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PRINCE: a shy, nonconformist, unknowable talent is dead

Candidates play blame game as deadline for new election approachesSpanish king confirms that no no-minee has enough support to stand for prime minister.

Ater his latest meetings with political lea-ders, King Felipe VI on Tuesday confir-med that there is no candidate with enough support to become the next prime minis-ter of Spain. Following constitutional law, the monarch will announce the dissolution of parliament next Tuesday, and call new elections for late June.

He was impossibly gifted, wil-fully obstinate, with a reluctan-ce to conform that made him completely unknowable – just as he intended. It seems stran-ge to relate now, but in the early years of Prince Rogers Nelson’s career, there were voices that doubted whether he would ever be truly successful artist.

ANGEL DIAS - Spanish King Felipe VI on Tuesday, during his second day of meetings with political leaders.

There is still an outside chance that parties might cobble together a last-minute deal before the May 2 deadline, but that possi-bility seems increasingly remote after four months of fruitless talks. There is a recent precedent in Catalonia, where an 11th-hour deal averted a fresh regional election.

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INTERVIEW WITH ...

CULTURAL SHIFT2 3 MAY 2016 CULTURAL SHIFT 3 MAY 2016 3INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL

”You cannot fight

terrorism without troops on the ground

Bashar Al-AssadPresident talks international reports being politicized

Q: Mr. President, after four years of civil war in your country, what’s left of your country in which you live, Syria?

P: What’s left is about the people. If you talk about the infrastructure, many have been destroyed during the last four years and few months, but it’s about the people, what’s left of the people, that is the question, and it’s about how much they wi-thstand this dark ideology that the terrorists brought with them from different countries. I think the ma-jority of the people now support their government, regardless of their political spectrum, and they still support the unity of Syria and the integration of the society as one society with multi-color aspects.

Q: Now, we hear shelling every day, even here in Damascus, even close by to where we are now. You said there is unity, the people be-lieve in their government. Are you still so confident about that?

P: I’m more confident than befo-re, to be frank, because if you go to the areas under the control of the government, you can see all the different colors of the Syrian socie-ty with no exception. If you go to the areas where the terrorists con-trol, you can see either part of this Syrian spectrum, social spectrum, or you can see no inhabitants, only fighters. So the contrast is very clear.

Q: Now, roughly 4,000 Syrians flee your country every day, 4.3 mi-llion up to date, and you must hear

some of their stories, why they are leaving?

P: They are sad stories. It’s about the hardship of every single person, every single family. We live with these stories on a daily basis, as you mentioned. But it’s not enough to feel; what can we do? They left be-cause of the terrorist attacks, direct attacks, because the terrorists attac-ked the infrastructure, and because of the Western embargo that led to the same target of the terrorists, directly or indirectly. I think most of those are ready to go back to their country. They still love their country, but living in Syria could be unbearable for them for different circumstances.

Q: You say most of them are ready to come back, but from many sto-ries they tell, they flee from terro-rism, of course, but a lot of them flee from your government, your armed forces, as well.

P: You are in Syria now, you can go to the areas under our control. You can see that some of the families of the terrorists or the extremists or the militants, whatever you want to call them, live under the super-vision of the government and the support that they have given us has been unconditional.

Q: Okay, while we hear about some stories which were happen West of Syrians coming here, they talk about torture, widespread, people in prison, things done by your armed forces. . Is there truth to their stories?

P: Let’s talk about the facts. The facts If you are torturing your peo-ple, attacking, killing, and so on, and you have the countries in the world, the richest country in the Gulf, like Turkey, our neighbors, are against me as president or against the government, how could you withstand for nearly five years in such circumstances if you don’t have public support? And how can you have public support if you are torturing your people? I mean, if you have mistakes in reality, that could happen, that would happen anywhere.

Q: So there are mistakes?

P: Of course, especially when the-re is war, you could have a single mistake committed by a single person, that would happen. You have chaos, sometimes that would happen, we don’t exclude this. But there’s a difference between having this kind of mistakes and having a policy in order to torture your peo-ple and lose their support.

Q: You say there is no such policy?

P: No, definitely. Q: Because today, Human Ri-ghts Watch, and the UN before that, came out with a report saying there’s widespread, as they call it, “death and dying in detention cen-ters, since the uprising in 2011.” Is there any truth to that?

P: If you want to verify the credi-bility of those reports, to say that they’re not politicized, they’re not

talking about one side of the story. You mentioned the shelling about the bombing in Syria and what I have to sasy is that I believe in the growth of GDP in our country, yeah.

Q: So it’s one sided? Even UN?

P: Of course, definitely, it’s politi-cized. Even the UN, it’s controlled by the United States, and the Uni-ted States is against Syria. This is the reality, everybody knows it.

Q: But you are part of the UN. Syria is part of the UN family.

P: Of course, but the UN is a biased institution because it is un-der the control of the United States and its allies.

Q: And so, you say reports about widespread torture, human rights violations after 2011, not true?

P: They are based on stories. Sto-ries, you can pay anyone to tell you any story, like the Qataris are doing this. They publish many reports fi-nanced by the Qataris, by the Sau-dis, this means nothing. You want to make investigations, come to Syria. You have reality, it’s obvious.

Q: They say it’s difficult to come to Syria and doing independent in-vestigation.

P: No, it’s not difficult. You are here, so anybody could do the same.. Otherwise, it’s going to be difficult for them to judge from another super perspective. They

are not us, and we are not them. It is pretty easy to understand you know how it goes.because I love Syria, you know.

Q: Okay, while we hear stories in the West of Syrians coming here, they talk about torture, widespread, people in prison, things done by your armed forces. . Is there truth to their stories?

P: Let’s talk about the facts. The facts If you are torturing your peo-ple, attacking, killing, and so on, and you have the enmity of Wes-tern governments, the stronger countries in the world, the richest countries like in the Gulf, like Tur-key, our neighbors, are against me as president or against the govern-ment, I mean, if you have mistakes in reality, that could happen, that would happen anywhere. They left because of the terrorist attacks, di-rect attacks, because the terrorists attacked the infrastructure, and be-cause of the Western.

Q: What do you think about the international reports that have appeared in the Panama Papers where Syria is involved?

P: They are based on very inte-resting an famous stories. Stories, you can pay anyone to tell you any story, like the Qataris are doing this. They publish many reports financed by the Qataris, by the Saudis, this means nothing about that thing. They are not us, and we are not them. It is pretty easy to understand you know how it goes.because I love Syria.

Once seen by the do-mestic and interna-tional community as a potential refor-

mer,Assad disappointed those expectations definitively when he ordered crackdowns and military sieges on Arab Spring protesters, leading to the Syrian Civil War.

The Syrian opposition, the Uni-ted States, Canada, the Euro-pean Union and the majority of the Arab League had called for al-Assad’s resignation from the presidency.During the Syrian Civil War, an inquiry by the Uni-ted Nations human rights chief found evidence to implicate As-sad in war crimes. In November 2014, the prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon announced that. Assad was included in a list of

Bassar Al-Assad has had an interview carried out by DUTCH TV and reported by Cultural Shift exclusively in Spain. Photo Credit: Getty Images

20 sample war crimes indictments of government officials and rebels handed to the International Cri-minal Court, by David Crane, an American professor at Syracuse University College of Law in New York.

In November 2014, the prose-cutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon announced that evidence would be brought against Assad. At the outset of the Syrian Civil War, Syrian government networks were hacked by the group Anonymous. In November 2014, the prose-cutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon announced that evidence would be brought against Assad. At the outset of the Syrian Civil.Once

Map about Al-Assad’s allies

and enemies designed by Cul-

turalS. newspaper (via Easel.ly)

A. Ruiz, I. Fuster, C. Serna & L. AguilarMadrid 28 APR 2016

seen by the domestic and interna-tional community as a potential re-former,Assad disappointed those expectations definitively when he ordered crackdowns and military sieges on Arab Spring protesters, leading to the Syrian Civil War.

