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        <title>Matthew Bennett</title>
        <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2</link>
        <description>Journalist. Spain. Independent. Stories. Photos.</description>
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            <title>Matthew Bennett</title>
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            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2</link>
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            <title><![CDATA[Casado says Vox and Abascal are populist radical destructive "bitter fruit" that make everything worse]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/casado-says-vox-and-abascal-are-populist-radical-destructive-bitter-fruit-that-make-everything-worse</link>
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            <pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2022 22:12:29 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[Sánchez says the PP is the same as Vox. Ayuso in Madrid says she is clear she would never do a deal with the left. What does Casado want to be?In his speech on Tuesday evening, Popular Party leader Pablo Casado spitefully called Santiago Abascal and Vox, his political brothers on the Spanish right, who had spent the election campaign with the slogan "sow" [the seeds, fields, countryside], as destructive "bitter fruit", "the seed of populism and radicalism" that seek only to sink the system an...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Sánchez says the PP is the same as Vox. Ayuso in Madrid says she is clear she would never do a deal with the left. What does Casado want to be?</em></p><figure float="none" data-type="figure" class="img-center" style="max-width: null;"><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/6b773a8d0515c0555ea0616ff7f4a7964f079dbfb321039ab3162776c166eac4.jpg" alt="" blurdataurl="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=" nextheight="600" nextwidth="800" class="image-node embed"><figcaption HTMLAttributes="[object Object]" class="hide-figcaption"></figcaption></figure><p>In his speech on Tuesday evening, Popular Party leader Pablo Casado spitefully called Santiago Abascal and Vox, his political brothers on the Spanish right, who had spent the election campaign with the slogan &quot;sow&quot; [the seeds, fields, countryside], as destructive &quot;bitter fruit&quot;, &quot;the seed of populism and radicalism&quot; that seek only to sink the system and worsen &quot;all&quot; the conflicts and problems they find along the way. &quot;They are always making trouble&quot;, he said: &quot;they are born for that&quot;.</p><p>Yesterday, the PP, in the words of its secretary general, Teodoro García Egea, refused to accept the result of the elections in Castilla y León and the obvious choice of governing from the right with Vox, who had been very direct with that idea on Sunday night. The PSOE, on the left, said it was not going to support a PP government &quot;stained by corruption&quot;. Did Casado want to be right-wing with Vox or a liberal European centrist?</p><p>Today in the Senate, Pedro Sánchez, seemed to visibly enjoy the tight spot the PP had created for itself after calling the early election: &quot;If you talk like Vox, do politics like Vox, act like Vox, in the end people will throw away the copy and keep the original&quot;. Reversing the party&apos;s position yesterday, he announced his price for letting the PP govern in Castilla y León: Casado must break with Vox across the whole of Spain and establish a cordon sanitaire against Abascal. &quot;If you explain that the far right is a danger to democracy, perhaps we can reach agreement&quot;.</p><p>&quot;Our principles are our conditions and we are not going to given them up ever&quot;, said Casado a couple of hours later. His speech apparently distanced his party from Vox&apos;s demands, at least rhetorically. He is selling a PP that is centre-right, European, reformist and Atlanticist. That, in principle, puts him closer to Sánchez and further away from Abascal, in search, as he explained, of the political space they belive to be the centre of the political board in Spain.</p><p>But will he really go all the way and break with Vox across Spain, as Sánchez has demanded, publicly declaring such a cordon sanitaire against Abascal? Spanish politics is not European politics. In theory, voters want the right to stick with the right and the left with the left, whatever the names of the parties. Look at the struggle on the Spanish left in that sense between 2015 and 2019, between Sánchez and Iglesias. Ciudadanos spent the same period discovering, to its great cost, that its voters wanted more right, not more centrist liberalism. To make matters worse for Casado, Ayuso, his successful liberal right nemesis in Madrid, is clear what should be done: &quot;I wouldn&apos;t do a deal with Sánchez&apos;s lot&quot;, she told reporters.</p><p><strong>Guarantee independent journalism. Every reader counts.</strong></p><p>- Euros, subscription: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee">https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee</a></p><ul><li><p>Bitcoin: 3HfKnLAb1nWfh6e8BCjst6cwyWX6fTciz9</p></li><li><p>ETH: thespainreport.eth</p></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[PP refuses to accept reality of having to govern with Vox]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/pp-refuses-to-accept-reality-of-having-to-govern-with-vox</link>
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            <pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2022 21:31:24 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[The Popular Party tried to keep moving forward on Monday with the version of events it had thought would happen before it called the regional elections: governing by itself in Castilla y León. Vox and the PSOE should abstain to allow that to happen. Both Vox and the PSOE rejected that path outright this morning. Vox wants their man, García-Gallardo, to become the Deputy First Minister and for their election manifesto and ideology to be taken into account. The socialists want to watch the fun ...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure float="none" data-type="figure" class="img-center" style="max-width: null;"><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/0831f7effb2bb1549745dfe62317830d56494f1f462a476dbfc337444006314d.png" alt="" blurdataurl="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=" nextheight="600" nextwidth="800" class="image-node embed"><figcaption HTMLAttributes="[object Object]" class="hide-figcaption"></figcaption></figure><p>The Popular Party tried to keep moving forward on Monday with the version of events it had thought would happen before it called the regional elections: governing by itself in Castilla y León. Vox and the PSOE should abstain to allow that to happen. Both Vox and the PSOE rejected that path outright this morning. Vox wants their man, García-Gallardo, to become the Deputy First Minister and for their election manifesto and ideology to be taken into account. The socialists want to watch the fun on the right.</p><p>In several media interviews, PP secretary general Teodoro García Egea found it difficult to accept the reality that the PP has not won enough seats to govern alone, to execute that grand vision they had outlined for themselves a few weeks ago. They are going to have to depend on one or the other.