Spain Papers Review - Tuesday April 8 2008

Spain Papers Review - Tuesday April 8 2008
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By h.b. - Apr 8, 2008 - 9:44 AM

Today's El Mundo front page with Esperanza Aguirre in a white raincoat

Politics and the future leadership of the Partido Popular leads the Spanish papers today.

El Mundo says that Esperanza Aguirre, the PP head of the Madrid regional government, has criticised the opposition carried out by the PP in the past and called for ‘renewal of the message’ of the party. The paper says she thinks the party can do better and has fallen into traps set by Zapatero in the past legislature, which have resulted in the party being considered to be homophobic, and the heirs of the dictatorship. She proposes a central, modern, open and liberal party, and has not ruled out presenting herself as candidate to lead the party at the party congress in June.
El Mundo has a large front page photo of her before she made the speech at a lunch in Madrid yesterday.
El País considers that Aguirre has launched a challenge to Rajoy ahead of the debate on the Prime Minsiter’s investiture. The paper notes that Aguirre has not ruled out running for the post of leader of the PP. El País says those close to Rajoy think that it is all a bluff.
ABC plays down the leadership challenge of Aguirre, and headlines with a quote ‘As of today’s date it’s not part of my plans to be a candidate to preside the PP’. The paper notes she also said that if she changes her plans the first to know will be Mariano Rajoy.
ABC lists the things which Aguirre considers the PP have been falsely accused of and she is against – that they are enemies of homosexuals, that they are anti-Catalan, that they are in the third division of Europe, that nationalists dictate policy, that the PP goes not take part in any ideological battle with the PSOE.
Público also leads with the story and says that Aguirre increases the suspense and has not ruled herself out for fighting for the PP leadership.

El Mundo notes that two people from León have died from the human form of mad cow disease. The 50 year old woman and 41 year old man are the second and third victims in Spain from Creutzfeldt-Jakob’s disease. The paper says both ate infected meat before the year 2000, and died in December last year and February this year.
El País reports the two people had been admitted into the neurological department of León hospital, and that the autopsies have confirmed the diagnosis.

El País reports that the Bank of Spain has said that problems in the banking sector will arise if the crisis continues. The BBVA has meanwhile forecast the destruction of employment next year.

Following their headline yesterday, El Mundo today reports that the UPN party is calling on Zapatero to clear up whether Navarra was about to be placed on the table during the talks in the ‘peace process’.

In international stories:
El Mundo notes that the Olympic flame was put out by demonstrators in Paris yesterday. The paper also notes that Hillary Clinton has called on President Bush not to attend the opening ceremony of the games in Beijing this year.
El País has a large front page photo of the scuffles seen in Paris yesterday.

El Pais notes that Hillary Clinton has sacked the chief of her election campaign. Mark Penn, well known in the public relations world, goes after admitting meeting in the Colombian embassy to try and reach a free trade agreement between Washington and Bogata, which Clinton actually opposes.

Back in Spain
Many papers, including El Mundo, note that the General Council for Judicial Power has voted unanimously to open a file for a very serious fault against the judge who allowed the alleged Mari Luz Cortés killer to be on the streets, Judge Tirado, for what is called his passivity in the case.

Público reports that the family of the Telecinco cameraman, José Couso, who was killed by friendly fire in Baghdad, are disappointed by Zapatero. He has decorated the journalist, but not forced through the arrest orders issued against the three united states soldiers linked to the tank fire which killed him.

And finally,
El País reports today on how little the internet is used in the classroom in Spain. The paper says the classrooms have an allergy to the net.

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