The Syrian opposition, the Uni-ted States, Canada, the European Union and the majority of the Arab League had called for al-As-sad’s resignation. revealing that an ex-Al Jazeera. In November 2014, the prosecutor of the Special Tri-bunal for Lebanon announced that evidence would be brought against Assad.

CULTURAL SHIFT4 3 MAY 2016 CULTURAL SHIFT 3 MAY 2016 5INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL

Has the ship Captain Hook been found?

Captain Cook’s famous ship has seemingly been discovered in the US 230 years since it was sold, sunk and forgotten. The Endea-vour is one of the most famous ships in naval history and was used by Captain James Cook to discover the East Coast of Australia in 1770. The last sighting of the Endeavour was around 1778 when it is belie-ved the ship was sold, renamed the Lord Sandwich, and then used to transport British troops during the American Revolution. The ship departed from Pymouth with 94 people on board, including Cap-tain Cook.

It traveled down the coast of Africa before cutting across the Atlantic and arriving in Rio de Janeiro in November of that year. Resear-chers in the US believe they may be a step closer to locating the ship in which British explorer Captain James Cook sailed to Australia in 1768.The Rhode Island Marine Ar-chaeology Project (Rimap) has known for some time the ship was scuttled in Newport Harbour in 1778. But they now believe they have narrowed down the search to a cluster of five shipwrecks on the seafloor.

The researchers plan to investigate the ships and their artefacts further.They are also appealing for funds to build the right facilities for hand-ling and storing items retrieved from the sea. “All of the 13 ships lost in Newport during the Revolu-tion are important to American his-tory, but it will be a national cele-bration in Australia when RIMAP identifies the Lord Sandwich ex Endeavour,” the researchers said in a statement.

Rimap is a non-profit organisation set up 1992 so that the “diving and non-diving public” could study maritime history and marine ar-chaeology sites in Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay, according to its website. Capt Cook set sail on En-deavour - a British-built coal ship - in 1768 on a scientific voyage to map the Pacific Ocean.

In 1770 he arrived off the sou-th-east coast of what is now Aus-tralia, eventually making landfall at Botany Bay. He later claimed the region for the British crown, despi-te the presence of large Indigenous communities. After sailing back to Britain, the Endeavour was rena-med Lord Sandwich and became a troop carrier ship. During the American War of Independence it was scuttled by the British Navy in a blockade of the Narragansett Bay. The wreckage has never been found, but the Rimap researchers have been investigating 13 sunken

Captain Cook’s Endeavour is finally found 230 years af-ter it disappeared: Legendary vessel used to sail to Aus-tralia was scuttled off the coast of Rhode Island in 1778

Hector Martinez JuarezMadrid 4 MAY 2016

ships, with the help of remote sensing equipment and historical documents. They said an analysis of data suggests there is “an 80 to 100% chance” that the Lord Sand-wich wreckage is still in Newport Harbor, “and because the Lord Sandwich was Capt Cook’s En-deavour, that means RIMAP has found her, too”.

They plan to outline their plans for confirming the find at a news briefing on Wednesday. The an-nouncement coincides with the 240th anniversary of Rhode Island declaring independence from the UK. Rimap said closing in on iden-tifying “one of the most important shipwrecks in world history” would be “an intriguing birthday gift for all of Rhode Island”. Researchers said they believe they have located

the wreckage of the Endeavour, a ship sailed by the famous British explorer James Cook, which was sunk off the US during the revolu-tionary war. The ship was scuttled in 1778 leading up to the Battle of Rhode Island between American colonists and the British, and was as part of a blockade during the revolutionary war. It now appears to have been located by the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) at one of nine sites con-taining 13 ships.

The ship, which Cook sailed in the Pacific Ocean, passed through a number of hands before eventua-lly being renamed the Lord Sand-wich and used in the revolutionary war blockade. RIMAP said it had pinpointed the wreckage at a site that included five other vessel,

off the state of Rhode Island in Newport harbor.

The association is launching a cam-paign to finance the construction of a storage facility to accommoda-te the objects that are likely to be found during excavation. During his famous 1768-1771 voyage, Cook helped map the south-west Pacific Ocean and took possession of Australia in the name of the Crown.

RIMAP used a grant from the Aus-tralian National Maritime Museum to locate documents in London that identify the groups of ships in the 13-vessel fleet, and where each group was scuttled. “One group of 5 ships included the Lord Sand-wich transport, formerly Capt. Ja-mes Cook’s Endeavour Bark,” said

RIMAP, on its website. RIMAP says that it knows the general area of Newport Harbor where the five ships were scuttled and has already mapped four of the sites there. “A recent analysis of remote sensing data suggests that the 5th site may still exist, too,” the group explai-ned. “That means the Rhode Is-land Marine Archaeology Project now has an 80 to 100% chance that the Lord Sandwich is still in Newport Harbor.”

A RIMAP spokesman told Fox-News.com that the group will provide more details of its plans to confirm the fifth shipwreck at a meeting on May 4. RIMAP will also outline what needs to be done to confirm which ships are in which locations. “The next phase of the archaeological investigation will re-

quire a more intense study of each vessel’s structure and its related artifacts,” explains RIMAP, on its website. “However, be-fore that next phase may begin, there must be a proper facility in place to conserve, manage, dis-play, and store the water-logged material removed from the archaeological sites.”

May 4 marks Rhode Is-land’s 240th birthday. “For RIMAP to be clo-sing in one of the most important shipwrecks in world history, for that ship to be found in Newport, and for it to have an international repu-tation, should be an intriguing bir-thday gift for all of Rhode Island,”

explains RIMAP, on its website. Finds in recent years. Last year, for example, treasure said to belong to

the infamous pirate Captain Kidd was found by divers in the waters of the Indian Ocean off Madagascar.

Earlier this year the 500-year old wreck of a Portuguese ship piloted by an uncle of explorer Vasco da Gama was found off the coast of Oman “RIMAP has mapped nine

archaeological sites of the 13 ships that were scuttled in Newport Har-bour in 1778 during the American Revolution,” it said.

“One group of five ships inclu-ded the Lord Sandwich transport, formerly Capt James Cook’s En-deavour. RIMAP now knows the general area of Newport Harbour where those five ships were scutt-led.” The researchers now say they will examine each of the five ships to try to determine which is which.

“The next phase of the archaeo-logical investigation will require a more intense study of each vessel’s structure and its related artefacts, The HMS Endeavour was first launched in 1764 as the Earl of Pembroke, and then renamed His Majesty’s Bark the Endeavour after it was purchased four years later by the British Royal Navy. Captain James Cook returned the Endea-vour to England in 1771 where it was largely forgotten before it was

sold four years later Captain James Cook returned the Endeavour to England in 1771where it was large-ly forgotten before it was sold four years later.It was sent out to explore the Pacific Ocean in August 1768 both to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the sun and in the search for the continent which was then called Terra Australis Incog-nita, or unknown Southern land. The previous transit of Venus in 1639 had provided a vast amount of the information astronomers and scientists had about the size of the solar system and universe.

The ship departed from Pymouth with 94 people on board, including Captain Cook. It traveled down the coast of Africa before cutting across the Atlantic and arriving in Rio de Janeiro in November of that year.

The boat then set out to round Cape Horn, which it managed to do in January after its third try after wind, stormy weather and difficult conditions forced Captain Cook to turn back during his first two at-tempts. In April the ship reached Tahiti, where it stayed for the next four months and were astronomer Charles Green was able to study the transit of Venus in June.

After months exploring the Pacific for islands, the Endeavour reached the coast of New Zealand in Octo-ber, becoming the first European vessel to land on the island in over 100 years. Dutch explored Abel Tasman had previously reached the islands of New Zealand and Tasmania during his 1642 journey while with the Dutch East India Company.

Cook spent six months exploring and mapping the coast of New Zealand and claimed the land for Great Britain before sailing west. In April of 1770 individuals on the ship first spotted Australia, and on April 29 the HMS Endeavour be-came the first European vessel to make landfall on the east coast of the island.