</p><p>“If someone wanted the Popular Party to govern alone&quot;, said García-Gallardo (Vox): &quot;they should have voted for the Popular Party [...] I&apos;m not going to gift my votes to anyone”. And a few minutes later, in case anyone had missed it, he added: “They should lose all hope of us just giving them our votes. We are not going to facilitate their government in exchange for anything. That has to be clear”. PSOE federal executive committee spokesman Felipe Sicilia said what was happening to the PP was the PP&apos;s fault: “Mr. Casado&apos;s failure is now being exploited in this case by Vox”, and that &quot;we are not going to support a government stained by corruption&quot;.</p><p>Vox is making it easy for the PP, as long as they want to govern with Vox. That is the option. Despite the rhetorical energy the socialists have used up over the past few years warning about the threat from &quot;the far right&quot; in Spain, now they have the chance to stop Abascal&apos;s party from entering government for the first time, with an abstention or some other form of support for Mañueco (PP), they will not do so. Or that is what they are saying this first day after the elections. Will parties maintain these initial positions as the weeks tick by, up to the point of new elections being called?</p><p>“Andalusia government slows down Vox rush and puts early regional elections off to the end of the year”, reads the headline in Diario Sur tonight. The PP leader there, Moreno, does not want to become the PP leader in Castilla y León (Mañueco).</p><p><strong>Guarantee independent journalism. Every reader counts</strong></p><ul><li><p>Euros, subscription: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee">https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee</a></p></li><li><p>Bitcoin: 3HfKnLAb1nWfh6e8BCjst6cwyWX6fTciz9</p></li><li><p>ETH: thespainreport.eth</p></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[Vox demands top job in regional government PP minority win in Castilla]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/vox-demands-top-job-in-regional-government-pp-minority-win-in-castilla</link>
            <guid>8mBcgUP4SMLBbNJWf4YC</guid>
            <pubDate>Sun, 13 Feb 2022 22:43:00 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[Ciudadanos and Podemos almost disappear in ballot that leaves regional parliament more divided than ever. Provincial parties do well.Share of seats in the regional parliament in Castilla y LeónThe Popular Party has managed to improve its result by two seats in the regional parliament in Castilla y León but has lost 60,000 votes and o.04 percentage points of support. Instead of having Ciudadanos in its regional government, like before Christmas, with their 12 seats, now Alfonso Fernández Mañue...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Ciudadanos and Podemos almost disappear in ballot that leaves regional parliament more divided than ever. Provincial parties do well.</em></p><figure float="none" data-type="figure" class="img-center" style="max-width: null;"><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/6502d8795d6a605b54365f17c79fb32951d4145861e9f47a6f00ca8bea0499a0.png" alt="Share of seats in the regional parliament in Castilla y León" blurdataurl="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=" nextheight="600" nextwidth="800" class="image-node embed"><figcaption HTMLAttributes="[object Object]" class="">Share of seats in the regional parliament in Castilla y León</figcaption></figure><p>The Popular Party has managed to improve its result by two seats in the regional parliament in Castilla y León but has lost 60,000 votes and o.04 percentage points of support. Instead of having Ciudadanos in its regional government, like before Christmas, with their 12 seats, now Alfonso Fernández Mañueco will have to reach an agreement with Juan García Gallardo, of Vox, who has improved from one to 13 seats thanks to the early elections called by the PP. “This guy Juan Garcia-Gallardo looks like a Deputy First Minister to me!”, shouted Santiago Abascal during his appearance. They have already demanded a good seat at the top table but Mañueco didn’t mention them in his own appearance. He wants to govern “of all and for all”. He doesn’t have that many options.</p><p>Only seven or eight years after starting to grow in Spanish politics, Podemos and Ciudadanos have almost disappeared. Both parties that not very long ago were “revolutionary”, each in its own way, are left with just one seat each in the regional parliament, following along in the wake of their national parties. Voters want less far-left and less liberal centre. The national leaders of both parties should accept their part of the responsibility for the regional results. Unión del Pueblo Leonés, Soria Ya and For Ávila have all had a good night, with seven seats in total for the three provincial parties, all focused on more local issues.</p><p>This is the most divided regional parliament in Castilla y León since Spain’s Transition to democracy in the 1970s, with eight parties represented.</p><p>And only time will tell if Vox consolidates its position as an alternative further to the right of the Popular Party or if, as is now happening to Podemos and Ciudadanos, they promise a lot in election campaigns and deliver little in government. If Mañueco’s talking “to all” just ends up with a right-wing government subject to Vox’s ideology, it will be the first time Abascal’s party joins a regoinal or national government in Spain. Although technically the PP won in terms of seats tonight, this cannot be considered a strategic victory for Pablo Casado nationally. Vox is starting to look like a winning horse on the right. The energy of this election campaign in Castilla y León suggested that was the case and the results have confirmed it. Abascal is moving forward. Casado and Mañueco are standing still. Vox overtaking the PP on the right in some future election cannot be ruled out. The next immediate challenge will be Andalusia. What must PP First Minister Juanma Moreno be thinking in Seville tonight?</p><p>**Guarantee independent journalism: **- Euros, subscription: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee">https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee</a></p><ul><li><p>Bitcoin: 3HfKnLAb1nWfh6e8BCjst6cwyWX6fTciz9</p></li><li><p>ETH: thespainreport.eth</p></li><li><p>NFTs: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://rarible.com/thespainreport">https://rarible.com/thespainreport</a></p></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[Polls suggest right-wing coalition in Castilla y León]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/polls-suggest-right-wing-coalition-in-castilla-y-le-n</link>
