When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

LA MAREA
La Marea is a monthly paper magazine and a daily digital medium that is committed to rigorous and in depth journalism, specialized in analysis, research and culture. The publication is edited by the MásPúblico cooperative, 100% owned by its readers and workers, which allows us to be totally independent from political and business powers.
Alexis Tsipras speaks at a podium with a greek flag in the foreground
Geopolitics
Queralt Castillo Cerezuela

Greek Elections: Will The Left Forgive Tsipras For The “Betrayal” Of 2015?

With the opposition Progressive Alliance ‘Syriza’ trailing in the polls for the May 21 election, they'll need to convince their potential core left-wing voters that they are true progressives. Tspiras' controversial bailout deal of 2015, however, still hangs in the air.

ATHENS – Keeping food prices under control, raising salaries, regulating the market, protecting housing and “standing by citizens.” These are the main points of Greek Coalition of the Radical Left’s Progressive Alliance for Sunday's general elections in Greece. Better known by its abbreviation Syriza, the left-wing party has been the main opposition party for the last four years, and now has a chance to return to power.

The latest polls give a lead to the current ruling party, New Democracy (ND) led by conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Against all odds, numerous scandals seem to have left the party unaffected. Neither the news of their illegal wiretapping of journalists and politicians (including within their own ranks) with the Predator software nor the Tempe train crash tragedy that killed 57 people on February 28, 2023, or any of their numerous other scandals seem to have touched their standing.

All these scandals, which should have been the center of the electoral debate, were immediately sidelined with the news of accusations of sexual harrassment against Syriza MEP Alexis Georgoulis. The party vehemently denies having knowledge of the events, but the case is being used against them in the campaign.

Leader of the opposition, Alexis Tsipras, is trying to revive hopes for the return to "a progressive government." But among the left-wing electorate, there is no shortage of mistrust and disappointment after the so-called "betrayal" of 2015, where Tsipras accepted an international debt bailout deal — and his subsequent four years in government.

Watch VideoShow less
Photo of surrogate mothers and newborns BioTexCom facilities
Society
Patricia Simón

Surrogacy In Ukraine: Demand Is Booming, But Birth Mothers Have Fled

After more than a year of war, a journalist from Spanish publication La Marea returns to one of the capital's top clinics for foreign couples looking for children. Business is better than ever, though the clinic is looking for women from other former Soviet republics to become surrogate mothers.

KYIV — "Now, our big problem is that we lack women..."

With so many Ukrainian women having gone abroad since the Russian invasion, surrogacy company BioTexCom's Ihor Pechenoha says there are not enough surrogate mothers to meet what has turned out to be growing demand for babies from abroad.

A year ago, Pechenoha, the company's medical director, was armed and in military uniform when he received La Marea in a basement converted into a shelter for about 30 babies. BioTexCom had transferred to the location from a Kyiv hospital after it was bombed by Russian forces.

At the time, it had been just two weeks since the beginning of the invasion, and it looked like Russian troops might take the Ukrainian capital at any moment. Since then, some things have changed, though others haven't.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.

Sign up to our free daily newsletter.

Foreign couples who had contracted to acquire the newborns didn't dare to enter a country at war to collect them. Nurses cared for the pregnant women day and night, while at the same time worrying about what would happen to their own families. There, they could earn three times as much as in a public hospital. Surrounded by diapers, cribs and tins of powdered milk, a soldier armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle kept watch.

Watch VideoShow less
How A "Climatic Memory" Gene Helps Trees Face Environmental Threat
Green
Juan F Samaniego

How A "Climatic Memory" Gene Helps Trees Face Environmental Threat

Humans and animals have strategies to deal with their surroundings, including the impacts of climate change. But what about trees? Researchers in Spain have identified mechanisms in plant life to learn over time from unfavorable environmental situations.

OVIEDO — When it doesn't rain, humans look for water under rocks. Throughout history, we have developed more or less effective techniques (and more or less respectful of the environment) to always have something to drink. Reservoirs, wells or desalination plants help us, when available, to cope with periods of drought.

Animals also have strategies to deal with lack of water, such as moving (sometimes long distances) in search of new reserves or reducing hydration needs by lowering physical activity.

But how does a tree survive?

These living beings are anchored to the same place, where they spend tens, hundreds and even thousands of years. For this reason, their strategies to deal with stressful situations, such as a drought, a heat wave or a plague, are very different from those of animals.

New research has discovered something incredible: trees have a kind of climatic memory in their genes.

Watch VideoShow less
Photo of the installation by Sebastián Picker on the "disappeared" in Chile during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Society
Yasna Mussa

50 Years After Pinochet's Coup, Chile Is Ready To Recover The Disappeared

The government of Chile's young new president, Gabriel Boric, has begun to develop the National Plan for the Search for Victims of the Dictatorship, half a century after the coup.