Cook spent four months charting the coast and at one point ran into trouble when the ship struck part of the Great Barrier Reef. The ship was 24 miles off the coast at the time with not enough life boats, but managed to clear the water from the hull of the ship and make its way safely back to shore.

The ship continued to explore the island - it mus be unthinkable for everyone -, and in November was taken out of the water to have ma-jor repairs done before setting sail back to Great Britain.

The Captain Hook Ship riding on the ocean. Photo Credit: Getty Images

„ IT WAS LOST

THROW TIMES AND KNOW

HISTORY CHANGES

CULTURAL SHIFT6 3 MAY 2016 CULTURAL SHIFT 3 MAY 2016 7

King Felipe VI has announced his decision to hold a new round of talks with Spain’s political leaders

Pablo Iglesias later apologized on Twitter, saying that he had not intended to “offend” anyone

Spanish King Felipe announced last-minute talks with politicians

Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias chides journalists for “speaking badly” about his party

t will be the third time that the Spanish monarch meets with the country’s top politici-ans over the issue of who will be the next prime minister.

On April 21, house speaker Patxi López will hand the king a list of the representatives who will meet with him on the chosen dates. Fol-lowing an inconclusive election on December 20, Felipe VI held two rounds of talks and asked two lea-ders to submit their names for the post of prime minister in a congres-sional vote.

The first one, Mariano Rajoy of the Popular Party (PP), refused to do so, while the second, the Socialist Pedro Sánchez, tried and failed.Now, with a deadline looming for the dissolution of parliament and a new call to the polling stations, Fe-lipe VI will try to determine if the-re is another last-minute candidate with enough congressional backing for a successful office run. If there is not, a new election will be held on June 26, although polls suggest a similarly fragmented outcome and lower turnout.

Following months of failed cross-party talks, there is little hope that a deal will emerge in time to avert a fresh election. The PP, which holds the most seats in Con-gress, has failed to attract a single

To a great extent, anti-austerity par-ty Podemos and its leader Pablo Iglesias owe their success to their understanding of how the media work: since emerging as a major force in the European elections of 2014, Podemos and Iglesias have rarely been out of the headlines.

There is something sexy about Po-demos, which we noticed during the last campaign when we were all together on a tour bus, and that you find attractive and which you like Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias.

On Thursday, Iglesias, a lecturer in political science and self-styled media expert, used the presentati-on of a new book by a colleague at Madrid’s Complutense University,

Mercedes PeñaMadrid 12 APR 2016


party to form a government. The Socialists managed to close a deal with Ciudadanos, but still require support from a third group. Po-demos is refusing to provide this backing, preferring instead a co-alition of themselves, the PSOE, United Left and other regional leftist groups. The deadline for rea-ching a last-minute deal is May 2. If a nominee does step up, Congress will hold a double vote – one to attempt an overall majority of 176 seats, and failing that another one for a simple majority.

The failure of political negotiations following the inconclusive electi-on of December 20 is making it increasingly likely that voters will have to cast their ballots again in June. This possibility is bringing back the debate over campaign costs, and prompting suggestions that their duration should be re-duced as well. On Monday, acting justice minister Rafael Catalá stated that cutting back campaign times would be “good news” as “not tor-menting citizens with two weeks of rallies.”

Although this would require twea-king electoral laws, Spain’s political parties generally share the view that campaigns should be more austere. As such, Catalá said it would not be so difficult to reach consensus on this issue, although no changes

Ballesteros EFE - Spanish King Felipe VI

could be effected in time for June. The last election came with a tab of €130 million, and that was without counting each party’s campaign.Spain’s electoral legislation states that campaigns last 15 days.

The state puts up part of the mo-ney, offering €21,167.64 for every seat gained in Congress or the Se-nate; €0.81 for every vote obtained by every congressional candidate who secured a seat and €0.32 in the case of the Senate. The state also helps pay for political mail, as long as enough votes were received to create a group in parliament. The loss of votes at the last election me-ant a considerable loss of revenue for Spain’s two largest parties, the Socialists (PSOE) and the Popular Party (PP), five million votes.

The PP spent around €12 million on the campaign. The party leader in the Basque province of Gipuz-koa, Borja Semper, feels there should be no new campaign at all if new elections are held in June. The Galician premier, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, expressed support for “a shorter campaign.”

In any event, the conservatives are already in the middle of something that looks very much like a campa-ign. Acting Prime Minister Mari-ano Rajoy is using party events to announce measures he plans to in-

troduce to “upgrade” their Decem-ber program – such as making the workday end at 6pm. Meanwhile, Ciudadanos criticizes all the talk about new campaigning when there is still time to avoid a new election. Party leader Albert Rivera says that “I am absolutely willing for the PP and PSOE to spend half of half of what they currently spend.” The United Left group (IU) spent €2.5

million on the last race, most of which went into political mail. This money has been lost, as IU did not earn enough seats to form a group in parliament and was not eligible for state subsidies. Campaign ma-nager Clara Alonso said that redu-cing campaign is “not a bad pro-posal” because “at a time of cuts, this is no time for lavish electoral expenses, she said.

En defense del populismo (In de-fense of populism), by philosophy lecturer Carlos Fernández Liria, to launch an attack on Spain’s media.

“I’m going to use the journalists who follow us as a way to explain the link between Podemos and psy-choanalysis,” said Iglesias. “I think a certain psychoanalytic connec-tion exists between Podemos and journalists that can help explain a number of things.

“But even though many of the jour-nalists who follow us are obliged for professional reasons to speak badly about us, as those are the rules of the game, there is still a bit of love, which is nice; there is something sexy about Podemos, which we

noticed during the last campaign when we were all together on a tour bus; something that you find attrac-tive and which you like.”

After being criticized by a reporter in the room for continually atta-cking a journalist from El Mundo, Iglesias said that in an academic context anyone can be held up as an example, and that a university setting is not the same as a press conference. This prompted ap-plause from attendees, although journalists walked out of the room in protest.

Iglesias later apologized on Twit-ter, saying he had not intended to “offend” anybody. The Madrid Press Association (APM) issued a

statement condemning Iglesias’s comments.

“As an elected politician, Mr Iglesi-as cannot attack in this totalitarian way the professionals exercising their right to freely gather informa-tion,” reads the statement. “The APM believes Iglesias’s attacks are an intolerable breach of the Cons-titutional rights to information and freedom of expression, fundamen-tal pillars of democracy.”

Spain’s Association of Parliamen-tary Journalists (APP) also critici-zed Iglesias’s comments. “Journa-lists, like any other group, make mistakes and are not beyond cri-ticism… and anybody who is affec-ted by a news item has the right to

demand a correction and bring the matter before the courts,” it said on Thursday.

“But journalists, like any other pro-fessional collective, also demand respect. Mockery, sarcasm and ri-dicule toward reporters are intoler-able in an open, free, democratic society,” it said, pointing out that Iglesias has mocked journalists at press conferences before, even re-ferring to the way they dress, as was the case recently with Ana Rome-ro of new online daily El Español. Like Correa, Iglesias believes that media regulation is necessary because “information management cannot depend solely on business-men and their will to allow free-dom of expression.

I

POLITICS

Congressional speaker will hand him list of politicians ready to discuss the investiture vote

Felipe VI, King of Spain prepares to meet with all political leaders in a last bid to avert the elections

King Felipe VI will make one last call to Spain’s political leaders to see if there is a chance of averting a fresh general election.It will be the third time that the Spanish mon-arch has met with the country’s top politicians over the issue of who will be the next prime minister.

On Thursday, congressional spea-ker Patxi López will hand him a list of politicians who have expressed a desire to meet with the king. The head of state will tell the congres-sional speaker whether it makes sense to attempt a third investiture vote The royal palace will then draw up an agenda of meetings


due to take place on April 25 and 26. The order will depend on each party’s parliamentary representati-on, from highest to lowest. At each of the last two rounds, there were 14 meetings altogether.

Afterwards, the head of state will tell the congressional speaker whether it makes sense to attempt a third investiture vote, or whether new elections are the only way out of the political impasse. So far, there is no indication that a deal is forthcoming, and there are no scheduled meetings between poli-tical leaders between now and also in the next week.

