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María Jesús, Laura, María Victoria and Vilma were their names. They were four ordinary women from four different localities throughout Spain who became inextricably linked last week through the scourge of domestic violence, within a 24-hour period.

María Jesús, the mother of four children fathered by her future assassin, was gunned down as she walked on the streets of Valladolid. There were three shots and the 54-year-old fell in her tracks. Evidently, her crime was to pass her ex-husband’s home on the way to visit former neighbours, people with whom she had a long and close relationship during the many years she lived in the area before her marriage came to an end. It was in the arms of these people that María Jesús drew her last breath.

Laura M.I. was a 22-year-old Bolivian immigrant living in the Madrid neighbourhood of Lavapiés with her 29-year-old boyfriend, also from Bolivia. On Sunday, February 24, neighbours heard another loud fight; however, it was not until Monday night that her boyfriend confessed her murder to 112. Apparently she was murdered 12 hours earlier.

The next tragedy took place in El Puerto de Santa María, Cadiz. María Victoria, 49 years old, shared three grown-up children with her ex-husband. María Victoria encountered her ex on the street as she made a few purchases. A loud argument ensued and he stabbed her in the middle of the street in broad daylight. Oddly, the accused murderer had recently denounced his ex-wife for uttering threats against him and the attending judge had issued a restraining order on her. Evidently, he will now sleep safely.

Finally, 44-year-old Vilma sat enjoying a coffee with some friends when her ex-boyfriend, 54, calmly approached her and fired a shot from a handgun into her chest. They had two children together and after the break-up of the relationship, Vilma had a restraining order against him.

Four different women from four distinct regions of Spain, all linked by the ongoing wave of domestic violence that poisons everyday life. Despite campaigns to raise awareness of the problem and despite specific money being earmarked to confront what is nothing less than a national tragedy, the numbers of women murdered and maimed at the hands of their ex-lovers continues to grow.

But why? Why are there so many blatant murders committed which seem to decry these women as property, to be disposed of any way these animals see fit? They were all daughters and sisters, aunts and, perhaps most importantly, many were mothers. One’s mind boggles when considering the damage that occurs to the children of such tragedies, no matter what their age. To have one parent murder the other is, in effect, a double homicide because the children lose both parents in one fell swoop.

One has to also wonder, is this something ‘Spanish’? Is it an extension of the macho cult which glorifies tradition and solid social roles? A female friend said to me recently that decades ago, when you saw a Spanish woman crying in public, it was assumed that she had just been struck by her man, such treatment being so common.

But a quick examination of statistics on the federal website, Instituto de la Mujer (Woman’s Institute www.mtas.es/mujer) demonstrates contrary findings. Without pretending to be a statistical whiz (that work should be left to professionals) some surprises immediately come to the forefront.

One interesting set of statistics deals with the origin of the murderers. In 1999, for example, of the 45 men with known nationalities who murdered their partners, only four were foreigners. By 2007, when 71 such murders took place, 27 of them were committed by foreigners, representing 38% of the total. For the first two months of 2008 (the Institute keeps extremely up-to-date records) of the eight such aggressors, six were non-Spanish.

Therefore, we need to ask if enough is being done to fight this problem within the foreign communities. Many here are dislocated, rudderless, without language or any real support network. Evidently, violence against women is not a ‘Spanish’ problem and it needs to be fought with all the energy we put into the many other wars in which the western world has become involved. The time has come. This abuse needs to be discussed, debated and, in time, defeated.
Enough is enough.

Once again, some food for thought …
Don’t forget to listen to the news roundabout with Stephen Ritson every Thursday at 12:00 midday on REM.fm

I would just like to congratulate you on your Virtual Newspaper. Fantastic idea, easy to navigate around the site. For myself in the UK its invaluable as I cannot of course just pick up one of your excellent copies of the paper. It must also be great for circulation figures as well reaching more people . Well done. Best paper in my opinion.

Christine Clifford
UK

The nightmare that is being endured by Len and Helen Prior in the Almerian locality of Vera is something that all of us, especially Spain’s foreign population, has watched with horror.

For those of you who have survived in a vacuum, this retired English couple sunk their life savings into a home in the sun where they could enjoy spending their golden years.

This dream came to an abrupt end when a squadron of police arrived at their home and gave them two hours to leave before bulldozers (under the direction of the Junta de Andalucia) moved in to flatten it.

