705_992928.htmlTue, 09 Jun 2015 09:11:32 +0000In 2004, a young woman from Ordes, a town of 13,000 inhabitants in Galicia, made videos of herself as she masturbated. The 21-year-old was completely naked, with clamps on her nipples, and her face was perfectly visible.

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]]>Jay LaPrete<![CDATA[Life and death in the hills of Galicia]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/12/22/inenglish/1419255180_903840.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/12/22/inenglish/1419255180_903840.htmlFri, 02 Jan 2015 13:48:37 +0000Until last summer, there were just six registered inhabitants in Santaolla do Monte, an all-but abandoned village located high up in the hills of Galicia’s Ourense province. They were Dutch couple Margo Pool and her husband Martin Verfondern, who moved there 17 years ago, and the Rodríguez family, made up of a couple now in their eighties and their two sons: Julio and Carlos. But Carlos, who has an intellectual disability of 70 percent, is now in prison awaiting trial after confessing to killing Martin Verfondern in January 2010.

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]]>nacho gómez<![CDATA[Dutchman’s shooters: “I’m going after you. You’re fat and ready for killing”]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/12/03/inenglish/1417605600_444838.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/12/03/inenglish/1417605600_444838.htmlWed, 03 Dec 2014 13:43:00 +0000There was a time when the only two families who lived in the remote and rundown hamlet of Santoalla, in the Galician province of Ourense, killed a pig together when the cold weather set in.

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]]><![CDATA[Brothers confess to killing Dutchman missing for four years in Galicia]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/12/02/inenglish/1417530741_620468.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/12/02/inenglish/1417530741_620468.htmlTue, 02 Dec 2014 15:08:00 +0000Martin Verfondern, the Dutch environmentalist who went missing in the small Galician community of Santoalla in 2010, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head.

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]]>NACHO GÓMEZ<![CDATA[From the courtroom to crime novel]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/09/25/inenglish/1411634537_548787.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/09/25/inenglish/1411634537_548787.htmlMon, 29 Sep 2014 08:18:45 +0000When investigating magistrate José Antonio Vazquéz Taín decided to turn his hand to novel writing, he took his inspiration from some of the high-profile cases he has worked on, several of which have made national headlines. For example, his first book, La leyenda del santo oculto (or, The legend of the hidden saint), is based on the 2012 theft of the Codex Calixtinus, a medieval manuscript stolen from the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, which was discovered hidden in the garage of a former church employee. The rights to the book have already been bought by Galicia’s regional television channel and a mini-series has been filmed, although the case has yet to be heard in court.

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]]>OSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[The life of a disgraced train driver]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/07/24/inenglish/1406199353_156786.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/07/24/inenglish/1406199353_156786.htmlThu, 24 Jul 2014 12:28:10 +0000To this day, there are still passengers on the Madrid-Ferrol Alvia line who write messages of support for Francisco Garzón on their train tickets and ask conductors to relay them to the disgraced driver. The notes are taken to him by a small group of close friends who take Garzón out to lunch every two weeks or so, to make sure he gets out of the house.

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]]>Oscar Corral<![CDATA[Body thought to be Dutchman missing for four years found in Galicia]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/07/01/inenglish/1404212065_591310.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/07/01/inenglish/1404212065_591310.htmlTue, 01 Jul 2014 12:01:15 +0000The Civil Guard says it has found the remains of a man it believes is Martin Verforndern, a Dutch environmentalist who was reported missing in January 2010 after he left his home in the tiny community of Santaoalla, deep in the mountains of Galicia’s Ourense province.

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]]>Nacho Gómez<![CDATA[Third suspect in child murder case tells court he was in Madrid on day of crime]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/12/12/inenglish/1386875682_346048.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/12/12/inenglish/1386875682_346048.htmlThu, 12 Dec 2013 19:17:36 +0000The defense lawyer for Rosario Porto, who stands accused of the murder of her adopted daughter, 12-year-old Asunta Basterra, said Thursday he will seek to have the judicial process annulled after a third person implicated in the crime gave evidence. Porto’s husband, Alfonso Basterra, also faces murder charges.