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            <pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2022 22:36:23 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[Newsletter: If the polls are right, Casado will finally have to decide if he can govern with Vox and what that means for the PP at the national level. Bonus: podcast here with Rupert Cocke on Castilla y León elections and Vox vs. PP While the world&apos;s athletes compete in the Winter Games in China and the West looks worriedly towards Ukraine and the build up of Russian troops on the border, now with an open threat from the President of the United States to "put an end" to the German Nord S...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Newsletter: If the polls are right, Casado will finally have to decide if he can govern with Vox and what that means for the PP at the national level.</em></p><p><em>Bonus: </em><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/articles/741-220207114920-rupert-cocke-castilla-y-leon-elections-and-vox-vs-pp"><em>podcast here</em></a><em> with Rupert Cocke on Castilla y León elections and Vox vs. PP</em></p><p>While the world&apos;s athletes compete in the Winter Games in China and the West looks worriedly towards Ukraine and the build up of Russian troops on the border, now with an open threat from the President of the United States to &quot;put an end&quot; to the German Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline should Putin invade, Spanish politicians are watching the regional elections in Castilla y León this Sunday.</p><p>I say the politicians because today we have discovered that there are large numbers of people in Castilla y León who are not. According to the pre-election CIS survey, 60% of them are not really paying attention to election campaign news and 40% of them are even doubting over whether or not to go and vote. With all the effort and shouting the parties put in to the show in town squares and on Twitter.</p><p>The CIS is the only poll that is not forecasting a right-wing majority, which in Castilla y León is 41 out of 81 seats in the regional parliament, for the PP-Vox combination. According to all the rest, even the El País poll, the union of Mañueco (PP) and García-Gallardo (Vox) would be enough to form a government, as long as the parties could agree enough and as long as Casado (PP) could get over any ideological or political problems he might have about governing with Vox, which only a few days ago was hosting a meeting in Madrid for Europe&apos;s alt-right parties to denounce a globalist and European bureaucratic plot, the invasion of European and an attack on its sovereign nations.</p><p>It would be the first time Vox had entered regional government in Spain and Casado will no longer be able to avoid answering this question.</p><p>Within the ideological shouting, Vox, at least superficially, from the outside, seems to have raised its voice more effectively than the PP in this campaign, at least if we look at the images each party publishes to best demonstrate its power to get the vote out. While Casado&apos;s crew declares victory with photos of sports halls kind of full of people sitting down, Abascal&apos;s crew, dressed in their rural winter collection, constantly upload videos and photos of squares full of people all round Castilla. They want it more and the PP doesn&apos;t have time now to get its energy back before the vote. We shall see on Sunday if the propaganda tallies with the polls and the results, or if they have turned the rhetorical volume up too much again.</p><p>It looks bad for Casado. If things continue like this on the Spanish right, perhaps sooner rather than later we will see Vox start to overtake the PP in some corner of the country.</p><p><strong>Guarantee independent journalism:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Euros, subscription: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee">https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee</a></p></li><li><p>#Bitcoin: 3HfKnLAb1nWfh6e8BCjst6cwyWX6fTciz9</p></li><li><p>ETH: thespainreport.eth</p></li><li><p>NFTs: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://rarible.com/thespainreport">https://rarible.com/thespainreport</a></p></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[Does any voter in Spain watch all the propaganda?]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/does-any-voter-in-spain-watch-all-the-propaganda</link>
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            <pubDate>Thu, 27 Jan 2022 20:32:49 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[Newsletter: And what is the point in 2022 of election debates with half the parties people might want to vote for missing? The official regional election campaign in Castilla y León begins tomorrow. All the parties have already been on their media campaigns for several days. They have multiplied the intensity of their social media messaging by ten. Candidates appear around every TV corner, if possible with cows or sheep or horses in the background, so that people know they are rural types, an...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Newsletter: And what is the point in 2022 of election debates with half the parties people might want to vote for missing?</em></p><p>The official regional election campaign in Castilla y León begins tomorrow. All the parties have already been on their media campaigns for several days. They have multiplied the intensity of their social media messaging by ten. Candidates appear around every TV corner, if possible with cows or sheep or horses in the background, so that people know they are rural types, and can be trusted in the countryside with tractors and mud. Even if they are dressed up like a winter-collection catalogue. I don&apos;t know what the people who live in cities in Castilla y León must think, or if the country narrative up there is strong enough to win them over anyway.</p><p>Rufián (Esquerrfa) launches his &quot;interview&quot; show on YouTube a while ago now. Errejón (Más País) started a Twitch channel. Now Pablo Iglesias (Podemos) wants to become a &quot;crticial journalist&quot; to keep attacking the right from the left with a podcast and Twitter. The PSOE has joined Twitch. Vox, as well as enjoying makeing epic campaign videos, with epic music and cinema-like slow-motion shots that turn any street in Spain into a scene out of Gladiator, is going to launch a &quot;programme&quot; on Sunday with rural chats. They are going to call it &quot;Sileneced Spain&quot;. It will be on their YouTube channel. Abascal, cows and countryside.</p><p>Are there any voters left anywhere in Spain that see, or try to see, all the propaganda parties pump out on all of their media channels every day of an election campaign? I doubt the answer is yes. So in that case, who are the parties talking to all the time? Do they think a random tweet or video clip will be enough to convince the odd swing voter? Or that the soundbites from their candidates on the lunchtime news, cows in the background, will do the job? And what is the point in 2022, in this tsunami-like, very immediate media environment, of holding election debates with half of the parties people might want to vote for this year left out because four years ago they didn&apos;t win enough seats to get their own group in parliament?</p><ul><li><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/articles/732-220127103944-does-any-voter-in-spain-watch-all-the-propaganda">Full notes here</a></p></li><li><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/value/guarantee">Guarantee independent journalism here</a></p></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[Should Spain and the West do more in Ukraine?]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/should-spain-and-the-west-do-more-in-ukraine</link>