What makes this case even more terrifying is that the Priors had apparently done all that was right in the construction of their Spanish home: the local permits were all in order and Vera Town Hall was on their side. The apparent injustice of this situation has meant that the story had been covered all over Spain and Europe but especially in UK. Many British newspapers have reported upon the story with an intensity that begs a born sceptic like me to question their motives. Are they fuelled by a concerted effort to help the wrongly-treated through publicising a grave injustice or is it grounded in something much less altruistic but much more instinctual - the need to sell papers combined with the urge to tell the reading public “I told you so.” Let’s face it, generally, the British press has been somewhere between slightly negative to downright hostile towards Spain and (to a lesser degree) those who have made the choice to live here. In any decision to leave one’s homeland, there is always a push and pull effect at work and one of those two components may almost totally dominate the other.

All this does well to explain why so many British expats are living here but does little to answer the hostile attitude to Spain in much of the British media. Do they view those who have made the change as ‘turncoats’ or perhaps as rats leaving a sinking ship? Or is it something more basic, like a need to share the misery come what may; suffering with a Victorian sense of desperation and a stereotypical British ‘stiff upper lip’? Who can positively attribute the causes of another’s motivation? Still, it has to be said that if one were to read only the British press, one would have an erroneous attitude of what the reality of living in Spain is about.

The unthinking reader would enter a terrifying world where paedophiles lurk around every corner, waiting to help in the violent robbery of villas and then assisting in the same villas’ wanton government-sanctioned destruction, all the while having money pressed into their greasy palms by a mollified and subjugated foreign population. But the people know better, ye masters of Fleet Street and beyond. They intrinsically know that even with the existence of a sub-human like Tony Alexander King, our children would face not only this but a myriad of other threats as well if they were being brought up in the hostile environment that exists in many places in UK. Indeed, this is one of the main reasons that so many younger expats with families make the change.

The people also can read about the crime on, let’s say, the Costa del Sol or Blanca but when it comes to walking down a street at 3am with a few too many pints in us, they also know that they would rather be in Marbella or Benidorm than in London or Birmingham.

So, let’s keep our eye on the prize. To Len and Helen Prior of Vera, The Euro Weekly News will offer you its heartfelt support, and not because it will lead to a larger circulation of this humble (free) paper but because it is well deserved. You have handled an unconscionable situation with dignity, determination and true grit. How your home, built in good faith, can be destroyed with such rapidity while, for example, hundreds are built in Malaga, Murcia, Madrid and elsewhere in open contravention of the law and in collaboration with self-gratifying public ‘servants’ (to whom the word hubris never existed) is beyond all moral comprehension. We will continue to publicise the speed by which injustice’s terrible swift sword cut deeply into your lives, perhaps thereby preventing it from slicing through the lives of others like you.

As for the rest of the expatriate community, stand up for your adopted land by adding your voice to right the situation and, above all, do not let a skewed negative foreign press paint an unfair picture to those back home.
Once again, just a little food for thought…

This is the first of my weekly columns. In this space I hope to pose different questions and plant some seeds for discussion. In short, create some food for thought.

A short while ago, I was returning to the Costa del Sol by car following a business trip to Benidorm. I was meeting with a few people concerning various aspects of work and on the way home, I stopped to lunch with a reporter that I was eager to meet. We met at a very nice venta and dined on what I thought was very fresh and delicious shellfish of a number of different varieties. We talked and then parted ways and I headed home to Malaga by way of Almeria. As I approached Almeria, I started to feel less than well. At first, I thought it might have been the jolting drive combined with the rich lunch that made me unwell but after about 30 more minutes I was sure it was food poisoning. It became impossible to drive for more than five minutes without having to pull the car over, often in heavy traffic. I’m sure you get the picture. At one point I found myself in an area of brush just off of the A-7 motorway. When I felt sufficiently well to rejoin the living, at least for a few minutes, I climbed the little hillside to my car. What I saw was the answer to my prayers. Parked on the roundabout was a 4X4 containing two Guardia Civil officers. My joy knew no bounds. I approached the vehicle calling out before I rapped on the window (it’s never good form to surprise men with guns) and explained my plight. They let me follow them to the local ambulatorio where I thanked them both for their help. They asked me if I had my Social Security card and I said yes, and offered to show them the rest of my ID - after all, they were police. However, they just declined and told me to take care of myself.

I recovered fairly quickly but the incident made me think on a number of different levels. First of all, it made me reflect upon just how vulnerable we all are at any given time. Although I was driving along a busy motorway, the sun was still about to set and I honestly do not know what I would have done without the Guardia’s intervention. Secondly, it made me think about how helpful and respectful they were to me the entire time. I had mentioned this point to a Spanish friend and she shrugged and said that it was their job to help; however, anyone who has lived in nearly any big city can tell you that the police are often not seen as public “servants” but can be fear-provoking, especially to people of colour like myself. They are often people to avoid. Thirdly, I had to reflect upon the majority of my British friends whose language skills are little to none even though they have spent years in Spain. How would they have fared? Would the police have been as helpful if I hadn’t been able to offer a single word in the country’s official language?

