VinceTracy Podcasts

So, Cataluñan Independence was declared then suspended. What does this mean? Who will benefit? Is Russia really in the mix? German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stressed her backing for the "unity of Spain" in a phone call with Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy amid a threat by Catalan separatists to declare independence, her spokesman said on Monday. Leaders of far-right parties in other countries are being blamed. A group of Catalan professors at prestigious universities in the United States has become a crucial pillar of the independence drive. Their defense of a referendum and independence has helped to project an image of academic support. Some of these academics now strongly and forcefully defend a unilateral declaration of independence following the October 1 referendum, which was outlawed by the Constitutional Court. Barcelona, which the Financial Times once defined as the best city to live in, made the front page of Europe’s financial publications last week. This is because several major listed companies – including CaixaBank, Banco Sabadell, Gas Natural and Agbar – decided to join a growing list of small and medium enterprises moving their corporate headquarters out of Catalonia over fears of political turmoil should a declaration of independence be announced. Meanwhile, Ryanair and all the travellers involved Easyjet have been greatly disrupted by the French air traffic controllers. This does not seem to have made the headlines in the UK where the major interest seems focussed around the antics of wayward film directors and film stars. ....despite the fact that an estimated 1 million illegals roam around the UK. David Wood, an ex-director general of immigration enforcement, told MPs there are 'enormous difficulties' in removing overseas nationals who are in the UK unlawfully. The headlines tell us that jailbirds are returning to prison to help smuggle drugs into the jails.....A third of youngsters under 5 own a tablet and Researchers from the University of Nottingham found greater immaturity among young girls makes them 31 per cent more likely to be told they have ADHD, while boys are 26 per cent more likelyto be told they have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the research adds. Barack Obama and his aides regarded the idea of a special relationship between Britain and the US as a joke, it was claimed. As more than 700,000 people in Lancashire had to boil their water in summer 2015 when microbial parasite cryptosporidium was found in the Franklaw water treatment works in Preston. The resultant fine was a mere 300, 000.

We first must share our prayers and good wishes to all those caught up in the tragic events in Las Vegas. Two days after Catalonia held a banned independence referendum, the region was operating at half speed on Tuesday due to a general strike called by small unions. The two large Spanish general workers’ unions, UGT and CC OO, have encouraged people to demonstrate in a “paro de país” (country stoppage) to protest the police violence on Sunday, but underscored that they are not participating in the call for a general strike. Europe has had a rocky ride with referendums in recent years: think of Greece’s anti-austerity vote in 2015, or the Brexit shock and Italy’s failed constitutional referendum in December 2016. As the UK found with the 2014 Scottish independence vote, even holding a referendum at all can be highly destabilising to the traditional political order and political party systems. Shouting slogans such as “¡Viva España!” and chants such as “I am Spanish,” around 10,000 people, according to figures from the central government delegation in Madrid, attended a demonstration at midday on Saturday in the Plaza de Cibeles, in the heart of the Spanish capital. Britain's biggest ever peacetime repatriation mission has been launched to rescue Monarch's 110,000 stranded passengers.The airline ceased trading on Tuesday, with all future flights cancelled and nearly 2,000 people left without jobs. Transport secretary Chris Grayling promised a mass effort will now be executed to bring holidaymakers home, at a cost of £60million. Theresa May must reverse the ‘hollowing out’ of the Armed Forces, a top general has warned. In a letter to the PM, Sir Richard Barrons said states had the capability to seriously threaten the UK. The UK's second blind judge wholly failed 'to meet the standards that are demanded by the office of a judge' according to a panel's ruling. Meanwhile, a British Asian lawyer, Nazir Afzal, who was widely praised for his role in tackling the Rochdale grooming scandal, has been barred from making the keynote speech at the Society of Asian Lawyers annual awards and ball in London on October 28.