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]]><![CDATA[Mystery surrounds contamination of evidence in Asunta investigation]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/11/21/inenglish/1385044390_287162.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/11/21/inenglish/1385044390_287162.htmlThu, 21 Nov 2013 14:42:30 +0000Nobody among the professionals and experts involved in the investigation into the death of 12-year-old Asunta Basterra in Galicia in September has admitted responsibility for a monumental error: contaminating a vital piece of evidence — Asunta’s shirt — with semen pertaining to another case. There has been no official explanation as to how the chain of evidence was contaminated by the substance, which had been traced to a suspect in a sexual assault investigation in Madrid.

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]]>lavandeira jr<![CDATA[Toxicology report shows that child Asunta died from sedatives overdose]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/10/04/inenglish/1380908274_228207.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/10/04/inenglish/1380908274_228207.htmlFri, 04 Oct 2013 17:39:36 +0000Toxicology tests on the body of Asunta Basterra Porto, the 12-year-old girl found dead on a forest trail outside of Santiago on September 22, have revealed a lethal quantity of the sedative lorazepam in her blood. Asunta’s parents are the principal suspects in the murder investigation and Judge José Antonio Vázquez Taín on Friday said that “everything points to Asunta’s mother being with the child when she died.”

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]]><![CDATA[Was Asunta killed by her mother?]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/10/01/inenglish/1380652180_649400.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/10/01/inenglish/1380652180_649400.htmlTue, 01 Oct 2013 18:36:44 +0000The new defense lawyer for the mother of Asunta, a 12-year-old girl found dead near Santiago de Compostela on September 21, says there is no hard evidence against Rosario Porto and that he will request a new line of investigation. José Luis Gutiérrez Aranguren has replaced Porto’s original defense attorney Juan Guillán, who dropped the case alleging lack of expertise in criminal law.

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]]>ÓSCAR CORRAL<![CDATA[Search continues for evidence linking parents to murder of 12-year-old]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/09/26/inenglish/1380197943_537092.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/09/26/inenglish/1380197943_537092.htmlThu, 26 Sep 2013 12:23:11 +0000The divorced parents of a 12-year-old girl who was found dead in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia at the weekend were taken in handcuffs to the apartment of the girl’s mother on Thursday morning. The arrival of the pair, who are the main suspects in the ongoing murder inquiry, caused a stir in the neighborhood, with some onlookers shouting insults at the former couple. The Civil Guard took them to the property to continue their search for evidence.

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]]><![CDATA[Monte Pindo wildfire threatens another unique Galicia beauty spot]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/09/13/inenglish/1379097277_811208.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/09/13/inenglish/1379097277_811208.htmlFri, 13 Sep 2013 18:33:27 +0000Firefighters on Friday were still battling to bring under control a ferocious forest fire, which has already destroyed almost the entire Monte Pindo protected nature reserve in A Coruña, and scorched terrain belonging to many nearby towns.

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]]>óscar corral<![CDATA[Unprecedented legal victory as health service is made to cover gender reassignment]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/09/06/inenglish/1378470581_127491.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/09/06/inenglish/1378470581_127491.htmlFri, 06 Sep 2013 12:33:56 +0000For the first time ever, Spain's Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a woman trapped in a man's body, and against a regional government that had been denying her the right to a sex change, paid for by the public healthcare system, for the last six years.

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]]><![CDATA["All I could say was that there were a lot of dead bodies"]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/07/25/inenglish/1374742280_831936.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/07/25/inenglish/1374742280_831936.htmlThu, 25 Jul 2013 08:53:27 +0000Mari was hanging out her laundry in the allotment of her house in Angrois, a rural parish around four kilometers from Santiago, in front of the train tracks. At 8.41pm on Wednesday, she felt the force of a deafening explosion. “I saw an enormous torpedo of dust and noise,” she told reporters. “I thought that a train was coming toward me and so I started to run.” Moments after the crash, fire broke out in some of the cars, filling the area with smoke and causing chaotic scenes in the neighborhood.

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]]>David Ramos<![CDATA[“I lost my child as I don’t speak Spanish”]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/07/22/inenglish/1374493918_351303.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/07/22/inenglish/1374493918_351303.htmlMon, 22 Jul 2013 11:50:40 +0000On February 11, 2011, Aisha, an Algerian woman living in Lugo, Galicia, was visiting friends in the nearby town of Burela. The 38-year-old, who prefers not to use her real name, was pregnant, and began to feel unwell. She was taken to hospital, where medics performed a cesarean section on her and delivered a baby girl.

