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Millions in Spain, Portugal Left Without Electricity After ‘Rare Atmospheric Phenomenon’ Causes Widespread Power Cuts

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Millions in Spain and Portugal have been left without electricity after widespread power cuts blamed on a “rare atmospheric phenomenon,” with officials warning that it may take up to a week for things to get back to normal.

There is “no indication” that a cyber attack is behind Monday’s large-scale power cuts, Portugal’s Prime Minister Luis Montenegro told reporters on Monday.

The cause of the power cut is still unknown, but it is clear that it “did not originate in Portugal,” Montenegro said.

A “rare atmospheric phenomenon” was blamed for the outages, which affected millions, Portugal’s grid operator, Rede Eletrica Nacional (REN), said in a statement.

“Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines, a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration,’” the statement continued. (Read more from “Millions in Spain, Portugal Left Without Electricity After ‘Rare Atmospheric Phenomenon’ Causes Widespread Power Cuts” HERE)

Catholics in Spain Ask Church to Protect Religious Site From Government Destruction

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Some Catholics in Spain are asking the Catholic Church to save a religious site in Madrid from threats of alteration and decommissioning by the Spanish government, which claims the site honors a former right-wing dictator. Critics claim the government is opposed to the site because it is religious, noting that officials have already removed 35 public crosses throughout the country under a law that allows them to remove public monuments associated with the dictator.

The Spanish government, in cooperation with the Holy See, the central government of the Catholic Church, has begun the process of resignification for the Valley of the Fallen, a more than 3000-acre complex dedicated to the fallen from both sides of the Spanish Civil War. The process of resignification involves redefining the meaning of a historic site in order to adapt it to a new purpose.

The Spanish Civil War was a conflict from 1936-1939 between the Nationalists, led by right-wing leader Francisco Franco, and the Republican faction. Thousands of Catholics were martyred by the Republican faction during the war. The bodies of more than 30,000 victims of the war from both sides are buried at the Valley of the Fallen, according to the Catholic News Agency. The site was built on Franco’s orders, and the former dictator was buried in the complex until 2019, when his body was exhumed and moved.

The site is also home to a Benedictine abbey, a boys’ Catholic Gregorian choir school, and a basilica situated underground in an excavated space in the mountain. A 492-foot cross, the largest in the world, towers above the complex.

The Spanish government reached an agreement with the church in February to force out the Rev. Santiago Cantera, the Catholic former prior of the Benedictine community there, whom the government called a “Francoist.” It now seeks to alter the site to align with the 2022 Law of Democratic Memory, which aims to condemn the wrongs of the Francoist regime. (Read more from “Catholics in Spain Ask Church to Protect Religious Site From Government Destruction” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Transhumanists Gather To Plan Global Transformation

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Transhumanism is a futuristic religion that exalts technology as the highest power. The movement’s goal is to merge man with machine. Their wildest prophecies seem ridiculous at first, until you consider the dizzying advances in bionics, robotics, neuroprosthetics, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering.

Prominent figures gathered at the TransVision 2021 conference in Madrid over the weekend. Listening to the proceedings online, I heard a broad range of totalizing schemes. There were no Luddites or Amish onstage, but of course, Spain is a long haul for a horse-and-buggy. Besides, no unvaccinated person can legally cross the Spanish border. . .

Their radical ideas are hardly marginal. Transhuman values have been implicitly embraced by the world’s wealthiest technologists. Consider Bill Gates pushing universal jabs, Jeff Bezos’s quest for “life extension,” Elon Musk’s proposed brain implants, Mark Zuckerberg’s forays into the Metaverse, and Eric Schmidt’s plans for an American technocracy racing against China. . .

As a broad ideology, transhumanism is as relevant for the 21st century as communism was for the 20th century. In the mid-1800s, Karl Marx and his crew were mere socialist intellectuals. By 1923, the Bolsheviks had taken over Russia. By 1949, Mao had taken over China. In our age of all-pervasive technology, entire societies are revolutionized before anyone can grasp the change.

The futurists who gathered in Madrid last weekend — along with those preaching technocracy at the World Economic Forum — are laying the intellectual groundwork for a fully digitized social order. Today, it’s the Fourth Industrial Revolution — a global paradigm of total transformation — embraced by Microsoft, Alibaba, Sony, General Motors, Mozilla, and Salesforce, among many others. Tomorrow, the faithful proclaim, it will be artificial superintelligence, brain implants, and unstoppable killer drones. (Read more from “Transhumanists Gather To Plan Global Transformation” HERE)

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Massive Volcano Eruption in Spain Causes Thousands To Flee

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A volcano erupted on Spain’s Atlantic Ocean island of La Palma on Sunday afternoon — forcing the evacuation of about 5,000 people from their homes that were threatened by lava flows.

Some of the homes have already been destroyed following the 3 p.m. eruption on the southern end of the island that sent huge red plumes of magma into the sky.