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            <pubDate>Tue, 25 Jan 2022 22:58:57 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[Newsletter: Is sending some more weapons to Kiev or troops to neighbouring countries going to be the right path if Putin invades? Allied efforts to try to present a united, principled front on the Ukraine crisis appeared to waver today. European and NATO messaging attempted to calm growing apprehension. US, British, Australian and Canadian goverments made warnings about the situation or took steps with their embassies in Kiev that suggested a Russian attack was more imminent. Borrell (EU) sai...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong><em>Newsletter:</em></strong> <em>Is sending some more weapons to Kiev or troops to neighbouring countries going to be the right path if Putin invades?</em></p><p>Allied efforts to try to present a united, principled front on the Ukraine crisis appeared to waver today. European and NATO messaging attempted to calm growing apprehension. US, British, Australian and Canadian goverments made warnings about the situation or took steps with their embassies in Kiev that suggested a Russian attack was more imminent.</p><p>Borrell (EU) said it was about diplomacy. Solana (ex NATO) called for everyone to calm down a bit. Robles (Defence Minister, Spain) said that while this was all worrying it was not dramatic. Macron (France) and Scholz (Germany) spoke of the economic price Putin would have to pay after he invaded Ukraine. Afterwards. Ex post facto.</p><p>If President Biden&apos;s &quot;minor incursion&quot; slip at the press conference last week was interpreted as a green light for Putin to invade, today there were arguably two more. Stoltenberg (NATO) told CNN that NATO would not be sending combat troops to Ukraine. Psaki (White House) said: &quot;There is no intention or interest or desire by the President to send troops to Ukraine&quot;.</p><p>The tone in Britain seems noticeably different. Armed Forces Minister James Heappey wrote in The Sun that &quot;freedom is not free&quot; and compared the situation to the German invasion of Poland in 1939 or the Korean War. Boris Johnson told parliament that Ukraine has a right to defend herself and that the war could be as nasty as Chechenya or Bosnia.</p><p>Pedro Sánchez announced after speaking to Stoltenberg on Sunday that Spain supports “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine&quot;, which in theory is more aligned with the British position. But no western leader in any country appears to be talking about defending Ukraine before Putin invades and does whatever it is he is about to do. The grand plan appears to be to send some more weapons to the Ukranians to help them defend themselves a bit more, but not to actually help out ourselves. Will that prove the right course over time? Even if Ukraine is not a NATO member, should liberal western democracies just stand by and watch Putin destoy her?</p><p><strong>Full notes here:</strong> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/articles/728-220125104137-should-spain-and-the-west-do-more-in-ukraine">https://www.thespainreport.es/articles/728-220125104137-should-spain-and-the-west-do-more-in-ukraine</a></p><p><strong>Guarantee independent journalism here:</strong> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee">https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee</a></p>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[Will global events crash the elections in Castilla y León?]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/will-global-events-crash-the-elections-in-castilla-y-le-n</link>
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            <pubDate>Mon, 24 Jan 2022 22:21:00 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[Newsletter: Parties want to talk about cows and tractors and the countryside but Covid and the Ukraine crisis with Russia demand political attention. Unless an unexpected black swan appears, the main news stories for the next two or three weeks in Spain are going to be the regional elections in Castilla y León, the international crisis with NATO and the EU against Russia in Ukraine, and the ongoing, seemingly never-ending Covid pandemic. How will each party react and position itself, with its...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Newsletter: Parties want to talk about cows and tractors and the countryside but Covid and the Ukraine crisis with Russia demand political attention.</em></p><p>Unless an unexpected black swan appears, the main news stories for the next two or three weeks in Spain are going to be the regional elections in Castilla y León, the international crisis with NATO and the EU against Russia in Ukraine, and the ongoing, seemingly never-ending Covid pandemic. How will each party react and position itself, with its own voter target segment in mind and the image they want to try to present? Events often force reactions, whether politicians like it or not.</p><p>The official compaign for the regional elections does not begin until Saturday, but obviously parties have started to take up their positions and, despite, their best efforts to maintain messaging and narrative discipline, the stories have already begun to cross paths. So far, there has been a marked rural focus to events, but now even Vox has had to adopt a position on the Ukraine crisis. Castilla y León is Spain which is Europe and NATO and so we can&apos;t have politicians who don&apos;t have an opinion on that complex whole that is our world in 2022.</p><p>With so very many Covid cases generated since the start of December, with 14-day incidence rates in to the several thousand per 100,000 people in multiple age groups across the country, even if the peak of this wave were to happen over the next few days, the backlog of cases will take at least another long couple of months to manage back down, just like last year. Will the management of the pandemic become one of the most debated issues of the campaign? How angry or fed up are voters at this point? Will there be problems because of the antivaxxers and the debate that might provoke?</p><p>There are currently two election debates pencilled in for January 31 and February 9, but only for candidates for three out of the five main parties. No Vox or Podemos becuase they didn&apos;t have enough for a group of MPs in the regional parliament at the last election. How relevant are those debates going to be when we get almost all of our news in the 21st Century from the Internet and on phones, and when political parties have the same communications channels in real-time as the media do?</p><p><strong>Full notes here:</strong> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/articles/726-220124143929-will-global-events-crash-regional-elections-in-castilla">https://www.thespainreport.es/articles/726-220124143929-will-global-events-crash-regional-elections-in-castilla</a></p><p><strong>Guarantee independent journalism here:</strong> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/value/guarantee">https://www.thespainreport.es/value/guarantee</a></p>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[How will Spain react to the Ukraine crisis?]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/how-will-spain-react-to-the-ukraine-crisis</link>
            <guid>R6mUCmAM5xqbbKHU9yl4</guid>
