Stealing food for need and as a social protest

 [Photo: LaFura.cat]

An interesting new form of direct action came to town recently.

Last week in Vilafranca an unemployed woman named Marian Fernández was fined 90 Euros for unlawfully taking 241 Euros worth of “essentials” from a Maxi Dia supermarket. 

She was there as part of a group called ‘PAH’ - people affected by mortgage problems who went there to make a statement about not being able to afford life’s’ necessities.

Ms Fernández, a mother of three children and having no present income, had  apparently presented a credit card with a zero balance at the checkout.

This action follows from a similar act last month by JuanManuel Sánchez Gordillo, a mayor in Andalucia who also stole food but with the plan of passing it on to others who could not afford to buy their own.

Spain through the eyes of Robert Hughes

[Hughes at his New York City Loft, 1996 David Corio/Redferns]

A very readable article (from the The Global Mail, an excellent new website) about that extremely rare creature - an Australian intellectual, who amongst many other things wrote an excellent book on Barcelona long before it was a fashionable city to visit.

The [supposed] importance of bullfighting in Spain

I will be talking to Sarah McDonald [mainly about bullfighting (!) in Spain] on Australia’s 

ABC Radio Sydney 707 at 5.45 tomorrow morning local time.

"One in three kids will be without text books this year"

...according to the Federation of Associations of Parents of Pupils (CEAPA). 

 After the Rajoy government’s VAT increase and a further reduction in financial help for low income families, returning to school this year works out at an average of 640 Euros for each child, and the largest expense is the purchase of the text books. 

An online petition at Change.org has been created, asking the Secretary of Education to regulate the prices of text books and for a widening of the policy of recycling books.

Free e-book for downloading: "Europe in Crisis"

After further disturbing news today that the government of Catalunya is asking for €5 billion from the Spanish central government (which may well prompt a full bailout) in a very timely moment Global Voices online has released its first e-book titled “Europe in Crisis.” 

It is promoted as “a collection of best material from the wealth of social conversation, participation and mobilization boosted by going through the tough of austerity in the Old Continent and beyond."

We may need more than books to get through the coming years but understanding this mess is a good start.

Europe's leading anti-Muslim party now also becoming anti-Jewish

Last week, the normally cautious Jewish community of Amsterdam took the unusual step of describing a member of the Dutch parliament as a "serious danger to Jews in the Netherlands and consequently Europe as a whole..."


Read more here.

"The Pain in Spain"

[Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images]

Back from a month-long visit to a former homeland [Australia] it seems to me that Spain has only just survived further economic bailouts...

A simple and unflinching account of exactly why this country got into so much financial trouble can be found at a new, impressive non-profit website called The Global Mail, which is employing some of down-under’s most experienced journalists.

Their European correspondent Eric Ellis, has also examined the “potentially explosive conditions in south-eastern Spain, where illegal African immigrants slave for a pittance in Europe’s salad bowl.