SPAIN: Scorching Temperatures & more – 14th Aug 2025

Vox had demanded the ban in exchange for budget support. Critics, including the Catholic church, Muslim and Jewish groups, and government ministers, condemned it as Islamophobic and undemocratic. Elma Saiz, Spain’s Migration minister, stressed the importance of Spain’s historical Muslim heritage.

Heading north, on Tuesday the 12th, the Basque Government’s memorial institute, Gogora, led by the Socialist Party, launched a campaign to recognize victims of the Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación or GAL paramilitary death squads and unlawful police violence.

The GAL units were state-sponsored groups that used kidnapping and murder to convict top officials in the Basque local government between nineteen eighty-three and nineteen eighty-seven.

Director Alberto Alonso announced exhibitions on the nineteen eighty-five Monbar Hotel attack, in which GAL killed four Baque government members, and the nineteen eighty-four Pasaia ambush, where police shot dead four militants of the Comandos Autónomos Anticapitalistas.

Officials argue that confronting state-linked abuses prevents resentment and strengthens coexistence, despite political polarization.

Fernando Clavijo, the Canary Islands President and President Pedro Sánchez will meet next Monday in Lanzarote to address growing tensions over moving unaccompanied migrant minors from the islands to mainland Spain.

The Supreme Court ordered the central government to take in around 1,000 minors nearly five months ago, but so far, only ten have been transferred. A planned second transfer of fifteen minors this week was canceled, which the Canary Islands see as poor planning by the central government.

Another plan, approved in April to distribute minors among Spain’s regions, is also on hold because eleven regions governed by the Partido Popular have challenged it in court.

Next up, on Monday the 11th, Spanish police arrested three people and seized eleven liters of ayahuasca, over one hundred San Pedro cactus plants, and bottles of toad poison in raids on two rural spiritual retreat centers in Alicante province, Andalucia, Southern Spain.

The Guardia Civil began investigating five months ago after a client complaint and found the retreats. They marketed themselves as award-winning healing centers, with three and five-day astral journey packages for about 1,000 euros each.

During these retreats, up to twenty guests per session consumed banned substances, guided by staff in a rudimentary, unhygienic laboratory without medical safeguards. Authorities said the group earned hundreds of thousands of euros, mostly in undeclared cash, and used multiple foreign bank accounts.

In sports, the Royal Spanish Football Federation has decided not to renew Montse Tomé’s contract, ending her tenure on the 31st of August as Spain’s first female head coach for their women’s team.

Tomé, who was appointed in September twenty twenty-three, led Spain to victory in the inaugural Women’s Nations League in February twenty twenty-four. However, Spain’s Euro twenty twenty-five final loss to England on penalties sealed her fate.

Reports suggest her exit was likely before the tournament, as new Women’s Football director Reyes Bellver sought structural changes to distance the federation from Luis Rubiales’ unconsensual kiss to player Jenni Hermoso.

Another year, another selection process for teachers. In Spain’s public schooling system, most permanent jobs are awarded through oposiciones or competitive state exams. Candidates face a multi-part process that demands that teachers memorize complex material, much of it beyond what they will actually teach. If a qualified teacher fails the first phase, they have to try again. However, once they've got a place, they do have it for life.

And it will be exactly the same this next school year, as Castile y León in the northwest currently has almost 80% of its permanent mathematics positions unfilled, while Madrid has just under 70%. With many permanent posts unfilled, many of those who failed will step in as temporary teachers, unsure of whether they will be able to stay more than one year.

From teaching to fish farming. In the small town of O Carballiño in Galicia, Northwestern Spain, octopus imports are on the rise from Mauritania and Morocco due to dwindling local stocks.

O Carballiño is known for being the Spanish capital of octopus, but Galicia’s octopus population has declined long-term, pressured by overfishing, fossil-fuel-induced climate change, and surging demand. Spain’s octopus fisheries closed for three months this summer to recover stocks, but fishers warn reopening will quickly undo gains.

To secure supply, companies like Grupo Profand and Nueva Pescanova are working on building octopus farms; however, these have sparked backlash from animal welfare advocates, who condemn them as cruel and environmentally harmful.

Moving south, environmentalists in Seville are urging authorities to preserve the stump of the century-old San Jacinto ficus in Triana as a visible reminder of what they call barbaric mismanagement.

The city recently began its final removal earlier this week, despite earlier agreements to keep the structure if the tree was dead. Activists argue that chainsaw cuts revealed healthy interior wood, contradicting the city’s claim of decay.

Biologist Jesús Cuenca proposed cleaning, treating, and artistically transforming the trunk into a monument, but officials deny receiving his report and insist the wood was unsuitable. Campaigners accuse both current and former city governments of orchestrating its destruction.

Annnd finally…in interesting findings from the past, archaeologists in Atapuerca in Castile and León, Northern Spain, have uncovered 5,700-year-old remains in El Mirador cave showing clear evidence of war cannibalism.

The bones of eleven individuals, including children, show bear cut marks, burn traces, signs of cooking, and even human bite marks. The find was led by Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo, who said the victims were subjected to extreme exploitation and that their bodies were systematically consumed to erase them physically and spiritually, a practice intended to destroy the soul.

Decades of excavations since the nineteen seventies have revealed crucial human fossils, earning this incredible site UNESCO World Heritage status in two thousand. This latest find underscores both the violence in prehistoric conflict and the site’s unparalleled role in understanding human evolution.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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