Four months of gridlockFollowing the inconclusive vote of December 20, which yielded a hung parliament, cross-party talks to build a coalition or a minority government have been fruitless. As per Spanish legislation, the monarch met with party leaders and asked two of them to submit to a congressional vote to name a new prime minister, based on their results at the polls. The first, Ma-riano Rajoy of the Popular Party (PP), refused on the basis that he lacked sufficient support from other parties. The second, Pedro Sánchez tried and failed. Now,

with a deadline looming for the dis-solution of parliament and a new call to the polling stations, Felipe VI will try to determine if there is another last-minute candidate with enough congressional backing for a successful office run. Now, with a deadline looming for the dissoluti-on of parliament and a new call to the polling stations, Felipe VI will try to determine if there is another last-minute candidate with enough congressional backing for a suc-cessful office run.

The deadline for reaching a last-mi-nute deal is May 2. If a nominee does step up with the majority.

JAVIER SORIANO - King Felipe VI will meet political leaders on April 25 and 26

„ The head of

state will tell the congressional

speaker whether it

makes sense to attempt a third investiture vote

POLITICS


A new survey of Spani-sh voters shows that holding a fresh electi-on would result in lo-wer turnout and hurt

the anti-austerity party Podemos. New poll shows that Ciudadanos, the other emerging party, could be-nefit from voter weariness

Participation at the inconclusi-ve election of December 20 was 73.18%, short of the historical re-cord of 73.7% achieved in 2004. And if citizens are asked to return to the polls in June as a result of political leaders’ inability to reach governing deals, turnout could drop to 69%, according to a sur-vey conducted by the polling firm Metroscopia. Voter loyalty for Po-demos is is the lowest of the four main parties, the poll shows.“The decline in turnout, and therefore abstention, may be the result of

New poll shows that Ciudadanos political party, could benefit itself from voter weariness

A fresh election would yield lower turnout and hurt Podemos benefiting Ciudadanos the other new party


A fresh election in Spain would li-kely yield lower voter turnout and benefit the acting government of the Popular Party (PP), a new opi-nion survey shows.

Frustrated Spaniards who have watched political parties fail to re-ach governing deals since the in-conclusive election of December 20 are less motivated to go vote again, according to an analysis for EL PAÍS by polling firm Metros-copia. Supporters of the conserva-tive PP, however, seem more mo-tivated than others to return to the polling stations in late June – when a hypothetical new election would take place if a deal is not reached by May 2. This could play in the PP’s favor, increasing its lead over other groups in Congress, where it

holds 123 seats compared with 90 for the Socialists, 65 for Podemos and 40 for Ciudadanos.

In general, Spaniards feel that the political situation is even worse than the economic one, despite the recent crisis that shook the founda-tions of society. After 100 days of deadlock, 94% of respondents said they were unhappy about the politi-cal scenario, 17 points higher than those unhappy with the economic situation. However, the April sur-vey also shows that 70% of Spani-ards are glad about the emergence of new parties that have broken the old system by which the PP and the Socialists simply took turns in pow-er for the last 40 years. A majority of citizens, 64%, feels that parties should make concessions in order

to reach a governing deal that will break the current stalemate. But 76% also think that parties are not up to the task, and that there will ultimately be a fresh election on June 26. Eighty-five percent of re-spondents said the PP was not ma-king enough efforts to reach deals, while 75% felt the same way about Podemos, 56% about the Socialist Party and 28% about Ciudadanos.

Another recent survey shows that a new election would not break the political stalemate, and that poli-tical leaders would once again be forced to reach cross-party deals. Mariano Rajoy also accused the Socialist leader of misleading the king, suggesting that Felipe VI had allowed himself to be tricked by Pedro Sánchez.

Frustration over a fresh election would benefit Popular Party of Mariano Rajoy , survey showsVoters are angry at parties’ inability to reach deals, yet happy with gone system


three factors,” notes Ángel Valen-cia, a professor of political science at Málaga University.

“On one hand, there’s been a very intense political cycle in which citi-zens have had to vote too much in very little time, and this may cause weariness among voters,” he says, alluding to the local, regional and general elections that were held in 2015.

“Secondly, abstention hits the left harder, and the current fragmenta-tion of the left, added to its failure to form a government, are favoring this trend,” adds Valencia. “Fi-nally, it could be a way to punish parties for their inability to reach deals and form a government. It looks like the hopefulness over the new leaders, the new way of doing politics, has waned.” Spain’s two emerging parties, Podemos and

Ciudadanos, took Spanish politics by storm in 2015 with promises of radical change to the “old” way of doing politics.

They called on citizens to help them break the two-party system by which the Popular Party (PP) and Soci-alist Party ( P S O E ) simply took turns in go-vernment.Span i a rd s obliged, but turnout was not quite what either party had been hoping for, and neither Podemos nor Ciudadanos achieved the kind of congressional presence – 69 and 40 seats, respec-tively – that polls had been sugge-sting.

Since then, political leaders have been scrambling to make deals that will give them enough of a majority, but efforts have so far proven fru-itless.

The PP, which holds the most se-ats (123), has been at the helm of

a caretaker g o v e r n -ment since December, but their deadline is fast appro-aching. If no alliances are reached by May 2,

parliament will be dissolved and fresh elections called for June 26.

The new poll shows that if this hap-pens, the lower turnout will favor the PP and Ciudadanos because

their voters are more faithful and more willing to go back to the polling stations, says José Pab-lo Ferrándiz, chief researcher at Metroscopia.“The percentage of potential Podemos voters who say they will vote with all certainty in new elections is also very high, but not so the party’s voter loyal-ty, which is the lowest of the four main parties.” 70% of proporsals accepted following a fruitless three-way meeting between the Socialist Party (PSOE), Podemos and Ciu-dadanos on Thursday of last week, the PSOE has released a statement saying that it accepts 70% of the an-ti-austerity party’s proposals for a governing deal.

At the meeting, Podemos insis-ted on including two issues that it knew would never be accepted by the two other parties at the table: Catalonia’s right to a referendum.

ULY MARTÍN - Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera (far right) observes Podemos chief Pablo Iglesias (far left) in Congress.

PARTICIPATION AT THE ELECTION OF DECEMBER 20 WAS 73.18%, SHORT OF THE

HISTORICAL RECORD

he central and Catalan governments picked up relations again on Wednesday after ne-arly a two-year hiatus. Spanish acting Prime

Minister Mariano Rajoy and Ca-talan premier Carles Puigdemont met in Madrid on friendly terms, but came away without having found much common ground. Both men are fundamentally op-posed over the Catalan nationa-lists’ desire to hold a referendum on self-rule, which Madrid consi-ders illegal. “Without law, there is no democracy,” said Rajoy of the Popular Party (PP), echoing a posi-tion he has long held.

No surprisePuigdemont did not seem shocked at the outcome.“It is no surprise to say that there was no agreement. I didn’t expect any other kind of re-action, because we are separated by an abyss,” said Puigdemont, who rose to the premiership in an ele-venth-hour assembly vote in Janu-ary of this year, three months after

Madrid-Barcelona talks had been on hold for nearly two years, but little progress come

T

Friendly meeting between Spanish Prime Minister and Catalan leader clouded by independence in Madrid


Spaniards awoke on Monday to a new week of stalled talks on the is-sue of who is going to be the coun-try’s next prime minister. After an inconclusive election on December 20 that yielded a hung parliament, a series of failed attempts at coali-tion-building, and an unsuccessful bid for office by Socialist leader Pe-dro Sánchez, who was defeated in both rounds of the investiture vote, the hope now is that one party’s crisis may be another group’s ticket to the top.

The Socialist Party (PSOE), which once tried to build a “coalition of progress” with other leftist forces but failed to enlist the necessary support from Podemos, is now ho-ping that the anti-austerity party’s internal crisis will make it recon-sider its positi-on. Specifically, PSOE leaders hope that Pablo Iglesias and his team will chan-ge their “no” to Sánchez into an abstention, thus paving the way for the Socialist chief to become prime minister.