Being raised in Canada, my sensibilities surrounding immigration and integration might be somewhat different than those of British people. After it was taken from the native population, Canada became a country populated by immigrants. Growing up, people had French names, English names, Italian names, Polish names but we all lived and worked together more or less in harmony. It is interesting for me to note the different levels of integration that many of my friends experience here in Spain. It runs the gamut from English speakers that I know in Cadiz who revel in all things Spanish; the food, bars, music and the joy of life. Many of them avoid other Britons and live like home-grown Spaniards, not even speaking English at home. On the other side of the spectrum are my other friends that live much as they did in Britain. They work with Britons, frequent only British bars and watch only British TV programmes. Neither is right; neither is wrong. As the saying goes, life is what you make it. However, I have to wonder what it would have been like if groups came to Canada (let’s say to enjoy the crisp air, ice hockey and to soak up the cold) but did little to integrate? Perhaps they neglected to learn one of the two official languages or maybe chose to live in neighbourhoods populated by their own kind. They would only eat their own food, make no Canadian friends and also want to recreate the situation they had at home on Canadian soil. I doubt very much that those people would have been as well accepted as many in the British population have been here in Spain, with or without money.

Just some food for thought…
Owen Thomas, Editorial Manager

Dynamic personality evident from every angle
Verve comes in both four- and three-door body styles. The four-door is the basis for the production vehicle that will be sold in North America beginning in 2010. The European three-door is being shown to test market reaction to the body style – as a possible additional small car for the North American market.

The Verve concept has a sleek and dynamically poised design. Viewed from the front, the vehicle features:

• A bold, three-bar graphic with a Ford blue oval in the upper grille opening and downsized the lower, inverted trapezoidal grille.
• Pronounced, rearward-stretching headlamps, giving the face of the Ford Verve concept a friendly, open and inviting personality.
• A toned and athletic hood sculpture that’s not overtly muscular.
• Prominent headlamps that feature two projector beams and a light-emitting diode (LED) array.
• Two unique LED side markers flank the front fascia.
• Specially designed 18-inch, 12-spoke two-piece alloy wheels that lend even more drama to the car.

From the side view, the Verve concept has a purposeful look:

• The profile is emphasized by the pillar-less side window shape, mirroring the body’s curving upper contour line. This extends rearward from the angular A-pillar to marry the semi-high-mounted, LED tail lamps sculpted to become part of the fullness of the body shape.
• These elements blend cohesively together and support the panoramic glass roof.
• Subtle chrome bars accent the door handles.
• Brushed aluminum accents the lower grille surround, the rear number plate surround, and the lower edge of the front fog lamps.
• Low-profile tires feature a sidewall stripe that complements the rich Rouge Red body color.

By Owen Thomas

Editorial Manager

Here we are again with the remnants of billions of dollars in e-paper profits strewn across of the virtual stock floors around the world. Few cycles strike fear into the hearts of investors and the thinking common person alike as do these massive corrections that occasionally happen every decade or so.

But there are a number of current factors that make this tumble more disconcerting. The violent reverberations created from the sub-prime mortgage debacle continue to affect markets thousands of kilometres from the source of this latest case of unbridled greed, the United States. In fact, the instability created by mortgage scandal is seen by many as the first step along this downward spiral.

And then there are the upcoming presidential elections in the United States. Elections seem to be an understated word because for many in that politically-divided country (be they on the right or the left of the spectrum) the upcoming constitutional exercise will be nothing less than a revolution. The fragmentation that has occurred in the wake of the misguided policies in Iraq and elsewhere has many if not most Americans looking at their collective identity and not only questioning where they are going but also where they have been.

Perhaps the depth of this self searching can be plumbed by observing the most likely candidates to succeed George Bush the younger– a woman and a man of colour. When America looks to its future, it is these two reflections that that they now see looking back.

So within this uncertainty and disquietude comes our latest stock market correction. Will the surrounding environment make it even more unpredictable and dangerous, leading us closer to an economic recession as is widely feared?

Let us know your thoughts…

Welcome to The Euro Weekly News Blog. My name is Owen Thomas and I am the Editorial Manager.  Hopefully, this will become a forum for interesting discussion and debate, at a level that is not possible through the print media.

I will be adding information to the site as need be so if there are any questions you would like to ask or any opinions that you would like to state, this is your place.

So welcome and enjoy!