            <pubDate>Sat, 22 Jan 2022 19:45:59 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[Newsletter: Before the Russian tanks have crossed the border, the left-wing coalition government is already split on the matter. On the right, Vox&apos;s Abscal is denouncing a globalist plot against Spain. The Ukraine crisis catches Spain in the run up to the regional elections in Castilla y León on February 13. This weekend, Western leaders seem to be taking the Russian invasion as a given, now imminent. More weapons are arriving in Ukraine or nearby countries. The US has ordered the evacua...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Newsletter: Before the Russian tanks have crossed the border, the left-wing coalition government is already split on the matter. On the right, Vox&apos;s Abscal is denouncing a globalist plot against Spain.</em></p><p>The Ukraine crisis catches Spain in the run up to the regional elections in Castilla y León on February 13. This weekend, Western leaders seem to be taking the Russian invasion as a given, now imminent. More weapons are arriving in Ukraine or nearby countries. The US has ordered the evacuation of its Embassy in Kiev from Monday. The UK has told Brits not to travel around the country unless it&apos;s essential. Germany, on the other hand, is blocking the defence of Ukraine, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, by stopping Estonia sending arms to Kiev because the arms originally came from Germany.</p><p>This is the first international crisis of 2022 that requires a response and political positioning in Spain, like the crises with Morocco in the Spanish North African city of Ceuta in May or with the Western retreat from Afghanistan in August. The coalition government is already split: whilst the socialist half has ordered the deployment of Spanish warships, and perhaps fighters, to the area, the communist half is signing manifestos against the war and denouncing NATO.</p><p>&quot;Europe does not have the slightest interest in a military confrontation on European soil with a state that has nuclear weapons&quot;, said Pablo Iglesias&quot;, now supposedly a &quot;criticial journalist&quot;, at a Podemos event for those regional elections. Catalan separatists, who support the government in parliament, are also against participation. Would these first cracks in the coalition lead to its break up at some point, were the conflict and the ideological discrepancies to continue over time?</p><p>In the opposition, both the Popular Party and Ciudadanos have offered their support to the government, or to the socialist half of it, in line with the country&apos;s commitments to NATO and the EU. The lack of statements and positioning from Vox is remarkable. Abascal&apos;s party is focused on its regional election campaign and pretending the Ukraine crisis does not exist. But they mean to govern the whole country, not just Castilla, on behalf of all and there will always be international crises to deal with.</p><p>Abascal announced to an election rally in León that he had had a secret conversation with a powerful globalist who wanted to control the planet, &quot;They are enemies of the people..!&quot;, he shouted. If Vox were to win power, it would not be the first time Spain has had a leader who believes in conspiracy theories in which globalists plot against Spain, but it would represent a reactionary involution of the democratic path the country has followed in the modern period since the Transition in the 1970s.</p><p><strong>Read full notes here:</strong></p><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/articles/724-220120113234-how-will-spain-react-to-the-ukraine-crisis">https://www.thespainreport.es/articles/724-220120113234-how-will-spain-react-to-the-ukraine-crisis</a></p><p><strong>Guarantee independent journalism here:</strong></p><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/value/guarantee">https://www.thespainreport.es/value/guarantee</a></p>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[The problem is the TV footage, not a pencil and paper]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/the-problem-is-the-tv-footage-not-a-pencil-and-paper</link>
            <guid>XRhCtwcdyeEeiwyB2r9E</guid>
            <pubDate>Tue, 16 Nov 2021 19:58:00 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[The provincial court judge in Huelva, Florentino Ruiz Yamuza, today published his order with the arguments for throwing all journalists out of the entire Laura Luelmo murder trial. All the parties asked him to do it, he asked the jury and then of course argued that the European Court of Human Rights, the Supreme Court, the Spanish Constitution, the Judicial Power Act, the Jury Act, the Criminal Procedure Act and the Statute of the Victim all backed him up. The precedent is set, whether or not...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The provincial court judge in Huelva, Florentino Ruiz Yamuza, today published his order with the arguments for throwing all journalists out of the entire Laura Luelmo murder trial. All the parties asked him to do it, he asked the jury and then of course argued that the European Court of Human Rights, the Supreme Court, the Spanish Constitution, the Judicial Power Act, the Jury Act, the Criminal Procedure Act and the Statute of the Victim all backed him up.</p><p>The precedent is set, whether or not other judges copy the Yamuza format in future trials. If they were to do so, we would not have any news in Spain about trials for the most serious crimes because it could always be argued, as they have done today in Huelva, that the memory or dignity of the victim or their relatives will be affected.</p><p>The parties affected by the total closure, in this case broader society via the media, are not parties to the trial and cannot therefore present any formal appeal or letter to the court to petition the judge to reconsider or reverse his course.</p><p>In the trial for the murder of Gabriel Cruz in Almería two years ago, the same regional high court organised things quite well faced with a similar request from the family for the entire trial to be held behind closed doors. The judge then did not consult with the jury and decided by herslf to restrict access to some of the witness statements from the parents and relatives and also the forensic testimony.</p><p>When the Civil Guard criminal science experts and the officers who had taken the photos of both the murderer removing the body of the child from the estate and those of the subsequent removal of the body from the car testified, there were reporters in the courtroom but they cut off the video signal to the press room next door so that those images would never appear on TV or the Internet.</p><p>And they were very right to do so. Those images were horrible. No parent would ever want them to be seen outside of court.</p><p>Relatives also have the right, according to the law, not to be photographed or recorded at the trial, if they want to ask the judge for that. They don&apos;t even have to see the accused if they don&apos;t want to. They put up screens for that. The problem is the images and the treatment given to them on TV. The pace and intensity and the lack of seriousness many programs treat these very serious trials with.</p><p>But that doesn&apos;t mean we can become North Korea and shut everything down in all formats. Solving this problem for everyone would require a long and broad systemic debate on journalism, the media, technology, attention, trials, victims and their families. Political parties are not, at the moment, ready for that debate, but it would not be an issue without a solution.</p><p>The most important thing from the point of view of serious journalism is not the images, which is what outrages relatives.</p><p>The most important thing is the cross-checking and the chronicling of what happens in the courtroom, how the testimonies fit together, the emerging account of the events, and the behavior and attitudes of everyone in court.