The Socialists earned 90 seats at the Decem-ber election, far from the 176 required for an overall congres-sional majority. Since then, they have been cour-ting Podemos (69), the reform party Ciudadanos (40) and smaller regional groups in order to reach that figure.

So far, Sánchez has only managed an alliance with Ciudadanos and with the Canaries Coalition (one seat). Meanwhile, the conservative Popular Party (PP) secured 123 seats in December, but has failed to find backers for a renewed term for acting prime minister Mariano Rajoy – who has not even tried to bid for the post.

If no progress is made in the co-ming weeks, Spain will face a fresh election in late June. But with polls

Socialist Party confident divisions in Podemos will deliver the abstentionParty leader of Podemos refu-ses to back to PSOE chief’s PM bid sees him lose most ground in Metroscopia poll

Mercedes PeñaMadrid 14 MAR 2016

EUROPA PRESS PHOTO - Mariano Rajoy and Carles Puigdemont at La Moncloa

„ Several leading pro-Podemos figures have

recently spoken up regar-ding the conve-

nience of getting closer to the

Socialists

Catalans had gone to the polls. His predecessor, Artur Mas, had main-tained a similar verbal confrontati-on with Rajoy during his own term in office, which was marked by an informal independence referend-um held on November 9, 2014. Rajoy held his last meeting with Mas in late July 2014.

All contact was severed after that, and the Catalan premier, who had held moderately nationalist views, fully embraced the independence movement from that point onward. By the time Mas was replaced at the helm of the Catalan government by Puigdemont (after failing to secure enough parliamentary support to get himself reinstated, a position that Rajoy now finds himself in at the national level) relations were so strained that even a telephone con-versation was out of the question.

On Wednesday, Rajoy and Puigd-mont chatted for more than two hours inside La Moncloa palace’s Tapies room, a space usually re-served for top authorities. Rajoy

also gave a press conference after-wards, something he had not done for over a month. His speech was dotted with expressions such as “dialogue,” “working together” and “together, we are all winners.”

Enduring differencesBut the public overtures of friends-hip could not disguise the enduring differences between both men. “We support the idea that Catalo-nia is part of the country Spain and, like the vast majority of Spaniards, we feel like this way and we wish for us to stay together and be a uni-ty,” said Rajoy. “We are going to defend this political and personal position.”

Puigdemont, for his part, handed Rajoy a document with 46 de-mands, twice as many as Mas had brought to Madrid in July 2014. He insisted that he plans to take Catalonia “to the doors of indepen-dence,” but left room for dialogue. The Catalan premier admitted that Rajoy had “listened” to all his pro-posals, but refussing agreements.

showing that Podemos would fare worse, Socialist leaders are hoping that Iglesias will try to avoid a new ballot, and accept to abstain in or-der to let Sánchez govern while retaining his own current congres-sional muscle.

Recent conflicts within Podemos’s federal leadership, combined with a chance that regional groups that ran with Podemos in December would run independently in a fresh election, are revealing a new we-akness in a party where there is a growing rift between supporters of leader Pablo Iglesias and adherents of his number two official, Íñigo Errejón.

Also, several leading pro-Podemos figures have recently spoken up

regarding the convenience of getting closer to the Socialists. Madrid Mayor Manuela Car-mena, whose Ahora Madrid alliance inclu-des Podemos, has talked about a hypothetical investiture deal between the PSOE, Pode-mos and Ciuda-danos in order to eject the PP from power.

But so far, Po-demos is refu-sing to join any alliance that in-cludes Spain’s

other newcomer party, Ciudada-nos. The investiture debate in early March yielded one clear winner: Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera. A survey by Metroscopia for EL PAÍS found that voters saw him as the political leader with the greatest ability to reach across the aisle and the most constructive rhetoric.

Meanwhile, Podemos leader Pab-lo Iglesias suffered because of his aggressive tone at the debate, and could lose third place to Ciudada-nos in a hypothetical new electi-on. The survey shows that the PP would obtain a similar result, as would the Socialists.

POLITICS POLITICS


Spanish king confirms that no nominee has enough support to stand for prime minister

Candidates play blame game as deadline for new election approaches

fter his la-test meetings with political leaders, King Felipe VI on Tuesday con-firmed that

there is no candidate with enough support to become the next prime minister of Spain. Following con-stitutional law, the monarch will

announce the dissolution of parli-ament next Tuesday, and call new elections for late June.

There is still an outside chance that parties might cobble together a last-minute deal before the May 2 deadline, but that possibility seems increasingly remote after four months of fruitless talks. There is a recent precedent in Ca-

talonia, where an 11th-hour deal averted a fresh regional election. Somebody, in fact, tried a similar move on Tuesday: Compromís, a regional group from Valencia, put forward a late proposal for a leftist coalition, but neither that nor the Socialist Party’s counter-offer of a government made up of indepen-dents managed to gain any traction. The Constitution establishes that

Leslie Anne PreißmannMadrid 1 ABR 2016

ANGEL DIAS - Spanish King Felipe VI on Tuesday, during his second day of meetings with political leaders.

parliament shall be dissolved two months after the first investiture vote. On March 2, Socialist lea-der Pedro Sánchez unsuccessfully stood for the prime minister’s seat in a congressional vote, attracting the sole support of the emerging Ciudadanos and the small Canari-es Coalition.

The deadline expires on midnight of May 2, and it will be the first time in Spain’s 40 years of democratic history that a general election has to be called anew.

Following his meeting with Felipe VI on Tuesday afternoon, Sán-chez said that the king asked him to relay a recommendation to all parties: to “look forward,” avoid “a recrimination campaign” and try to discuss proposals “for the future” that the country needs. The new race will likely begin on June 10, elections be held on June 26, and a new parliament constituted on July 20. But recriminations were alrea-dy on display late on Tuesday.

Mariano Rajoy, leader of the Po-pular Party (PP), which earned the most votes at the December 20 election but fell well short of an overall majority, reaffirmed his idea that what Spain needs is a grand coalition between his party and the Socialists, but that Sánchez is to blame for his refusal to accept.

In Rajoy’s view, such an alliance – which could also include Ciu-dadanos, representing more than

200 seats in Congress out of 350 – would send out a strong messa-ge of stability to the outside world, and facilitate the kind of sweeping reforms that Spain needs. It would be a “reasonable and coherent” go-vernment that would bring “mode-ration, stability and peace of mind” to the nation. By comparison, all of the Socialists’ attempts at building alternative coalitions have been “a merry-go-round of quaint ideas.”

Despite his complete lack of sup-port from other parties, Rajoy is not considering stepping aside to let another conservative nominee take his place.

Meanwhile, Socialist leader Sán-chez also reaffirmed his own desire to keep the PP and the regional na-tionalists out of any future deal he might reach during the upcoming race for La Moncloa.

“I always said that I would not let the government of Spain rest on political forces that want to break up Spain,” he said. “I will not be counting on them. After June 26, I will not negotiate with the PP or with the separatists.”

Sánchez also played the blame game, signaling out the anti-aus-terity Podemos for failing to sup-port him. “There are going to be new elections because Podemos’s hardline faction has won,” he said. “[Pablo] Iglesias never wanted to see a Socialist prime minister in office.”

FRANCISCO SECO - Spain‘s Socialist Party leader Pedro Sanchez attends a news conference after his meeting with Felipe VI.

A

ECONOMY

Uneven impact of the downturn and a 2012 tax amnesty could explain rise in large fortunes

Despite the economic crisis, Spain has more multimillionaires than ever


In the aftermath of a crippling economic crisis that sent unem-ployment in Spain soaring to over 27%, it has emerged that the coun-try now has more multimillionaires than ever before.

But it is hard to determine whether this is mostly due to the uneven impact of the crisis, or to the 2012 tax amnesty that encouraged many wealthy individuals to declare their previously concealed fortunes.

New figures released on Tuesday by the Tax Agency show that 471 individuals declared assets of over 30 million Euro in 2013, more than twice as many as were on re-cord in 2007, right before the eco-nomic downturn.

