As The Local reported over the weekend, tens of thousands again rallied in the Spanish city of Valencia on Saturday in the latest protest demanding regional leader Carlos Mazón’s resignation over his handling of October’s deadly floods.
Anger and grief are still raw four months after the European country’s worst natural disaster in decades killed 232 people, including 224 in the eastern Valencia region.
In a demonstration called by dozens of unions and civil society associations, protesters holding pictures of their dead loved ones chanted “Mazón resign” and marched behind a banner reading “our relatives died due to your incompetence”.
Signs emblazoned with slogans including “Mazón in prison”, “murderers” and “we don’t forgive, we don’t forget” featured alongside a giant cardboard cutout representing Mazón with blood-stained hands.
The central government’s office in Valencia put the number of demonstrators at around 30,000. Saturday’s protest was the fifth in a series of anti-Mazón demonstrations that began with 130,000 people rallying in Valencia in November.
READ ALSO: Why Valencia’s president is being blamed for Spain’s flood devastation
Sánchez calls for ‘just and lasting peace’ in Ukraine in face of Putin’s ‘neo-imperialist threat’
The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has backed the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, and called for a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine amid the “imperialist threat” of Putin.
“The future will prove us right, those of us who defend a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, who are defending not only their freedom, but also the security of all Europeans in the face of Putin’s neo-imperialist threat, whose only desire is to unilaterally annex territories,” Sánchez over the weekend, just hours before travelling to a summit of European leaders in London.
In a veiled criticism of the White House clash between Zelensky and US President Trump last week, Sánchez also said that “this is not about whether you have good or bad cards.”
“The card that is worthwhile is that of the United Nations, which enshrines respect for national sovereignty and the right of peoples to exist,” he said, adding that the “aggressor should not be rewarded” in the negotiations, nor should “the law of the strongest” prevail.
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‘Housing apartheid’: Catalan property developers call for separate entrances for social and private housing
Catalan property developers have proposed a controversial new measure to create separate entrances in buildings with both social and private housing, in what has been dubbed ‘housing apartheid’ by some in the Spanish press.
The Catalonia Association of Developers (APCE) proposed the rules for buildings in which the law requires 30 percent of properties to be social housing.
Elena Massot, vice-president of APCE, argued for “two entrances so that everyone can live together in more reasonable economic conditions,” adding that “if the client does not want to enter a mixed community, it is possible that they will back out.”
The comments and proposal have outraged some locals. “I think it’s classist, what’s the point of having two doors?’ one asked. “I think it’s discriminatory, everyone can enter through the same door,” another resident told La Sexta.
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Madrid Barajas staff denounce increase in homeless living on airport premises
Employees at Madrid’s Barajas Airport have denounced the lack of security on the premises at night, claiming that dozens of homeless people live permanently on the airport premises. In some cases, it is claimed, they suffer from drug addiction and can behave aggressively towards staff.
Fernanda Correia, an airport worker and representative of the company responsible for cleaning at the airport, told the Spanish press that colleagues on the night shift are “the ones who spend more time in fear.”
“There are fewer people, there are fewer passengers, there is less security walking around,” she said of the night shifts. “There are more” homeless coming to the airport, she explained. When staff “wake them up… they feel wronged and they insult and threaten us,” she added.