Spain Papers Review - Monday August 16 2010

Spain Papers Review - Monday August 16 2010
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By h.b. - Aug 16, 2010 - 10:27 AM
Comments on tax made by the Development Minister, José Blanco, dominate the papers in Spain today.

ABC and the photos of Gibraltar

ABC says that the Government is to increase tax by modifying the the IRPF income tax bands. The paper highlights the comment from José Blanco has confirmed the increase ‘as taxes in Spain are very low’. The paper says that a tax on savings is planned after a u-turn on the idea of a specific tax on the rich.
El Mundo says that Blanco is demanding more taxes to finance his ‘lurching’. The paper notes he has said taxes are very low for the services received and notes too that he made the same reflection a year ago, and 28 days after the announcement of a VAT increase.
El País says that Blanco has defended increasing taxes to improve services.
La Razón says that Blanco has said the Government will look for formulas to match taxes with the European average, and says the details of the tax increase will be given in the debate on the state budgets.

El País continues a series on the effects of the recession and notes that local Mayors are demanding the right to get into debt, so they do not go bust. The paper says that the Economy Ministry is not meeting the norms to finance the municipalities via the ICO, Official Credit Institute.

La Razón notes that the Ministry for Health will hand patients an ‘invoice’ so they know the cost of their treatments.

ABC reports that the ‘Dignity and Justice’ organization is to challenge an event held in homage to ETA activists in the National Court.

El País headlines that a law will guarantee the citizens ‘right to know’, as the paper prints a leak on the planned regulations on access to information. The paper says the demands of those making requests will have to be met in 30 days and any request will be considered as accepted if the administration does not respond.

La Razón notes that Ruiz-Gallardón has confirmed he will repeat as PP candidate for Mayor of Madrid.

El País reports that the PSOE Socialist party is proposing that the unemployed be fined if they do not accept training.

El Mundo has an interview with the head of Greenpeace in Spain, Juan López de Uralde, who says that a green model is the option for those people fed up with the current one.

El Mundo reports that police unions have called on Rabat to get out of no man’s land in Melilla. They say the recent incidents on the border are due to the Moroccan occupation of the 500m.
La Razón has sent to correspondents to Melilla to ‘discover the hard conditions working as civil servants on the frontier’ and the paper headlines their piece ‘Surviving in Melilla as a woman and police officer’.

El Mundo has Barack, Michelle and Sasha Obama on holiday in the Gulf of Mexico – as the paper says ‘Holidays next to the dump’, noting they are 27 hour long mini-holidays.
EL País also has a front page photo of the family on a boat in Florida.

El Mundo notes that General Petraeus has said that the United States could extend its missing in Afghanistan. He has said that the date given by Obama for the withdrawal, July 2011, is not irreversible, and he has not ruled out reconciliation with the Taliban.
El País sees the Patreaus comments as questioning Obama’s plan for an exit from Afghanistan.
La Razón says that like his predecessor, the sacked McChrystal, he is not in agreement with the policies of Obama.

El Mundo notes comments from Judge Afuni who has spent eight months in prison in Venezuela, ‘Venezuelan justice has died with Chávez, because of a lack of autonomy’. She has been imprisoned for freeing an opposition activist accused of fraud.

Público headlines and dedicates its front page to ‘Israel destroys what Europe builds’ and notes that Palestinian infrastructures destroyed by the Israeli army cost 79.5 million €, 33 of them donated by Spain. It gives three examples, the Rafah Airport, the power station in Gaza and greenhouses in Beit Hanún.
The paper has an article from Robert Fisk who says that ‘The Jewish State has taken hold in the EU without anyone noticing’.

ABC has a front page pair of photos which intend to show how Gibraltar ‘continues to grow into Spanish waters’. The paper says that a year after ABC made an earlier complaint, ‘frenetic work is taking place in the mountain gained from the sea’. The two photos are from last week and last year. ABC also has an article and editorial on the matter.

El Mundo notes on its masthead that Hemingway and bullfighting are being honored at the Edinburgh Festival this year.

ABC highlights more Spanish sporting success with three Spaniards on the Motorbike podium this weekend – Lorenzo, Elías and Terol. El Mundo notes that Lorenzo has won seven of the ten grand prizes and was second in the others.

And finally,
La Razón tells us that Madonna has been having plastic surgery for her 52nd birthday.

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