There is an additional considerati-on when analyzing the Tax Agency figures: they only reflect the we-alth that is being lawfully declared. Taking fraud, tax avoidance and non-taxable assets into account, the

real number of multi-millionaire Spaniards could be even higher.Earlier reports by Eurostat and the Organization for Economic

SAMUEL ARANDA - A shopper in Marbella, a hotspot for Spanish and international fortunes.

ECONOMY

Cooperation and Development (OECD) had already established that the crisis has significantly wide-ned the gap between rich and poor

in Spain. This inequality rose on a par with the rise in joblessness and the number of families at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

Tax amnestyIn 2012, the Popular Party (PP) government offered a tax amnes-ty that allowed individuals to start declaring previously concealed fortunes in exchange for low fines and very few explanations. The in-itiative shed light on approximately 40 billion Euro that the state had been unaware of.

In 2013, there was a significant rise in the number of taxpayers who declared more than 6 million Euro. There were 471 individuals who declared assets worth more than 30 Euro million.

There was also a record number of taxpayers declaring between 6 Euro million and 30 million Euro (5,469 people) and those declaring etween 1.5 million Euro and 6 mil-

lion Euro (48,742). But these figu-res only reflect individuals’ taxable income after deducting debt and non-taxable assets, such as part of the value of their primary residen-ce as well as many other deductible items.

Madrid attracts the wealthyMadrid residents top the list of wealthy taxpayers with an avera-ge fortune of 8.17 million Euros, compared with the national avera-ge of 3.01 million Euros (this figure does not include Navarre and the Basque Country, whose residents do not directly pay taxes to the state, but to their regional govern-ments instead).

The second position is claimed by Galicia with 4.1 million Euros. This might be influenced by the fact that Galicia is home to Aman-cio Ortega, founder of the Zara clothing empire and the richest man in Spain (although many of his assets are, in fact, non-taxable).


he Spanish economy is slowing down. At least, that is the latest forecast from the Bank of Spain, which does not believe the government’s asser-

tion that gross domestic product (GDP) will continue to grow at a pace of around 3% this year and the next.“In Spain, the information available is consistent with a gradu-al, moderate slowdown in activity from the high pace of expansion sustained throughout 2015,” reads the central bank’s quarterly econo-mic report, released on Friday.

The report authors also note that even though their downward re-vision to 2.7% is moderate, “the balance of risks surrounding this baseline scenario has worsened considerably in recent months. Chief among these risks is political

New quarterly report forecasts growth, but not at the pace expected by the government

T

ÁLVARO RUIZ FRAILE - BANCO DE ESPAÑA

MARÍA TERESA MÓSTOLES - Santander Bank Univerity Carlos III

Bank of Spain warns about impact of political uncertainty on the economy


Falling revenues and greater use of online and mobile banking have led Banco Santander to announce layoffs and the closure of 425 bran-ches in Spain, representing 10% of the total in the country.

Bank officials said the exact num-ber of firings has not been decided yet. Some unions are estimating that figure to be somewhere bet-

ween 850 and 1,100 people. The move is part of a network reorga-nization by Santander, which plans to have 1,000 large branches with around eight employees in each

one within three years. This year, Santander plans to have 350 such offices up and running. Some of the employees from the closing branches will be transferred to the bigger premises, said the lender.

Santander told the unions that it is trying to eliminate the smaller branches that only perform me-chanical transactions, as customers increasingly do that on their com-puters and mobile devices. The lender wants to move employees to bigger branches that will focus on providing clients with personal advice, and create more oppor-tunities for selling them complex products with higher commissions for the spanish santander bank in Madrid.

This type of large bank branch is commonplace in other European countries, particularly in Germany. Some union sources said that the move also aims to bring in fresh

Santander to close 425 branches and lay off workersLender is reorganizing network due to greater use of online and mobile banking by clients

Leslie Anne Preißmann1 ABR 2016

blood at the staff and management levels. In 2014, Santander offered early retirement to 2,011 emplo-yees, most of whom were branch

workers. The Spanish group has been led by Ana Botín ever since her father, Emilio Botín, died in September of that year.

This type of large bank branch is commonpla-ce in other European

countries, particularly in Germany

uncertainty, said the central lender. This concern mirrors misgivings by the European Commission regar-ding the stalemate in Spain, which is yet to name a new prime minister following inconclusive elections in December.“Doubts over the fu-ture course of economic policies may have a negative bearing on private agents’ spending decisions, especially if the current situation of uncertainty extends over time,” says the report, which is part of the Bank of Spain’s Economic Bulle-tin.

The report also makes a note of geopolitical and financial market tensions at the international le-vel, which could have an impact on Spain’s economy. In line with Brussels, the Bank of Spain is re-commending that the country do more to balance its accounts and contain spending.

“These developments highlight the need for economic policies to give priority both to seeing through fiscal consolidation, which is es-sential for maintaining confidence, and to persevering with the appli-cation of structural reforms that re-duce the vulnerabilities of the Spa-nish economy and enable its future growth capacity to be enhanced.” If confirmed, the expected slowdown in economic growth will represent an added difficulty in the quest to reduce Spain’s public deficit from 5.2% of GDP in 2015.

Doubts over the future course of economic

policies may have a negative be-aring on private

agents’ spending decisions

(Bank of Spain quarterly report)

ECONOMY

European Commission raises economic expansion to 2.8% in 2016 and 2.5% in 2017

Brussels forecasts more growth but higher deficit for Spain

The good news is that the Spanish economy will grow at a faster clip. The bad news is that the country will increasingly fall shy of its bud-get deficit targets. The European Union’s Winter Economic Fo-recast, to which EL PAÍS has had access, predicts that Spanish GDP will grow 2.8% this year and 2.5% in 2017, a little higher than Brus-sels had forecast three months ago. But when it comes to the budget deficit, the European Commissi-on is talking about 3.6% of GDP for 2016 and 3% for 2017, which would force the next Spanish go-vernment to cut a further 9 billion Euro in spending unless Brussels gives Spain some leeway with its targets.

“Growth is decelerating smoothly but remains robust,” says the fo-recast, which is key to guiding the

Leslie Anne PreißmannMadrid 2 Feb 2016

economic policies of the next Spa-nish government. Spanish GDP will not keep up last year’s pace of growth of 3.2%, easing down to 2.8% in 2016 and 2.5% in 2017, still significantly above the Europe-an average.

Working in Spain’s favor are low oil prices and extraordinary mea-sures set in place by the European Central Bank, which are offsetting the effects of domestic instability at the political level and the threats to the euro.

Enormous weaknessesDespite the good growth prospects, however, Spain is still showing se-veral enormous weaknesses, inclu-ding an unemployment rate that doubles the European average and will hover around 19% in 2017, even though Brussels underscores

MARÍA TERESA MÓSTOLES - Madrid´s Stock Market

that job creation was “very robust in the second half of 2015.”

Another weak point is Spain’s soa-ring debt levels, which leave the country exposed to outside factors that could create renewed volatility in the financial markets. Brussels believes the incoming goverment of Spain. The administration of acting Prime MInister Mariano Ra-joy, in place since November 2011, has missed all its deficit targets, and Brussels believes that the incoming government will also fall short this year “unless there are changes to economic policy.” EU Commissi-oner Pierre Moscovici, who is pre-senting the forecasts on Thursday, already warned in November that Spain needs a new raft of cuts, especially after a pre-election lo-wering of taxes resulted in reduced revenues for the state.

ECONOMY

Spanish economy grew 3.2% in 2015

While financial markets conti-nue to harbor doubts over global growth, the Spanish economy saw robust expansion in 2015. The National Statistics Institute (INE) on Friday confirmed an estimate advanced by the Bank of Spain a month ago: gross do-mestic product (GDP) grew 3.2% last year, the greatest uptick since 2007, before the crisis hit.

The Spanish economy managed to prolong its upward pace in the final stretch of the year, posting fourth-quarter growth of 0.8% from the previous three months (or 3.5% compared with the last quarter of 2014).