Angela Merkel won power at the ballot box on Sunday but lost support to the far-right AfD party which gained its first seats in the German parliament, leading to protests across the country. Is it true that Catalans pay more than the rest? The answer is yes. It will be rightly said that Catalonia is a rich community and, therefore, it is logical that in a progressive tax system contribute more than, for example, Extremadura, the region with the highest unemployment rate and lower GDP per capita. Sympathy with Catalonia's bid to hold an independence referendum next week is running high in Scotland, where lawmakers are increasingly vocal in condemning Spain's actions and a group of volunteers is heading out to help He lives far away, but Jose Jimenez is convinced that Catalonia's independence referendum "won't result in anything," one of many Spaniards in the sprawling southern Andalusia region following the separatist crisis with concern. Mariano Rajoy visited the White House Tuesday to hold a working session with US President Donald Trump. The Spanish president, in his first meeting with Trump, plans to invite the US president to visit Spain and has put on the table his diplomatic position on sanctions to North Korea and Venezuela Not all countries are the same," says Antonio Javier Saborit López, a Spanish citizen who works in the construction sector in London, and is part of a surprising number of Spaniards based in the United Kingdom who support Brexit. Former Spanish king Juan Carlos at 79 has been named world sailing champion along with his crew during the classic six competition in Vancouver that also included American Dennis Conner. A hero Royal Marine who lost three limbs in a bomb blast in Afghanistan was praised by Prince Harry last night after winning a silver medal at the Invictus Games. Ryanair has announced it will scrap 18,000 more flights on 34 routes until March 2018 - having already axed more than 2,000 routes n a triumphalist keynote speech at party conference, Mr Corbyn said he was determined to sweep away the 'failed dogma' of 1980s Thatcherism and make the rich 'pay their fair share' A NHS plan to bring over 202 nurses from the Philippines to work at the Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, Kent, has stalled after 88 per cent of the first wave failed their English language test.

After a week in the UK it is easy to see how the weather affects our different ways of life!A majority of Catalans, 56%, feel that the independence referendum announced by the regional government for October 1 is neither valid nor legal, considering the voting conditions and the way lawmakers got the referendum law passed. The Spanish Civil Guard has arrested seven British nationals suspected of cheating Spanish hotels out of 8364;60 million through phony food poisoning claims. Most of the hotels that fell prey to the scam are located in the Balearic Islands. City of Bilbao advises cocaine users to chop up your line nice and fine;Authorities pull campaign following social controversy over safe use recommendations. For the first time ever, two Spanish tennis players occupy the first places in the male and female world rankings. Garbie Muguruza holds the number one position for the ladies while Rafael Nadal, who has held the position three times previously, dominates the ATP. The weather has turned very windy in the UK with all the attendant problems.Top Eurocrat Jean-Claude Juncker dismissed Brexit today as he demanded all member states sign up to even closer ties.In his annual state of the EU address, the commission president warned Britain that it would 'regret' leaving the bloc. A story that went under the radar in the UK involved a husband and wife who discussed drugging and raping babies on WhatsApp in a paedophile love triangle have been freed from jail after serving a fraction of their sentence .Len McCluskey has compared himself to Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela as his fellow union barons threatened a wave of illegal strikes. A shocking video has emerged of a grinning reveller grinding against a female police officer at Notting Hill Carnival which some social media users have slammed as being 'sexual assault'.