</p><p>Because a trial, necessarily, is all about arguing and cross-examining different versions of the same events. The prosecutor offers one version, the defense another, and the lawyer for the relatives a third. That is what a trial is all about. Then the witnesses, inspectors and experts offer information and statements that support or dispprove one aspect or another.</p><p>The minimum requirement from the perspective of serious journalism would be the presence of reporters with pencils and notebooks (and I see no reason why silenced laptops to do live written chronicles cannot also be used) be allowed in the courtroom, whoever is testifying and whatever is being seen, so that exercise of cross-checking and chronicling on behalf of all at the public level can take place.</p><p><strong>100% readers.</strong> Guarantee this independent journalism. Monthly euros, bitcoin, eth, NFTs, it all adds up to fund reporting time, gear and trips. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee">https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee</a></p>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[Andalusia Court Turns Murder Trial Into News Blackhole]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/andalusia-court-turns-murder-trial-into-news-blackhole</link>
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            <pubDate>Mon, 15 Nov 2021 23:44:02 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[Another public authority in Spain, in this case judicial and not political, decided on Monday that it is best to close everything off to journalists and that society should neither see nor know anything about what is happening inside. Instead of regional governments and hospitals during the Covid pandemic, or the Ministry of Defense and what happened this summer with the mission to Afghanistan, today it was a judge at the Provincial Court in Huelva (Andalusia). After the family&apos;s lawyer ...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Another public authority in Spain, in this case judicial and not political, decided on Monday that it is best to close everything off to journalists and that society should neither see nor know anything about what is happening inside. Instead of regional governments and hospitals during the Covid pandemic, or the Ministry of Defense and what happened this summer with the mission to Afghanistan, today it was a judge at the Provincial Court in Huelva (Andalusia).</p><p>After the family&apos;s lawyer requested it all happen behind closed doors, the defendant&apos;s lawyer, the regional government&apos;s lawyer and even the Public Prosecutor&apos;s Office all said they thought that was a good idea and the judge let the jury think about it for all of 10 minutes, at the same time as they were told to choose their foreman, before ordering the trial closed. What were the lay jurors supposed to decide, when all of the lawyers in the room said that was what they wanted and the judge did not object?</p><p>Nothing shall be known about a trial for murder, the most serious crime of them all. At this hour late on Monday evening, what happened there today and what is going to happen there tomorrow is a news black hole. We do not even know if the jury&apos;s decision was unanimous, if the judge just accepted it as it was, or what his justifications were. The explanation is supposedly coming tomorrow in a court document.</p><p>Neither will we be able to find out anything about what the witnesses, both ordinary citizens and Civil Guard or Police officers, say, or what they did or didn&apos;t do during the investigation until the defendant was arrested, or anything about the row that took place at the time between the Civil Guard and forensic scientists about the time of the time of death of the victim and everything that information might lead to.</p><p>There are many types of journalism, an abundance of formats. The superficial live morning TV shows with their repetitive images are not the same as the rigorous newswire reports from Europa Press or EFE, and they are different from enlightened columns in print newspapers.</p><p>You cannot close off a whole murder trial to society just because the technology of 2021 allows TV media to frequently abuse the possibilities it allows for. Well, I say you can&apos;t. A judge just did.</p><p>In this case, there will be nothing coming out of that courtroom. Zero. Not even reporters in court with pencils and notebooks to tell us about it later in dispatches or articles.</p><p>Both the Huelva Press Association and the national FAPE federation have condemned the order, but if all the lawyers, the regional government, the Prosecutor&apos;s Office, the jury and the judge have all decided together that they want to close off the entire trial, I would say there is not much chance of a formal appeal from anyone (journalists, associations, citizens) because we are not part of the trial itself.</p><p>Imagine if all the parties to all the trials agreed that it was better to keep it all behind closed doors, for everything to be secret, and that no one should know anything until they were all done, and then it will be their version of History. That is how things happen in North Korea, not in our modern democracies.</p><p>--</p><p><strong>100% readers.</strong> Guarantee this independent journalism. Monthly euros, bitcoin, eth, NFTs, it all adds up to fund reporting time, gear and trips. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee">https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee</a></p>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[Spain trying to acquire 50 F-35 fighters from US]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/spain-trying-to-acquire-50-f-35-fighters-from-us</link>
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            <pubDate>Thu, 04 Nov 2021 18:07:33 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[Spain is one of three European countries trying to acquire Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters from the United States, Janes reports. The other two are Greece and the Czech Republic. Janes reports Spain wants 50 of the super fighters, 25 x F-35As to replace ageing F-18s and another 25 x F-35Bs to replace its existing Harrier jump jets. First delivery would begin in 2027. Defense News reported a Spanish procurement official as stating the F-35 is one of two options on the t...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Spain is one of three European countries trying to acquire Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters from the United States, Janes reports. The other two are Greece and the Czech Republic.</p><p>Janes reports Spain wants 50 of the super fighters, 25 x F-35As to replace ageing F-18s and another 25 x F-35Bs to replace its existing Harrier jump jets. First delivery would begin in 2027.</p><p>Defense News reported a Spanish procurement official as stating the F-35 is one of two options on the table, the other being the Eurofighter Typhoon.</p><p>The article does not mention a price, but looking at other countries&apos; procurement costs over the past few years, $80-120 million each seems to be the ballpark, which would put the Spanish contract at somewhere between $4-6 billion, plus whatever the bombs, missiles, infrastructure, spare parts, fuel and training cost.</p><p>A phone call to the Spanish MoD this morning had not produced any official confirmation or response at the time of writing. The news comes in the middle of a national budget debate, with parties jostling to position themselves politically about the use of €140 billion in European Covid recovery money.