Although the INE will take a few more weeks to provide details of the national accounts in the three months to December 31,

LESLIE ANNE PREISSMANN - People are using their Computers.

4Q growth of 0.8% boosts overall annual expansion to levels not seen since before crisis


the Bank of Spain has already attributed this economic vigor to the strength of private consump-tion and business investments.

The financial regulator also ad-vanced that exports likely have little to do with this growth, as they do not compensate for the surge in imports triggered by higher household and business spending.

Acting finance minister revises Spanish deficit down from 5.2% to 5%Montoro says a reorganization of the EU radio spectrum has yielded extra revenues for state


Six days after Spain announced a public deficit of 5.16%, nearly a full percentage point over the European Union target for the government, acting Finance Mi-nister Cristóbal Montoro has an-nounced that this figure is being revised downward.

The implementation of Europe-an accounting standards affecting revenues from a newly reorgani-zed radio spectrum means added revenues for the Spanish state of 1.6 billion Euro in 2015, said Montoro. As a result, the deficit would now stand at 5% of gross domestic product (GDP).

“There is a new modification,” said Montoro at a congressio-nal committee appearance on Thursday. “It is a methodolo-gy change due to the budgetary consequences of the new use of the radio spectrum that member states have been developing from 2011 to 2015.”

The good news only affects the central government, however we will see, whereas regional and local administration defecits stay the same thats fact. Montoro has blamed Spain’s regions for much of the country’s budget deficit,

and vowed to make them tigh-ten their belt to bring their own shortfall down from 1.66% and closer to their target of 0.7%.

European laws make it man-datory to include in the 2015 accounts the revenues from the 2011 sale of television licenses. This income gets counted now because the sector reshuffle en-ded in 2015. “This means that the deficit that we sent to Eurost-at will be revised downwards,” said Montoro in the interview.

A letter to the regionsTo that effect, the minister has sent a letter to 12 regions who missed their targets last year, inst-ructing them to rein in their pub-lic spending and reminding them of improved financing conditions this year.

He also said that he will create an expert task force to draft a reform of this regional financing system. “We will make a propo-sal for the creation of a commit-tee of experts to start working on cleaning out regional financing. We have reputed experts and we must activate them,” he said in the interview.

CULTURAL SHIFT14 3 MAY 2016 CULTURAL SHIFT 3 MAY 2016 15METROPOLICE METROPOLICE

El País celebrates its 40th anniversaryEL PAÍS is ramping up its 40th anniversary celebrations this week with a program of events that includes a free multi-sensorial exhibition at Madrid’s Palacio de Cibeles.

Álvaro Ruiz2 MAY 2016

El País is ramping up its 40th anniversary from many di-fferent and also attractive kinfs of celebrations this

week with a program of events that includes a free multi-sensorial exhibition at Madrid’s Palacio de Cibeles. The show reviews all the main events of the last four deca-des and showcases its most relevant personalities.Visitors will also have a chance to experience Fukushi-ma, Contaminated Lives, the first virtual reality feature in the history of EL PAÍS. This new format lets viewers explore the effects of the tsunami as though they were at ground zero themselves. Although it opened to the public on Monday, the exhibition will be officially inaugurated on Tuesday and attended by Mayor Manuela Carmena, representatives of the PRISA Group (the parent com-pany of EL PAÍS) and the show’s sponsors. All scheduled events will take pla-ce inside the landmark Palacio de Cibeles. The events will congrega-te lots of assistans from different sector of the Spanish influencuial panorama such as artists, gfilm-makers, actos, architecture, digital developers and, of course, also journalists. Petkoff’s address was the highlight of the 32nd annual Ortega y Gasset Awards, which are handed out by EL PAÍS, and at-tracted a host of personalities from

Samuel Sanchez EL PAÍS - Part of the exhibition at Madrid’s Palacio de Cibeles.

the realms of politics, culture and the economy.

In his opening remarks, EL PAÍS Editor-in-Chief Antonio Caño described journalism as a tool for “getting to know, innovating and re-lating one’s times with bravery and without nostalgia”. That’s the way it is so the director has not focused on any specific topic, but pecial focus was on the presence of for-mer Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González, who accepted Petkoff’s award on his behalf.

Live radioOn Wednesday, May 4, which is the day when EL PAÍS turns 40, the group’s radio network Cade-na SER will broadcast its program Hoy por Hoy from the building’s Caja de Música auditorium.

As usually in the program, the event will also count with the par-ticipation of Pepa Bueno and Gemma Nierga. However, this time, Ignacio Escolar won’t be at-tended the event. The rest of the participants of the program will be attending the event as tghey usually participate in “Hoy por Hoy” pro-gram, from Cadena Ser.

Ortega y Gasset AwardsOn Thursday, King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia will preside the awards ceremony of theOrtega y Gasset journalism awards, which are granted by EL PAÍS. The win-

ners of the 33rd edition are Joseph Zárate for best investigative repor-ting, Lilia Saúl and Ginna More-lo for best multimedia reporting, Samuel Aranda.

Join the conversationThat same afternoon, Manuela Carmena and former High Court judge Baltasar Garzón will partici-pate in one of a series of talks on current issues being organized by

EL PAÍS this year. The newspa-per is asking its readers to join the conversation in an open dialogue based on information, analysis, tolerance, democracy and dignity that González has said that he will travel to Venezuela on May 17 to help in the defense of two jailed opposition leaders despite the fact that the country’s lawmakers have officially declared him persona non grata. Also on Friday, alumni

of the UAM-EL PAIS Journalism School will meet at 9pm. More than 1,100 students have trained at the school in the last three decades, and have gone on to become res-pected correspondents, reporters and media executives.

That time will be of reunion from both old and new students so they can share their experiences based on El País.

Illustraton by Moderna de Pueblo; Section by Álvaro Ruiz.

The capital against homophobia: concentration against 2016 assaultsOn April 30, at Puerta del Sol square, hundreds of people got together in order to denounce the 64 homophobic aggressions taking place in Madrid during 2016

It was the afternoon of April 30. Puerta del Sol square got crow-ded by hundreds of people, most of them holding rainbow

flags and signs with messages such as “Zero tolerance to homophobia, transphobia or biphobia”. They all were part of the demonstration created by Arcópoli association and by Madrid’s Observatory against LGTB-phobia, convoked with the purpose of rising up their voice against the aggressions su-ffered by LGTB members during 2016 until now.

In just four months there have been 64 attacks in the Community of Madrid (49 of them in the capi-tal, six through social networks and the rest around towns from the pe-riphery). The concentration took place at 6 pm. It started peacefully

and with no mishaps. At the very first minutes, a long rainbow-colo-red carpet covered the Kilometer Zero of Spain. Lied over it, a big sign with a message written on it appeared: “In order to defend LGTB rights: Stop homophobia, biphobia and transphobia”.

After some whi-le of agitation and noise, a mo-ment of silence emerged: it was time to read the manifest. It was based on a clear demand: the possibility of all kind of people to “develop freely their sexuality and not live inside a clo-set”, because “dark times have al-ready passed”.

The manifest also encouraged everyone to rise up against any

kind of aggressions for sexuality re-asons, as well as against any kind of phobia. “Let’s not be quiet in front of aggressions, we have to stand up against it so the aggressors do not go unpunished”, the manifest-rea-der shouted in front of the audien-

ce. In a moment of the concentration, all the crowd got united to enumerate all the victims that have suffe-red from homophobic aggressions during this year. They all counted, one by one, from 1 to 64 in order to show a

visible support to all of the assaul-ted.

Diverse political presenceApart from the organizers, mem-bers of the associations and citizens shouting against LGTB-phobia at-tacks, there was also a great and

diverse political presence of re-presentatives from many different parties like Ciudadanos, PSOE, Podemos or UPD.

Ciudadanos was represented by Begoña Villacís, the C’s spokesper-son at Madrid Town Hall, and the deputies Marta Rivera and Tomás Marcos. Enrique Rico, secretary of organization of the socialist party in Madrid, also joined the event. Po-demos was represented by Beatriz Gimeno (deputy at the Madrid As-sembly) and even UPD took part of the event: his spokesman coun-cil at Las Rozas, Cristiano Brown, was part of the crowd.