New eruptions continued into the night and came after a weeklong buildup of seismic activity in the area.

About 5,000 people evacuated from their homes, according to Victor Torres, president of the Canary Island. . .

La Palma has a population of 85,000. It is one of eight volcanic islands in Spain’s Canary Islands archipelago off Africa’s western coast. (Read more from “Massive Volcano Eruption in Spain Causes Thousands To Flee” HERE)

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20-Year-Old Coronavirus Victim in Spain Was Reportedly Told by Doctors to Go Home and Not to Worry. He Died Less Than a Week Later.; Italy Stops Counting Bodies After Major Surge

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By The Blaze. A 20-year-old from Spain who recently died after contracting the coronavirus was allegedly sent home and told not to worry by doctors less than a week before the disease killed him.

Francisco Garcia, a youth soccer coach at Malaga club Atletico Portada Alta, initially thought he had the common cold when he went he first became ill on March 6, his family told the Sun in a recent interview. . .

Three days later, when Garcia still wasn’t recovering from the illness, Fernandez took him to a doctor who then allegedly told him to “take paracetamol [acetaminophen] and sent him home and said there was no need to worry.”

When his health deteriorated again overnight, Garcia’s family decided to take him to another doctor for a second opinion. That doctor sent him home again — this time with antibiotics. . .

Once at the hospital, he was diagnosed with pneumonia and was placed under a quarantine due to suspicion that he had contracted the coronavirus. The following day, he tested positive for COVID-19 as well as leukemia. Four days later he died. (Read more from “20-Year-Old Coronavirus Victim in Spain Was Reportedly Told by Doctors to Go Home and Not to Worry. He Died Less Than a Week Later.” HERE)

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Coronavirus in Italy: Health Care Workers Stop Counting Bodies

By New York Post. Italy’s death toll from the coronavirus has surpassed China, with so many dead that soldiers were brought in to haul away coffins and health care workers said they stopped counting bodies.

Officials said Thursday that 427 new deaths were recorded over just 24 hours, bringing the COVID-19 death toll to 3,403, nearly 200 more than China, where the virus originated.

This comes despite the fact that Italy has 41,035 confirmed cases — just over half as many as China.

“Unfortunately we can’t contain the situation in Lombardy,” said Daniela Confalonieri, a nurse in Milan. “There’s a high level of contagion and we’re not even counting the dead anymore.”

“Look at the news that’s coming out of Italy and take note of what the situation is like,” she said. “It’s unimaginable.” (Read more from “Coronavirus in Italy: Health Care Workers Stop Counting Bodies” HERE)

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Spain Takes Down Ex-Head of IMF; Dozens of Others Prosecuted in Enormous International Banking Corruption Scandal

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In many other countries, excluding the United States, corrupt bankers are often brought to task by their respective governments. The most recent example of a corrupt banker being held accountable comes our of Spain, in which the former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Rodrigo Rato was sentenced to four years and six months behind bars.

According to the AFP, Spain’s National Court, which deals with corruption and financial crime cases, said he had been found guilty of embezzlement when he headed up Caja Madrid and Bankia, at a time when both groups were having difficulties.

Rato, who is tied to a slew of other allegations was convicted and sentenced for misusing €12m between 2003 and 2012 — sometimes splashing out at the height of Spain’s economic crisis, according to the AFP.

The people of Spain were outraged over the scandal as it was discovered during the height of a severe financial crisis in which banks were receiving millions in taxpayer dollars. Bankia was eventually nationalized and given 22 billion in public money.

Although he was sentenced, Rato, who is also a former Spanish economy minister, remains at liberty pending a possible appeal because of highly connected elite status.

Rato was brought down in a massive effort by Spain to get rid of corruption within the banking system. The problem had gotten so bad, that Spain decided to clean house, and 65 people, include Rato, were brought to task.

According to the AFP, they were accused of having paid for personal expenses with credit cards put at their disposal by both Caja Madrid and Bankia, without ever justifying them or declaring them to tax authorities. These expenses included petrol for their cars, supermarket shopping, holidays, luxury bags or parties in nightclubs.

According to the indictment, Rato maintained the “corrupt system” established by his predecessor Miguel Blesa when he took the reins of Caja Madrid in 2010, reports the AFP. He then replicated the system when he took charge of Bankia, a group born in 2011 out of the merger of Caja Madrid with six other savings banks, prosecutors said.

According to the report:

Rato was economy minister and deputy prime minister in the conservative government of Jose Maria Aznar from 1996 to 2004, before going on to head up the IMF until 2007. His subsequent career as a banker was short-lived — from 2010 to 2012 — but apart from the credit cards case, it also led to another banking scandal considered the country’s biggest ever.

Thousands of small-scale investors lost their money after they were persuaded to convert their savings to shares ahead of the flotation of Bankia in 2011, with Rato at the reins. Less than a year later, he resigned as it became known that Bankia was in dire straits.