</p><p>Any talk of more billions for expensive fifth-generation fighter jets would surely be controversial in the current political climate.</p><p>The right-wing opposition (PP, Vox) in parliament this week attempted to stop the socialist-communist government&apos;s (PSOE, Podemos) new budget plan by tabling and debating an amendment to the entire economic project, but MPs rejected the challenge on Thursday morning, 184 votes against (the amendement) and 155 in favour.</p><p><strong>#spain</strong> <strong>#military</strong> <strong>#f35</strong> <strong>#aircraft</strong> <strong>#defense</strong></p><p><strong>Guarantee this independent journalism here:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Monthly contributions: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee">https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee</a></p></li><li><p>Bitcoin: 3HfKnLAb1nWfh6e8BCjst6cwyWX6fTciz9</p></li><li><p>ETH, USDT, SHIBA: thespainreport.eth</p></li></ul>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[Spanish farmers warn on agriculture inflation]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/spanish-farmers-warn-on-agriculture-inflation</link>
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            <pubDate>Tue, 02 Nov 2021 19:40:27 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[Spanish farmers have warned agriculture production costs are skyrocketing and want "urgent" help from the national and regional governments to stop producers being crushed by wholesale buyers trying to keep prices in supermarkets down. COAG says the "brutal" rise in price will lead to "significant production cuts in the Spanish countryside". The farming organistion says electricity prices are up 300%, fertilizers up 100%, diesel up 40-60%, plastics up 50%, water up 30% and animal feeds up 25%...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Spanish farmers <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.coagandalucia.com/index.php/actualidad/item/la-brutal-subida-de-los-costes-anticipa-significativos-recortes-de-produccion-en-el-campo-espanol">have warned</a> agriculture production costs are skyrocketing and want &quot;urgent&quot; help from the national and regional governments to stop producers being crushed by wholesale buyers trying to keep prices in supermarkets down.</p><p>COAG says the &quot;brutal&quot; rise in price will lead to &quot;significant production cuts in the Spanish countryside&quot;.</p><p>The farming organistion says electricity prices are up 300%, fertilizers up 100%, diesel up 40-60%, plastics up 50%, water up 30% and animal feeds up 25%.</p><p>They estimate the cost of bringing a truck of fertilizer online in a field has gone up from €4,000 last year to €8,000-10,000 now.</p><p>&quot;In the case of olive irrigation, the electricity bill has gone up €160 a hectare, which means an average plantation (25 hectares) is looking at a €4,000 rise compared to last year.&quot;</p><p>&quot;A gauge of western European prices for ammonia, used to make nitrogen fertilizer, surged to a 13-year high to $910 a metric ton&quot;, reported <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/news/farming-news/fertilizer-prices-are-getting-more-expensive-in-europe-adding-to-food-inflation-concerns-41004224.html">The Independent</a>, citing natural gas prices as the driving force. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://twitter.com/f_wintersberger/status/1454708782932582406">This</a> is what that looks like in a graph.</p><p>Fertilizer prices in the United States <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://twitter.com/GreenMarkets1/status/1450137251741159424">are also</a> at record levels. Globally, food price indices <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://twitter.com/matthewbennett/status/1453713683612258307">rose</a> to their highest level since 2011 in September, with an especially significant rise in the price of vegetable oils.</p><p>The general annual inflation rate in Spain <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://twitter.com/matthewbennett/status/1453696816545927172">rose</a> to 5.5% in October, its highest level since August 1992.</p><p>On Sunday night, Algeria <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20211101/argelia-cierra-gasoducto-magreb-europa/2211040.shtml">closed</a> the gas pipeline that runs through Morocco to Spain. Plan B involves bringing part of Spain&apos;s natural gas supply from the North African country over on ships.</p><p>How long will these prices rises take to reach Spanish supermarkets? How will farmers and farm workers struggle and react in the meantime, this coming winter?</p><p><strong>Guarantee independent journalism here:</strong> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/value/guarantee">https://www.thespainreport.es/value/guarantee</a></p>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[Conversation with Rupert Cocke on Spain, fascism, democracy, politics, media]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/conversation-with-rupert-cocke-on-spain-fascism-democracy-politics-media</link>
            <guid>32sd0AtYxYT9qpUZMW0L</guid>
            <pubDate>Sun, 17 Oct 2021 18:59:04 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[We chat about his recent article "Dismantling the narrative that Spain is a fascist state". Spain, Franco, the Transition, Zapatero, Catalan separtism, the evolution of media, politics, technology, the economy and the rise of Vox. Dismantling the narrative that Spain is a fascist state:https://sharpenyouraxe.substack.com/p/spanish-democracyIf you enjoyed this conversation, support independent journalism:TSR direct: https://www.thespainreport.es/guaranteeGoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/th...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div data-type="youtube" videoId="2-SD2xoHe-8">
      <div class="youtube-player" data-id="2-SD2xoHe-8" style="background-image: url('https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2-SD2xoHe-8/hqdefault.jpg'); background-size: cover; background-position: center">
        <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-SD2xoHe-8">
          <img src="{{DOMAIN}}/editor/youtube/play.png" class="play"/>
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      </div></div><p>We chat about his recent article &quot;Dismantling the narrative that Spain is a fascist state&quot;. Spain, Franco, the Transition, Zapatero, Catalan separtism, the evolution of media, politics, technology, the economy and the rise of Vox.</p><p>Dismantling the narrative that Spain is a fascist state:</p><ul><li><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://sharpenyouraxe.substack.com/p/spanish-democracy">https://sharpenyouraxe.substack.com/p/spanish-democracy</a></p></li></ul><p>If you enjoyed this conversation, support independent journalism:</p><ul><li><p>TSR direct: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee">https://www.thespainreport.es/guarantee</a></p></li><li><p>GoFundMe: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/thespainreport">https://www.gofundme.com/f/thespainreport</a></p></li><li><p>PayPal: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/thespainreport">https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/thespainreport</a></p></li></ul><p>Crypto:</p><ul><li><p>BTC, ETH, DOGE: thespainreport.wallet</p></li><li><p>Bitcoin lightning (⚡BTC): get in touch on Twitter (@matthewbennett) or email</p></li><li><p>Bitcoin (BTC): 3HfKnLAb1nWfh6e8BCjst6cwyWX6fTciz9</p></li><li><p>Ethereum (ETH): 0xF02EEfC88336c142Dee946B14b6Fc24539357871</p></li></ul><p>#media #politics #spain #history</p>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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            <title><![CDATA[Guaranteeing independent journalism...with Bitcoin]]></title>