In wake of the Catalonia attacks.... installation of barriers has already begun at tourist sites throughout country.....TVE presenter slammed for asking Spanish born-and-bred Muslim if she 'feels integrated in Spain'. However, even before the terrorist attacks of Barcelona and Cambrils, the Spanish Interior Ministry had already developed a plan to combat the problem, but so far its guidelines have barely been implemented by local officials......Abdelbakri Es Satty followed a jihadist manual that permitted adopting the habits of Christians so as to go undetected. The mayor of a small town in Catalonia accumulated more than €2 million during his tenure between 2003 and 2015 from bribes, according to an investigation by anti-corruption prosecutors. Police are investigating the alleged rape of a British tourist by a taxi driver working in the upmarket Costa del Sol resort of Puerto Banus a day after launching a similar probe in Magaluf. FC BARCELONA'S latest signing is the most expensive in the club's history and will make their new forward the second-most pricey player on earth. Borussia Dortmund's Ousmane Dembélé has just signed a €147-million five- season transfer deal, involving a €105m down payment to German team, and a lock-in penalty clause of €400m if he breaks the contract off prematurely. The Notting Hill Carnival, Brexit talks and the Diana tapes seem to have largely dominated the UK news this week. Notting Hill police Police were slashed with broken bottles, had acid thrown at them and in one of the worst confrontations, three PCs had bloody spit sprayed in their faces by a man claiming to be HIV positive. Shane Ridge, 21, from Colne, Lancashire, was issued a letter from the Home Office telling him to leave the country, even though he was born in the UK and has worked and voted here since. Meanwhile, Samim Bigzad had been booked on a commercial flight back to his home country - but as he was escorted onto the Turkish Airlines jet the pilot told guards: 'I'm not flying. Someone's life is at risk. Seline Damar was out riding in Woodborough, Nottinghamshire, when she claims a driver in his 70s rammed into the back of her horse Spot, causing blood to gush down his legs. Cyclist Vicky Myers was killed after she was struck in Timperley, Trafford in Manchester on Sunday morning by a car which did not stop at the scene. A Ford Transit driver has been arrested after the fatal crash with a male cyclist in Holloway, north London, just after 6am today. The man was treated by paramedics but sadly died at the scene. Ricardo McFarlane, 30, 'breached an ASBO' when he approached shoppers outside Topshop in Oxford Street. At Southwark Crown Court today, he refused to stand for the judge. A child, who is a white native English speaker, spent the past six months in two Muslim households after being placed into foster care in Tower Hamlets, east London. .......Discount supermarket Aldi has defended closing a till to customers wanting to buy alcohol at its Northampton store because a staff member had 'concerns' about serving booze.

Barcelona and the whole of Spain is still reeling after the horrific terror attacks and other events of last week.. The media was showing great detail of the atrocity and then illustrated how it had been linked to other parts of Cataluña. Today's papers showed four suspects testified for the first time. Later, whilst Members of the Muslim community gathered at the famous Plaza de Catalunya, which is just yards from where it ploughed into pedestrians on Las Ramblas.....and Barcelona's chief rabbi Meir Bar-Hen told his congregation to move to Israel to flee terror. It was surprising to see Deputy chairman of the German Social Democratic Party Eva Hogl caught on camera smiling and waving as her party leader made a tribute to victims of the Barcelona atrocity. In a lesser publicised article Mohamed Atta, the pilot of the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center, is reported to have met with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, in Cambril, Spain, in July 2001 where they 'planned' the 9/11 attacks. In another extremely sad event Rocío Cortés Núñez is said to have been killed as she was transported on a stretcher between the second and third floors of the Valme Hospital in Seville, southern Spain. Fernando Alvarez, from Cadiz, Spain, held one minute's His Own silence in honor of victims During the attack Barcelona race at the Masters World Championship in Budapest. In the past two months, police officers on beach duty in Barcelona have filed 7,217 reports of hawkers peddling food and drink to vacationers. Earlier this week, EL PAÍS published the results of a laboratory analysis of these products by MicroBac, which revealed a high content of fecal bacteria, known as E.Coli, in much of the beach fare on sale. In the UK Lady Diane is once again in the news via a TV show. Lady Sarah McCorquodale, said her sister was ‘religious’ about wearing seatbelts and questioned why she would have failed to do so on her fateful last car journey through Paris. A TV show about Jihadis and volunteers in Syria is seen by many viewers as being inappropriate. Families had called on Channel 4 to postpone the series as a mark of respect for victims after the terror group claimed responsibility for the atrocity in Spain. Meanwhile, Bradford West MP Naz Shah shared and liked a post by a parody account of newspaper columnist Owen Jones saying victims of sex abuse in Rotherham should 'shut their mouths'. As political groups in the USA are pulling down monuments in the UK Afua Hirsch said Nelson's Column in London's Trafalgar Square was a prime example of one which should be felled because Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson‎ defended slavery.‎ ‎