SANTIAGO — In what resembles an endless human chain, hundreds of people hold signs displaying black and white portraits with one question: where are they? Every September 11, the day of Chile's 1973 coup d'état, they follow the same route through streets that for one day become the setting of a pilgrimage to the General Cemetery of Santiago. They cry out for justice and demand answers.

They are, for the most part, women who know what it means to care for someone, even when the person they loved — they love — is no longer there. Wives, mothers, daughters, and granddaughters of the disappeared or other victims of the dictatorship who have not given in to oblivion.

This coming September 11, it will be 50 years since a group led by Augusto Pinochet shattered democracy and forever changed the history of a country whose wounds are still exposed : 17 years of a dictatorship would follow, in which thousands of people were sent to prison, tortured, murdered, or forcibly disappeared.

Watch VideoShow less
A Fascist poster hangs on a wall inside ​Benito Mussolin's former home in Forli, Italy
Society
Olivia Carballar

We Still Don't Know How To Fight Fascism

It's no longer accurate to say the "rise" of the far-right — fascism is already here. After Trump's election, a group of prominent analysts gathered to discuss how the left could fight back. Six years later, their insights are more urgent and insightful than ever.

-Essay-

MADRID — There were very few who'd ventured to predict that he would win. That night, Nov. 8, 2016, we in Europe went to sleep watching the United States, and woke up in the middle of a nightmare. Donald Trump, whom both the Republican and Democratic establishments and opinion makers had dismissed, had become real. He had won.

Far-right leaders scattered around the world began to send congratulations while protests began to take place in North American cities. The pundits couldn't understand why their brilliant analyses had failed.

Six years later, fascism continues to triumph, for the simple reason that people continue to vote for it. In Italy, it won last Sunday with Giorgia Meloni. The Vox party arrived in Spain a long time ago.

But no one can say that we were not warned. In December 2016, with the arrival of Trump to power,weat La Marea organized a debate to collect the responses the left was devising in the face of this wave that threatens the basic principles of a democracy. They were interesting then, but perhaps they are even more relevant now because they were never implemented.

Watch VideoShow less
It's Neoliberalism, Stupid: A Millennial's Plea To Break The Status Quo
Society
Azahara Palomeque

It's Neoliberalism, Stupid: A Millennial's Plea To Break The Status Quo

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.

-Essay-

Millennials (those aged roughly between 25 and 38) and others born after us will never be able to live better than our parents (or grandparents). There are those who will blame Netflix subscriptions or avocado toast as a pattern of expenses that, if avoided, would allow us in theory to buy a house. But the economic data is there and it doesn’t lie.

Economic growth has slowed down in a good part of the globe and, along with this, there has been a weakening of the welfare states in most Western countries. This has been coupled with a reduction in taxes for those who are the wealthiest, resulting in unprecedented wealth inequality.

Demonizing the leisure activities of the most precarious sectors not only demonstrates a conservative and prejudiced position but also a shameless ignorance in the face of a problem that has been studied by many experts.

Watch VideoShow less
Who Will Be Left? A Message From The "Inextinguishable" Fires Of Zamora
Green
Cristina García Casado

Who Will Be Left? A Message From The "Inextinguishable" Fires Of Zamora

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.

TÁBARA — Francisco Vicente and Delia spent two days inside a tractor. In their town, Tábara, in the northwestern Spanish province of Zamora, the flames tried to enter from all fronts for hours without mercy or truce.

Many neighbors, like them, disregarded the Civil Guard's eviction order and stayed behind to defend their houses, their crops and their animals. This is all they have. The official fire extinguishing techniques are not designed for the massive fires of the 21st century.

"If the people hadn't stayed behind, the fire would have reached the town and burned it," says Francisco Vicente Casado Fresno, a farmer, just like his father, grandparents, uncles and those who preceded them.

Watch VideoShow less
Maasai people
Society
Fiore Longo

Plight Of Maasai Reveals Racism Of Africa's Conservation Policy

Thousands of Maasai people in Tanzania met brutal police repression when they demonstrated against being expelled from their land, laying bare both how ineffective and inhumane the conservationist movement can be.

LOLIONDO — "Loliondo is bleeding..."

An SMS woke me up on the morning of June 10. Scrolling through my phone were dozens of horrifying images of Maasai men and women with wounds on their legs, their backs and their heads. Lots of blood. And then, videos of Maasai running away from the Tanzanian police, who were shooting at them.

The pictures looked like war images. Like so many other people in the Global North, I was shocked. How could the idyllic images of zebras, giraffes and lions that the Serengeti ecosystem evokes in Western minds be transformed into this scene of brutal violence?

Watch VideoShow less