            <link>https://paragraph.com/@thespainreport-2/guaranteeing-independent-journalism-with-bitcoin</link>
            <guid>XCr7RGREA0YprYpuUQt0</guid>
            <pubDate>Tue, 12 Oct 2021 08:58:34 GMT</pubDate>
            <description><![CDATA[Readers used crypto to guarantee some real-world reportingLet&apos;s see if I can explain this without getting lost in the technicalities of bitcoin, about which I understood almost nothing until this week. It was on a mental list of global issues I would one day understand better.Not going to get into the huge systemic economic, social and political debates around bitcoin today, which will be fascinating to watch and report on over the next few years.A week ago, Twitter announced it was intr...]]></description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure float="none" data-type="figure" class="img-center" style="max-width: null;"><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/323ba39a29a1af6c8f480ab3cea878a2948cfb96064aaa52eb8bd4937483f091.jpg" alt="Readers used crypto to guarantee some real-world reporting" blurdataurl="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=" nextheight="600" nextwidth="800" class="image-node embed"><figcaption HTMLAttributes="[object Object]" class="">Readers used crypto to guarantee some real-world reporting</figcaption></figure><ol><li><p>Let&apos;s see if I can explain this without getting lost in the technicalities of bitcoin, about which I understood almost nothing until this week. It was on a mental list of global issues I would one day understand better.</p></li><li><p>Not going to get into the huge systemic economic, social and political debates around bitcoin today, which will be fascinating to watch and report on over the next few years.</p></li><li><p>A week ago, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2021/bringing-tips-to-everyone">Twitter announced</a> it was introducing &quot;tips&quot; on people&apos;s profiles and that one of the options was going to be...bitcoin, with two bitcoin options: <strong>standard bitcoin</strong> and something called <strong>lightning</strong> bitcoin.</p></li><li><p>For standard bitcoin, Twitter lets you put a bitcoin &quot;address&quot; in a new profile field. To &quot;tip&quot; someone (send them some bitcoin, or bits of bitcoin, called &quot;<strong>satoshis</strong>&quot;), you copy and paste that address into your bitcoin &quot;wallet&quot; (but the easiest thing seems to be to scan a QR code on your phone)</p></li><li><p>There are several possibilities for a bitcoin &quot;wallet&quot;. I installed an app on the phone called <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://muun.com/">Muun</a>. Why? Because Twitter boss @jack <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/1441392255214964736">recommended it</a> in a tweet. So it&apos;s probably not a terrible one.</p></li><li><p>Another Jack, the boss of <strong>Strike</strong>, also <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://twitter.com/jackmallers/status/1441089090628177933">mentioned Muun</a> in his new video talking about the Twitter-Strike lightning bitcoin option, which so far is only available in the US and <strong>El Salvador</strong>.</p></li><li><p>Why El Salvador? Because El Salvador has introduced bitcoin for everyone in the whole country, a new national payment system. The lightning version is about making bitcoin faster and the transactions cheaper.</p></li><li><p>The lightning bitcoin thing on Twitter seems to be about Srike using bitcoin to let people send dollars or euros to each other. But if you don&apos;t live in the US or El Salvador, you don&apos;t need to worry about that for now.</p></li><li><p>Some readers who understand bitcoin <strong>sent me a few bits of bitcoin</strong> (&quot;satoshis&quot;) to test. It worked (of course it did, but it was new for new). The bits of bitcoin appeared in my &quot;wallet&quot; (the Muun app on my phone), along with a euro equivalent amount.</p></li><li><p>So that was fun. The options for receiving bitcoin, for now, seem to be somebody copying pasting the address into their wallet, or me sending them a lightning bitcoin &quot;invoice&quot; first (another line of text or a QR code).</p></li><li><p>Then I discovered a site called, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://twitter.com/bitrefill">@bitrefill</a>, which promised to turn bitcoins, or bits of bitcoin, <strong>into Amazon vouchers</strong> that I could spend on journalism stuff. The first little test <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://twitter.com/matthewbennett/status/1442809182550429699">worked</a>.</p></li><li><p>Some other readers sent more satoshis. Quite a few more. One person sent <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://twitter.com/matthewbennett/status/1442932421293314048">nearly €200 worth</a>, which was very cool, but I know nothing about who they are. Man? Woman? Age? Country? Language? Job? Identity? No idea. Nothing. Zero. Completely anonymous. [Thanks if it was you.]</p></li><li><p>Let that sink in. A completely anonymous private reader decided to send along some virtual money to guarantee more and better public journalism for all, in the physical world, with a journalist you can recognise.</p></li><li><p>Amazon tells me that the <strong>second batch of reporting objects bought with bitcoins</strong> from readers who have guaranteed this journalism <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow ugc" class="dont-break-out" href="https://twitter.com/matthewbennett/status/1443579995918532616">is already on the way</a>. For now, some cables, connectors, a light and a cage for the phone for the new live streams, a better tripod to hold it all up.</p></li><li><p>But those new objects will actually really improve things next week when I go and do a first real mobile live stream for you (there will be a big environmental march in Murcia on Thursday because of all the dead fish in the Mar Menor).</p></li><li><p>So now we have another cool option for guaranteeing independent journalism. We can talk more about bitcoin another day.</p></li><li><p>You will see the bitcoin addresses and QR codes on the bottom of every <strong>article</strong>, and in the <strong>emails</strong>, or you can find them on <strong>Twitter</strong>, as well as some other alternatives.</p></li><li><p>Also, as you can see, we&apos;re going in a little bit of a different strategic direction with the <strong>journalism-funding model</strong> over the next few weeks and months. Same basic idea but more options, more distributed. Time to move up another level: more reporting, more photos and video and audio, more reporting trips around Spain. Will explain more in future posts.</p></li><li><p>Fascinating coincidence that this happened the same week I went up to Alicante to speak at the national transparency congress. Thanks for reading. <strong>100% readers = independent journalism</strong>.</p></li></ol><p><strong>Guarantee independent reporting (BTC, ETH, DOGE):</strong> thespainreport.wallet</p>]]></content:encoded>
            <author>thespainreport-2@newsletter.paragraph.com (Matthew Bennett)</author>
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