If there is a ranking by excellence of universities....then Spain has no institution among the top 200. ....The 11 best Spanish Universities, all public, are ranked between 200 and 500. The European Commission provided new light on the origin of the contaminated eggs . ...... EU ministers will meet on 26 September to discuss the crisis. The lack of water in the Spanish marshes has triggered greenhouse gas emissions.. Depleted reserves of reservoirs make 2017 look like a bad year in the fight against climate change. We have launched a very positive message that makes it clear that beauty is not restricted to a single size for all women," said Sports Illustrated magazine's powerful swimsuit director A fight between tourists at the exit of a discotheque in Gandia (ended Sunday in a brutal beating of seven young people against one.. The seven assailants have been fined more than 1,000 euros each, local police reported. A young couple assaulted a bus driver at Sant Antoni station in Ibiza. The attackers, tourists, wanted to enter the privately hired vehicle, with a ticket for public transport. Brexit still tops the bill in the UK press although the question of the Irish borders now intensifies. Meanwhile, HMS Queen Elizabeth will send a message to the UK's allies and enemies that the country means business, according to her captain. The £3billion behemoth is set to be the nation's future flagship. A poll claimed that two-thirds of Britons do not think the Duchess of Cornwall should be Queen – and only 19 per cent thought she was fit for the role. British officials need to ‘step up’ efforts to ‘root out fraud and corruption’ in a scheme distributing £420million of aid money in Pakistan, a Whitehall report has warned. This is set against the history of the partitioning of India after the second World War. Whilst British courts seemingly apply leniency in their judgements Khong Tam Thanh, 22, Le Michael, 24, and Vu Thai Son, 24, have been jailed for six and a half years with caning after the sex attack in Singapore. Glen Friend, 28, from east London, targeted thousands of children on the phone app Live.me and made a nine-year-old girl strip for him and then shared it with a gang of 10 paedophiles. He has been jailed for four years. Despite all the terror attacks a dad and his seven-year-old daughter managed to sneak into the London stadium and watch athletes competing in the World Championships at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Jeremy Hunt reportedly spent £44,000 of taxpayers' cash on a private bathroom at the Department of Health headquarters in London including a designer toilet and power shower. Residents and agency staff have been digging in to clear mountains of rubbish which has been piling up on the streets of Birmingham after the industrial action started on June 30. The strike is costing around 4o.000 pounds per day.

A terrorist suspect has been shot and arrested in connection with this morning's attack in Paris, which saw six soldiers injured when a BMW mowed down their patrol. The 37-year-old was 'seriously wounded' in a fierce gunfight close to the northern port town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, after he was intercepted driving towards Calais. Dozens of flights in and out of Madeira were cancelled on Monday, stranding thousands of passengers. In Spain a looming airport strike over pay could run from September to December. The tourism law reform approved by the Balearic Government, in force since Tuesday, has put a stop to the accommodation of visitors in legal tourist establishments. The ceiling has been set at 623,624, of which the majority 435,707 are in Majorca An off-duty Madrid municipal policeman has been killed by a cut to his throat during a discussion in a bar in Vicálvaro district in the early hours of Tuesday A British teacher has been arrested in Spain on suspicion of distributing child pornography. The suspect, from Manchester, is accused of taking pictures of his pupils Since new rules came into force in June in Magaluf, 22 people have been fined for having sex in public, and 52 have been fined for public nudity as authorities try to clean up the resort's image. The French government logged 17,867 attempts to break into Calais' port and Channel Tunnel with over 12,300 asylum seekers trying to stow away on UK-bound lorries. Shocking new data reveals hundreds of pupils have been punished in the last four years for sexual acts, including assaulting or harassing other children The full municipality of the Pontevedra Town Hall of Ponteareas , of 23,000 inhabitants, agreed on Monday to enable a budget item to grant a productivity increase to staff members and staff who do not miss work or who make at least 90% of their work commitment. The number of police stations across the nation has been slashed by almost half in less than ten years. The brutal cutbacks have come as violent crime and terrorism have surged. The father of the young man murdered by gangster Kenneth Noye last night said the decision to move the killer to an open prison – and one step closer to freedom - was a ‘a real kick in the teeth’. Noye was jailed for life in 2000 for the murder of 21-year-old Stephen Cameron in a road rage attack four years earlier. Jeremy Corbyn has backed the right of all prisoners to vote in elections, the Mail can reveal. The Labour leader told a conference he believes ‘strongly’ that all inmates should vote. Social care is in such crisis that four in ten homes fail inspections. Watchdogs have reported on 5,300 care homes this year and 2,000 were found inadequate or in need of improvement. It means 70,000 vulnerable residents and patients are at risk. Inspectors found elderly who were left filthy and starving. Others were locked in their bedrooms with no natural light. A grassroots revolt has been credited with forcing the National Trust to change its policy on making volunteers wear gay pride badges. The 48-hour backlash saw at least 240 members rip up their subscriptions. On Saturday, a letter from the trust’s outgoing head Dame Helen Ghosh defending the rule on the rainbow ID badges, which mark the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, appeared in a national newspaper.

