WorldcrunchStay updated with comprehensive news on Spain from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Spanish politics, economic strategies, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Madrid, Barcelona, and events like the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.
I am part of a generation whose quality of life will be worse than those who came before us. This should encourage society to realize that the idea of infinite growth is a myth, and that time is of the essence when it comes to saving the environment.
Small Spanish towns are struggling with mass exodus to cities. But some are trying to turn things around by making them safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people who could return from urban areas.
The clumsy restoration of a mural of Christ in a Spanish chapel 10 years ago shocked, then amused Spaniards and millions more abroad, and gave the local town a level of publicity, and tourist revenues, it never had nor could have hoped for. Here’s how it looks 10 years later.
The droughts and extreme temperatures due to climate change, together with the abandonment of the countryside, have caused fierce fires in Spain that have devastate the livelihoods of the few people who still live there.
U.S. politics around gun control can be confusing to Americans but outright bewildering to foreigners living there. For Azahara Palomeque, a Spaniard who just left the U.S. after 12 years, the country is governed by a “necropolitics” that doesn’t value life.
A new generation of Muslims want to do things differently. This is especially true for women — Muslim feminism has never been as visible as it is now.
The European far-right’s sympathies for “white and Christian” Ukrainians shows its devotion to the idea of the “clash of civilizations.” But it fails to see the basic paradoxes of war, where you may be fighting those who most resemble you and be forced to welcome those who look different.
The big Spanish electricity and oil companies sponsor numerous research chairs at top universities: Is this cynical ‘greenwashing’ or innovative collaboration for the energy transition?
There is a charming little sector of central Madrid where towering figures of Spanish literature lived, loved, wrote … and mocked each other.
When the author, a black Cuban immigrant living in Spain, was diagnosed with breast cancer, she had to overcome not only the physical toll but also the daily humiliations by a medical system and society that treated her as a second-class patient. But then she decided to say, enough.
Ghosts from Spain’s murderous 1930s civil war are said to roam the ruins of Belchite. A growing number of tourists are intrigued and can book a special visit to the town.
A major bust last week of a Colombian-led narcotics ring deep in the Spanish Pyrenees led to the arrest of 12 people, the seizure of two kilograms of cocaine and the discovery of the laboratory where the drug was processed. Police say they discovered the traffickers while on the trail of the killer of a […]
The pandemic has caused an overall drop in clothing sales. But is it also changing how we dress? External shocks have had an impact on fashion trends throughout history.
From Moroccan migrants to British pensioners, Spain has plenty of foreign-born residents. Each group differs, however, in terms of where and how they concentrate upon arrival.
‘Covidization’ of healthcare systems worldwide has led to rising mortality rates in pathologies like cancer, and more births in the Third World.
A global pandemic and weariness in many places of cheap, mass tourism may hasten a real paradigm shift in the travel sector. Or not.
Latin American economies, like others, have suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism could help fuel a recovery, but only if countries do a better job of protecting their natural wonders.
A chocolate museum nestled in Spain’s small town of Astorga reveals how an exotic delicacy became a veritable ‘opium of the masses.’
In the race to to find a cure, scientists are rushing to release their study results. There are dangers in skipping the standard peer-review procedures, but they may be outweighed by the benefits.
The jury’s still out on whether COVID-19 can be transmitted sexually. But there’s no doubt that it has made many people more cautious about intimacy.
The world’s prevailing trade system was facing major challenges even before the pandemic. But that doesn’t mean globalization is destined to die.
Going vegetarian or vegan is not just to stop eating meat, but a progressive rejection of the globalized food industry.
VAL D’ARAN — It wasn’t until I’d made may way clear through to other side of the village that I finally crossed paths with another human: A man about my age returning from a walk in the hills with his dog. “The only thing I can tell you is that up along the road, after […]
…and the beginning of Francisco Franco’s decades of military dictatorship.
BARCELONA — It’s a large, bright open space, in which 80 people work, sitting behind brand new desks. The grey of the carpet is still pristine, the walls too white, impersonal. Except for a large sticker, whose shape, known throughout the world, provides an indication of what’s going on precisely in this room: it’s a […]
-OpEd- MADRID — Since September 2015, when the UN General Assembly launched its 2030 Agenda — a plan to reach 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within 15 years — the concepts have been gaining momentum worldwide. The ultimate purpose of the SDGs is to eradicate poverty, and slowly but surely, people are realizing their importance […]
The do-nothing approach to migration being taken by the new Spanish government and others in Europe is untenable, and plays right into the hands of racist far right.
The 25-year-old Spaniard is a millennial literary star, thanks to her deep culture, her talents and — naturally — her social media skills.
-Analysis- PARIS — The Catalan flag fluttered alongside the European flag and its 12 stars on Oct. 27, when Catalonia declared its independence from Spain. But Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, didn’t appreciate this tribute to Europe. “We shouldn’t insert ourselves into what is an internal debate for Spain,” he warned. “I […]
PARIS — What is France to do, as neighbors, and we Europeans, as fellow citizens, faced with the declaration of independence of Catalonia? It undermines a large European democracy on our border, Spain, and places us in the face of an unprecedented challenge. Within what right do we say “yes’ or “no” when the nationalism […]
-Analysis- MADRID — Virtually everyone now uses the Internet before, during and after they travel, whether its downloading an app to become familiar with a particular destination or sharing your holiday photos on Facebook or Instagram. The information revolution has indeed revolutionized both the way we prepare trips, and how we experience them. As such, […]
You shouldn’t play with fire, with the deepest feelings of a people. That counts for Catalonia, but also for smaller battles of belonging, like those in Swiss cantons.
What connects the violence in Barcelona and Charlottesville? Where have Western democracies gone wrong since the turn of the century?
The regional government of Catalonia will hold a controversial independence referendum in October. Opinion is deeply divided in the cities of Lleida And Berga.
In between nuclear tests, Pyongyang is investing massively in its tourism infrastructure. A delegation visited Spain last month to study their resorts.
PALMA — You live in one of those special places where people travel from all around the world to visit. A dream? More like a neverending tourist hell, says Venice resident Elisa Crepaldi. “Some of the most beautiful areas in the city are no longer accessible to locals. We have to renounce living in some […]
Sadly, the wall-sized master work says as much about the world’s current horrors as it did about the first-ever air raid on civilians 80 years ago.
L’Esportiu, March 9, 2017 FC Barcelona’s stunning victory over France’s PSG last night at Camp Nou earned a succinctly shocked (and triumphant) front-page headline in the Catalan-language sports daily L’Esportiu. For those linguists keeping score at home, L’Impossible (“The Impossible”) reads exactly the same in the Catalan and French languages. Headlines in France, though equally […]
The architectural icon begun by Antoni Gaudi in the late 19th century is still incomplete. Now city hall wants to end a century-old legal exception, as debate continues about protecting the original architectural vision.
After seven years of research, a determined academic says he has definitive proof that Capa’s legendary Spanish Civil War photograph ‘Falling Soldierâ’ was a fake.