Tag Archives: Spain

Madrid-based El Corte Ingles (colloquially: The Tailor’s Cut) is Europe’s largest department chain and has 93,000 employees. In their Cupid In Love Valentine’s Day web short, a cologne-spritzer dressed as Cupid runs into an old flame and sparks reignite. You don’t need to speak Spanish to read what’s going on, but maybe some of you folks can provide the dialogue. …

Spain’s King Felipe VI, 46, has posed for the cover of a local gay magazine as a show of support for the LGBT community. According to Latin Gossip, this is the first time that a “high-ranking Spanish official” has done so. Felipe took the throne last year following the abdication of his father, King Juan Carlos. The magazine is available …

Spain’s autonomous Catalonia region has approved an anti-homophobia bill which requires those accused of anti-LGBT acts to prove they are innocent, rather than be considered so until proven guilty. Via TeleSUR: The law, passed on Thursday and backed by 80% of the Catalan Chamber, will protect the LGBT community from homophobic attacks. “I feel furious when someone appears to deny …

Spain’s Zara clothing chain, which has 5500 stores worldwide, has yanked a children’s “sheriff” shirt after criticism that it resembles the uniforms worn in Nazi concentration camps. Via the Times Of Israel: For only NIS 80, your little tyke can have that fashion forward fresh from the concentration camp look now on sale at international chain Zara. The children’s 65% …

A Spanish lawmaker says that the nation’s financial problems are due to “subsidies granted to homosexuals” by the previously ruling party. Popular Party senator Luz Elena Sanín told journalists that Spain’s ruling conservative party had increased its public spending due to “the debts” caused by “subsidies for NGOs and homosexuals”. Sanín, who represents Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta in …

Via the Telegraph: The heart-stopping moment two passenger planes avoided a catastrophic collision was caught on camera on Saturday. Footage shows a Boeing 767 from the Russian airline UTair coming in to land on a runway at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport. But with the plane just feet from touching down, an Aerolineas Argentineas Airbus A340 slowly taxis across the runway, …

Madrid claims to have put on the largest gay pride celebration in Europe. “I came because I was told it is the biggest Gay Pride parade, and that’s true,” said Christophe Probst, 47, a Frenchman who came from Paris for the party. “It’s fantastic. The whole city gets involved. There is nothing else like it.” The festival kicked off on …

After a nearly 40-year reign, Spain’s King Juan Carlos has surrendered his throne to his son. Juan Carlos, whose health is failing and has had a number of hip operations in recent years, is stepping down for personal reasons, Mariano Rajoy said on Monday. “His majesty, King Juan Carlos, has just communicated to me his will to give up the …

“A lot of people complain and don’t tolerate it but with all respect I say that homosexuality is a defective way of manifesting sexuality, because that has a structure and a purpose, which is procreation. We have a lot of defects in our bodies. I have high blood pressure. Am I going to get angry because they tell me that? …

The mayor of Madrid, who is a member of Spain’s anti-gay People’s Party, has fined the local gay pride committee $216K for violating noise ordinances at this year’s festival. This is the fourth successive year the festival has been fined for noise violations. Past fines ranged from €35,000-€50,000, against which organisers successfully appealed and had reduced or waived. The courts …

Hundreds of thousands of independence activists today attempted to create a 250-mile human chain across Spain’s Catalonia region. The human chain was planned on a traditional regional holiday that last year saw more than one million people come out in protest in Barcelona, the largest show of separatist sentiment since the 1970s. The chain, named the Catalan Way, was due …

Athlete Ally has launched a petition campaign which demands that the International Olympic Committee chose Madrid as the host city of the 2020 Summer Games. Via press release: On September 7 the IOC will choose the host city for the 2020 Olympic Games. Of the three finalists, Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul, one city shines above as LGBT friendly. And only …

After last week’s first gay wedding in France, the Agency France-Presse posted the above map.

Source.

The BBC reports: Flamenco flash mobs – seemingly spontaneous dance and song performances – have been taking place in banks not just in Seville, but all over Andalusia, causing short, if amusing disruptions to the working day. Some involve just one or two dancers, performing silently in front of bemused customers and clerks. Others can be made up of several …

(Via JMG reader Thomas)

A therapeutic HIV vaccine that temporarily “puts the brakes” on the growth of the virus has shown promise in a small study conducted by researchers in Spain. The vaccine, based on immune cells exposed to HIV that had been inactivated with heat, was tested on a group of 36 people carrying the virus and the results were the best yet …

Pro-secession parties won a commanding number of seats yesterday in Spain’s Catalonia region. Flying pro-independence flags – a lone star against yellow and red stripes – Catalan voters on Sunday handed 87 seats, almost two-thirds of the local parliament, to four different parties that want a referendum on secession. But voters also punished the movement’s figurehead, Catalan President Artur Mas. …

Spain’s Catalonia region is voting today on secession. If the pro-secession party wins a majority, a referendum on independence would likely follow within two years. More than 8,000 polling stations opened across the northeastern region at 9 a.m. local time today to select 135 lawmakers who will decide whether to press on with regional President Artur Mas’s plan for a …