In the second quarter of 2017, the number of people without work in Spain fell to below four million for the first time since the first three months of 2009, when unemployment rose above that threshold a few months after the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008. Experts are forecasting a rise in the number of Spaniards going on summer vacation this year. Following several years of decline due to the economic crisis, the tourism sector is optimistic that the trend will be reversed in 2017. In a part of Cádiz province known as Campo de Gibraltar – adjacent to the British overseas territory – an old battle for control of the drug trade is being waged more aggressively than ever before. Operators in the area carry out their deals with a feeling of impunity, while law enforcement agencies do their best to fight a war that they admit to be losing, for now at least. The following is the story of the ongoing battle from both sides of the trenches. Barcelona’s business community has criticized the city’s authorities for its slow and tepid response in dealing with an attack against a tourist bus in Barcelona last week by a radical group called Arran, which is linked to the tiny, radical-left CUP party, which plays a key role in the municipal and regional governments The public figure that cropped up most often among the 5,800 teens who answered a particular question about their role models was Amancio Ortega, founder of Inditex, the fashion empire that owns popular brands like Zara. The Galicia-born entrepreneur regularly tops the global wealth charts. A newlywed who died after falling from a balcony on a friend's hen do in Benidorm was 'climbing to safety' a new witness has claimed. Kirsty Maxwell died on April 29 after plunging from apartment balcony in the Spanish resort at about 4am. In Spain’s northeastern Basque Country, between Irun and the French city of Hendaye – in the middle of the Bidasoa river that separates the two countries – there is a territory with a peculiar status: Pheasant Island (Isla de los Faisanes in Spanish). A young boy was among those winched to safety after as many as 100 people were trapped inside cable cars dangling over Cologne. Public transport authorities for the city say 32 of of the cars were operating on the line, which runs over the Rhine, when the mishap occurred. The news bulletins have come live from the Battlefields in Europe during World War 1 More than 500,000 men lost their lives at the Battle of Passchendaele, from July 31 to November 6, 1917. Fine words have been spoken but the horrors of war should never be forgotten. Sadly, this media event will soon become just another memory. Channel 4 has been accused of paying ‘blood money’ for ‘deeply personal’ tapes of Princess Diana and that the content about her troubled marriage to Prince Charles will be incredibly hurtful for her family, including her sons William and Harry. The British taxpayers will fund an £80million aid giveaway in Brazil, Chancellor Philip Hammond announced yesterday. Mr Hammond unveiled the promise during a visit to the ninth-largest economy in the world. He said the money would help reduce poverty and fund economic development – but last night critics said it was wrong to give cash to richer developing countries such as Brazil. Londoners have been left 'stranded' inside their homes after 100 miles of roads were closed with more than 100,000 cyclists take part in a mass riding festival. The organisers of RideLondon claim the event has contributed £82million to London's economy since its first edition in 2013 and has also raised £41million for charities. British tourists are queuing for up to four hours at airports because of the botched introduction of tougher EU border checks. Travellers from outside the Schengen free movement zone are being subjected to stricter vetting at passport control. Instead of a few seconds, the process can now take several minutes. The new regime was drawn up by Brussels after it emerged that terrorists may have used EU passports for atrocities in Paris that claimed 142 lives. A Kurdish illegal immigrant is accused of swindling £32,000 in benefits after being smuggled into Britain in the back of a truck.