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]]>XOSÉ MARRA<![CDATA[A present-day stolen babies case in Lugo?]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/06/18/inenglish/1371559420_140261.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/06/18/inenglish/1371559420_140261.htmlTue, 18 Jun 2013 13:46:41 +0000On the day staff at the Xeral Calde hospital in Lugo, in Galicia, brought the papers for Paula to sign away her newborn baby, Juan, for adoption, she was heavily sedated, having been given repeated doses of valium: one at 9am, another at 11am, and the third shortly before lunch. "She was like a zombie. She didn't know what she was doing; she would have signed anything," says a hospital orderly who was present, and who has since given evidence as a witness in the judicial investigation opened one year after the birth of Juan into more than a dozen breaches of adoption procedures at the hospital.

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]]>Xurxo Lobato<![CDATA[Villagers fear arsenic and old lies]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/06/14/inenglish/1371216012_659865.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/06/14/inenglish/1371216012_659865.htmlFri, 14 Jun 2013 13:25:23 +0000The locals have known it ever since the Canadian-based company Edgewater issued its environmental impact statement on Corcoesto, where it hopes to develop an open-pit gold mine soon. Since then, neighbors have been gathering all sorts of reports on the effects of arsenic, considered a carcinogenic agent. Yet local authorities in Cabana de Bergantiños, who have received repeated notices from the Galician health department since May 7, did not inform residents about the risk. Then, late last week, when public controversy was already a reality following the Galician government's alert, the mayor finally posted a warning sign on the church's bulletin board.

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]]>xurxo lobato<![CDATA[Is foul play to blame for the disappearance of a Dutchman?]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/06/04/inenglish/1370347828_410580.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/06/04/inenglish/1370347828_410580.htmlTue, 04 Jun 2013 12:13:43 +0000The last time anybody saw Martin Verfondern alive was on January 19, 2010, when he left the tiny community of Santoalla deep in the mountains of Galicia's Ourense province in his battered Chevrolet to do his weekly shopping in the nearest town, 15 kilometers away.

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]]>Pedro Agrelo<![CDATA[Santiago dean in stolen codex case quits cathedral role]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/12/19/inenglish/1355949416_769706.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/12/19/inenglish/1355949416_769706.htmlWed, 19 Dec 2012 20:40:19 +0000The dean of Santiago de Compostela cathedral, José María Díaz, has resigned from his post, citing “personal reasons.” In a statement released on Wednesday morning, Santiago archbishop Julián Barrio said he would accept the resignation and “begin the process of choosing a new dean.” He also denied suggestions that Díaz had been pressured into stepping down by the Episcopal Conference or its head, the Cardinal of Madrid, Antonio María Rouco Varela.

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]]>XOAN REY (EFE)<![CDATA[Priceless stolen 12th-century Codex Calixtinus turns up in Galician garage]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/07/04/inenglish/1341431551_378588.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/07/04/inenglish/1341431551_378588.htmlWed, 04 Jul 2012 20:00:39 +0000Criminal investigations move in mysterious ways. One year ago on Wednesday, an invaluable 12th-century religious manuscript disappeared from a safe at the world-famous cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, where security measures turned out to have been extremely slack.

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]]>RAMÓN ESCUREDO (EFE)<![CDATA[Widow jailed for husband’s death loses pension]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/04/19/inenglish/1334860960_802706.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/04/19/inenglish/1334860960_802706.htmlThu, 19 Apr 2012 18:43:18 +0000Social Security has refused to continue paying a 79-year-old Galician woman the 640-euro widow’s pension she had been receiving for the last 25 years on account of the fact she was convicted of killing her husband. The organization is also forcing her to return over 32,000 euros she has received since January 2008.

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]]><![CDATA[Galician town fights to keep its precious rock]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/02/07/inenglish/1328629936_491029.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/02/07/inenglish/1328629936_491029.htmlMon, 06 Feb 2012 08:47:26 +0000A small town in Galicia is battling the regional government over an ancient menhir, or ritual stone, that was discovered by a resident two years ago and local citizens claim is rightfully theirs.

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