The state injected billions of euros but faced with the scale of Bankia’s losses and trouble at other banks, it asked the EU for a bailout for the banking sector and eventually received €41bn.

Rato and others were probed, accused of misleading small investors in the listing of Bankia, which has since paid out €1.2bn in compensation.

To highlight the utter corruption within the banking cartel that is the IMF, Rato is the third former chief to be ousted for illegal activity.

For those who don’t remember, Rato’s successor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was tried in 2015 on pimping charges in a lurid sex scandal. Naturally, he was acquitted — in spite of the fact that he admitted to engaging in illicit sex with prostitutes at a series of orgies that supposedly took place at the Hotel Carlton in the northern French city of Lille. The court sided with DSK and agreed that he had no idea the women he repeatedly filled the orgies with were being paid.

Christine Lagarde, who took over from Strauss-Kahn and is the current IMF chief, In December, was found guilty of “negligence” for approving a massive government payout to business tycoon Bernard Tapie during her tenure as French finance minister.

Despite being found guilty of corruption, Lagarde was not sentenced to a single day in jail. She has since been meeting with Trump’s Goldman Sachs-connected Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, noting that they’ve had “some very positive discussions.” (For more from the author of “Spain Takes Down Ex-Head of IMF; Dozens of Others Prosecuted in Enormous International Banking Corruption Scandal” please click HERE)

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Spanish Hospital Conducts World’s First Successful Complex Face Transplant

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FaceA Spanish hospital said Monday it has successfully carried out the world’s most complex face transplant, reconstructing the lower face, neck, mouth, tongue and back of the throat of a man terribly disfigured by disease.

A team of 45 physicians, nurses, anaesthesiologists and other health professionals carried out the 27-hour operation in early February at Barcelona’s Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, the hospital said in a statement.

“This is the first time that a transplant of this complexity is performed in the world,” the statement said.

“The patient evolution after the surgery was successful, similar to any transplant patient at the hospital. Now he is already at home and only comes to the hospital to do routine checkups.”

The patient, a 45-year-old man who does not wish to be identified, had suffered a condition called arteriovenous malformation for the past 20 years, causing a massive deformation of his tissues. (Read more from “Spanish Hospital Conducts Complex Face Transplant” HERE)

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Parents of Ill UK Boy Fight Extradition from Spain

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The parents say they want to give their 5 year-old-boy with a brain tumor the best chance to live with a revolutionary new treatment they learned about on the Internet. Their British hospital says the boy has a 70 percent to 80 percent chance of survival with the treatment it offers, and it’s the parents who are putting the child at risk.

Britain has become riveted by the case of little Ashya King, whose parents plucked him from a hospital in southern England and fled to Spain amid a dispute over treatment – with British justice close on the family’s heels.

Brett and Naghemeh King signaled Monday they would fight extradition, defying doctors and the legal system as a British court considers a ruling on forcing the family to come home.

“I’m not coming back to England if I cannot give him the treatment I want, which is proper treatment,” Brett King said as he cradled the child in a video posted before his arrest. “I just want positive results for my son.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Food Stamp Rolls In America Now Surpass The Population of Spain

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Photo Credit: APSince taking office in 2009, food stamp rolls under President Barack Obama have risen to more than 47 million people in America, exceeding the population of Spain.

“Now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity,” said Obama during his first joint session address to Congress on Feb. 24, 2009.

Since then, the number of participants enrolled in food stamps, known as the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP), has risen substantially.

When Obama entered office in January 2009 there were 31,939,110 Americans receiving food stamps. As of November 2012—the most recent data available—there were 47,692,896 Americans enrolled, an increase of 49.3 percent.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Fall of Europe: Criticizing Islam Considered National Security Threat in Spain

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WASHINGTON – As tensions continue to surge over the expansion of Shariah law both in the Middle East and in Europe, a new speech rights case has emerged in Spain where an ex-Muslim Christian convert is threatened with deportation for speaking out against Islam.

Imran Farasat, who was interviewed by WND, is a Pakistani Christian who converted from Islam in 2004, after, he said, “I realized that what I was following for 26 years of my life is not a religion but in reality is a political dictatorship which persecutes and teaches to persecute through the orders and teachings of a self-proclaimed prophet (Muhammad).”

After his conversion to Christianity, he began to speak out against Islam. He told WND, “Muslims are involved everywhere in terrorism. Christians are being persecuted in Islamic countries to the maximum level of torture and suffering and Islam is trying to invade the Western world and kill our values. Who will stop this all?”

In his legal fight, he’s represented by The Legal Project, which describes itself as working “…to protect the right in the West to freely discuss Islam, radical Islam, terrorism, and terrorist funding.”

It has a large, transnational clientele that “includes authors, bloggers, journals and politicians.”

Read more from this story HERE.