From typicallyspanish.com
Spain Papers Review - Friday July 4 2008
By h.b.
Jul 4, 2008 - 9:48 AM
El Mundo leads with the number of people to sign up so far to its manifesto to protect the Spanish language - 99,000 in 11 days, and highlights that the Captain of the Spanish football team Iker Casillas is among them. It quotes him as saying ‘I am signing up because I don’t want a single child in my country to not have the right to be educated in our common language’.
ABC also highlights authors and authors’ widows who are defencing the national language.
El Mundo says that the PSOE are proposing that immigrants from outside the EU be given the right to vote in municipal elections in Spain. The paper says the measure would only apply if there is the same possibility in the other country. The measure would add 1.3 million to the census, according to the paper.
El País notes that the Socialists have opened the door to legalising Euthanasia, and that the matter will be debated this weekend at the Socialist party congress in Madrid.
Público leads with the stories and says that the PSOE has taken two steps to the left with the matters of immigrant votes and euthanasia.
El Mundo has a photo of Ingrid Betancourt in Bogatá yesterday after being reunited with her children, Melanie and Lorenzo.
The paper explains how the daring rescue operation was carried out by the Colombian army, with the FARC location identified with United States satellites.
El País also has a photo of Ingrid Betancourt with her children who she describes as ‘My reason to live, my life, my stars’. The paper considers that the rescue will help Uribe in his re-election as Preesident.
ABC also has a large front page photo of Betancourt with her children, and smiles all round.
The papers note that the European Central Bank have put up the price of money at the time when consumer confidence is at its lowest and petrol prices are at their highest.
ABC reports that the interest rate rise will make things even tougher for families, with money and mortgages both more expensive.
El Periodico de Catalunya says that the monthly mortgage has increased by 273 € in three months.
Público says that Trichet has increased rates, but also implied he would not be doing so again.
El País says the employers’ organisation in Spain is now predicting as many as 1.5 million more unemployed in a year.
ABC reports that the wiretaps in the Troika case in Spain against the Russian mafia have revealed that the mafia chiefs arrested here doubted the power of the Russian president Medvedev, and considered him as Putin’s puppet.
El Mundo and El País note that Basque politician, Josu Jon Imaz, has been signed up as President of the Petronor company, a subsidiary of Repsol YPF.
El País has a two page report on how parents are not talking about sex with their children. The paper says it seems easy, it’s recommended, but in many cases it does not happen.
And finally,
El Mundo gives front page space to what it described as the Socialist war against the tie. It all started when the Minister for Industry, Miguel Sebastian, suggested civil servants not wear a tie at work, and then appeared in congress not wearing one himself. It comes as he has increased the temperatures for civil servants to 24 degrees, turning down the air conditioning in state offices.
He declined an invitation from the President of the chamber, José Bono, to put one on and is now reported to have sent Bono a thermometer as a gift.
That was followed by José Blanco, the Socialist spokesman in Congress, criticising Bono and now the Minister for Employment, Celestino Corbacho, has also gone to parliament without a tie.
(You are invited to give your opinion on tie usage in the current Typically Spanish poll, at the bottom of this page.)