Spain’s political parties on Monday sealed a historic agreement against gender violence that seeks to protect women and their children from the moment a doctor identifies any signs of abuse. So far this year, 32 women and six minors have been killed in gender violence-related cases, up from figures for2016. At a historic court appearance on on Wednesday morning, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said that he had “absolutely no knowledge” about the possible existence of parallel accounts within his Popular Party (PP) that were allegedly used for opaque donations and illegal party financing. “I was never in charge of anything to do with accounting.” Madrid’s EMT municipal transportation company is set to hire 220 new maintenance workers between this year and next in a bid to combat the problem of fires breaking out on its fleet of buses. So far this year, a total of nine EMT vehicles have burst into flames, with two of these incidents taking place last week. Supporters of Catalan independence have received a new setback, with the latest poll carried out by the regional government’s Opinion Studies Center (CEO) showing public support for secession from Spain has dipped 3% since March. A senior German MEP has warned that two of the EU’s top Brexit chiefs want to “punish” Britain to stop other countries trying to leave the bloc. Hans-Olaf Henkel, the vice chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, urged the UK “not to listen” to Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, and Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator. .. Mr Henkel raised specific concerns about the UK Government’s plan to withdraw from the Euratom nuclear regulator which critics fear could make it difficult for Britain to access radioactive material for medical treatments post-Brexit. The European Commission warned Poland it was “getting very close” to taking the unprecedented step of stripping Warsaw of its voting rights at EU summits, unless it stepped back from reforms that would undermine judicial independence. Frans Timmermans, the Commission’s first-vice president, said the executive was prepared to take the so-called nuclear option of triggering Article 7 of the EU’s treaties. In the UK New petrol and diesel cars will be banned from 2040 to improve air quality. The crackdown could also see the introduction of levies on busy roads for owners of the most polluting vehicles.And hopes of a major scrappage scheme to help those who were encouraged to buy diesels appear to have been dashed. The BBC pay row deepened last night after it admitted some of its richest stars use a potential tax dodge. The high-profile presenters have their salaries routed through personal service companies so they can avoid income tax.The corporation refused to say which individuals benefit from the cosy deals, which it supposedly banned five years ago. BBC chiefs have been under siege since obeying a government order to name their 96 staff who earn more than the Prime Minister’s £150,000 salary. Princes William and Harry had not seen their mother for almost a month before her death, they have revealed in a documentary about Diana’s life. Her divorce from Prince Charles meant the boys were ‘bounced’ between their parents, losing out on time with both of them, Harry said. She died the day before they were due to be reunited. In the film, which airs tonight, the princes lavished praise on their mother and her ability to ‘smother’ them with love. As the pier-master on the beaches of Dunkirk, Commander James Campbell Clouston organised the evacuation of more than 200,000 soldiers – only to be killed when his own boat was hit by German bombers. Now, although the Royal Navy officer's bravery has finally been recognised in the new acclaimed film about the 1940 battle, the pier-master in the movie does not use his real name – leaving his family bitterly disappointed. As families jet off for their summer holidays this weekend, the fees are likely to infuriate passengers already frustrated by having to pay for add-ons such as choosing their seats. Wizz Air, another low-cost airline, was this week forced to scrap a £9 fee for larger cabin bags following a backlash from 'confused' customers.Guy Anker, from finance website Moneysavingexpert. com, said: ‘Gone are the days when passengers pay the headline price for a flight. I think people will be quite rightly annoyed by this. Millions of young children’s lives are being put at risk because schools are not teaching them how to swim, a hard-hitting report has warned. Almost a third of pupils are leaving primary school with no skills in the water because teachers are focusing on subjects which are graded by inspectors. Many more have insufficient ability to get themselves out of trouble according to parents of pupils in Year 6 (their last year at primary school), two-thirds of whom fear their children could not save themselves without help.One in 20 schools do not teach swimming at all, despite the subject being on the curriculum for more than 20 years.