Nevertheless, there was no presen-ce from Partido Popular. When the organizers were asked about the absence of the members of this

party, they said that they had been invited, so said it was a shame they did not go. According to the variety of the cases, there is not a specific pattern when committing the ag-gressions. They can vary from be-ing in broad daylight by one aggres-sor in the periphery, or at night, in the very center of the capital and by assaulting groups. However, the city of Madrid presents the highest percentage of the assaults: it has reached 49 of 64.

The center area has been declared danger zone: the highest rate of the aggressions are located in Chueca, Callao, Cibeles, Colón and Alon-so Martínez. When he was asked about the 64 aggressions in the Community of Madrid, he assured that it is a quantity too huge to be-long to 2016.

INCIDENTS PER ZONE IN THE COMMUNITY (Observatory against LGTB-phobia).

“It is not only about safety,

but also integration”

Álvaro Ruiz4 MAY 2016

CULTURAL SHIFT16 3 MAY 2016 CULTURAL SHIFT 3 MAY 2016 17SOCIETY SOCIETY

Even a little air pollution may have long- term health effects on developing fetusEven small amounts of air pollution appear to raise the risk of a condition in pregnant women linked to premature births and lifelong neurological and respiratory disorders in their children.

The researchers found that pregnant women who were exposed to the highest levels of air pollution were nearly twice as likely as those exposed to the lowest levels to have intrauterine inflammation and it appeared that the first trimester might be a time of highest risk.

F ine particles from car ex-haust, power plants and other industrial sources are breathed into the lungs, but the scientists have now found

evidence of the effects of that po-llution in the pregnant women's placentas, the organ that connects her to her fetus and provides blood, oxygen and nutrition. They found that the greater the maternal exposure to air pollution, the more likely the pregnant women suffered from a condition called intrauteri-ne inflammation, which can increa-se the risk of a number of health problems for her child from the fe-tal stage well into childhood in the United States.

The researchers, reporting online April 27 in Environmental Health Perspectives, say the findings add to the growing evidence that the air a pregnant woman breathes could have long-term health consequen-ces for her child and that current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency air pollution standards may not be stringent enough to protect her developing fetus.

"Twenty years ago, we showed that high levels of air pollution led to poor pregnancy outcomes, inclu-

ding premature births. Now we are showing that even small amounts of air pollution appear to have bio-logical effects at the cellular level in pregnant women," says the study's senior author, Xiaobin Wang, MD, ScD, MPH, the Zanvyl Krie-ger Professor and Director of the Center on the Early Life Origins of Disease at Bloomberg School subject.

Says the study's lead author Rebecca Mas-sa Nachman, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Department of Environ-mental in Health Scien-ces at the Bloommberg School: "This study rai-ses the concern that even current standards for air pollution may not be strict enough to protect the fetus, which may be particularly sensitive to environmental factors major holders.

We found biological effects in wo-men exposed to air pollution levels below the EPA standard."For the study, researchers analyzed data from 5,059 mother-child pairs in the Boston Birth Cohort, a pre-dominantly low-income minority

population. They assessed the pre-sence of intrauterine inflammation based on whether the mother had a fever during labor and by looking under a microscope at the placen-ta, which was collected this idea.

They assessed maternal exposure to fine particulate matter air po-

llution using data from EPA air quality the stations located near the mothers' homrues. Bosston, where the wommen lived, it is known as a relatively clean city when it comes to air pollution in the cities, among this. The majority of the women in the study were exposed to air po-llution below the level that EPA deems acceptable, fewer than 12 micrograms per. A subset of 1,588

women were exposed to air pollu-tion at or above the EPA standard.The researchers found that preg-nant women who were exposed to the highest levels of air pollution were nearly twice as likely as tho-se exposed to the lowest levels to have intrauterine inflammation and it appeared that the first tri-

mester might be a time of highest risk. These re-sults held up even when researchers accounted for factors including smoking, age, obesity and education levels of the pollution in Spain, yeah.

Intrauterine inflammation is one of the leading cau-ses of premature birth, which occurs in one of every nine births in the United States and one in

six African-American births, the researchers say. Babies born pre-maturely can have lifelong deve-lopmental problems. Researchers have linked preterm birth to both autism and asthma.

While maternal exposure to air pollution during pregnancy is as-sociated with adverse birth out-comes, the biological mechanism

has not been well understood this idea, you know. There are few outward signs of intrauterine in-flammation in most women. But the researchers say that the pla-centa - which is typically discarded after birth - offered vital clues to the condition and could be the source of other important health information in the new era.

The evidence comes in the form of tiny glassy spheres, less than one-hundredth the width of a human hair, discovered at the Great Plains of Oklahoma after a rainstorm and put under scrutiny by scientists at several U.S. De-partment of Energy facilities. The study appears May 2 in Nature Geoscience in the USA.

According to the authors, scien-tists have largely assumed that or-ganic particles from the soil enter the air through erosion by wind or through agricultural work. The effects of rain splash haven’t been part of the discussion of the idea of pollution. But the team’s field observations indicate that up to 60 percent of particles that are air-borne after a rainstorm in certain areas, such as grasslands and tilled fields, come from the soil.

“The placenta may be a window into what is

going on in terms of early life exposure and what it means for future health

problems"

Anti-Vaccine Parents Were Found Guilty in the Death of Their ToddlerThe parents, whose preference for natural remedies over traditional medicine is said to have caused the child’s death, could spend up to five years in jail.

David and Collet Stephan were charged a year after their 19-month old son Ezekiel died in March,

2012. The six-week trial concluded on Monday, with the jury, who were instructed by the judge not to make their decisions based on “sympathy, prejudice or fear,” wrapping up deliberations in Lethbridge, Alberta in just two days.

The Stephans will be back in court on June 13, when a date will be set for their sentencing in the Unitd States. During the trial, the defence painted the couple as responsible parents who weren’t aware of how ill their son was, while the Crown argued that the Stephans didn’t do enough to make sure he received the medical care he needed in order to survive. Ezekiel had already been sick for over two weeks with what his parents believed was croup and the flu when suddenly he stopped breathing, prompting his parents to call an ambulance because he was deying.

Up until that point, they had been treating him with natural remedies like smoothies with hot peppers, garlic, onions, and horseradish, the Canadian Press reported. Ezekiel was airlifted to a Calgary hospital, where he was on life support for five days before being taken off. After a family friend, who is also a registered nurse, told the couple Ezekiel likely had meningitis, Collette researched the disease online and concluded that it was likely viral version, and not the more serious bacterial version. The court heard she then bought an echinacea mixture to treat him, The Canadian Press reported abut the issue.

The vaccinesAccording to the official death report, however, the toddler had been suffering bacterial meningitis and neurological dysfunction in the child, the day before he stopped breathing, the toddler had to lie on a mattress while travelling to a naturopath’s office because he was too stiff to sit in a car seat, in his parents car. But defence lawyer Shawn Buckley said during closing arguments that not a single witness called by either side who had seen the little boy before he was taken to hospital thought he needed immediate medical attention, the Canadian Press reported.

The Stephans have said they were shocked by the charges, which they believe were laid because the Crown wanted to make an example of them for not vaccinating their kids. Ezekiel had never been vaccinated, and neither have the Stephans’ three other children because of their parents. Natasha

Devon, the government’s mental health champion in England and Wales, warns of ‘medicalising childhood’. The crisis in children’s mental health is far worse than most people suspect and we are in danger of “medicalising childhood” by focussing on symptoms rather than causes, the government’s mental health champion for schools has warned, who said latest research.

Natasha Devon, who has been working in schools for almost a decade delivering mental health and wellbeing classes, said an average of three children in a class were diagnosed with a mental illness, but many more slipped under the radar. Devon, who founded the Self-Esteem Team, was appointed by the government to look into young people’s mental health and find out what a good school support system looks like.

The judgment“The question we should be

asking ourselves is what are the emotional and mental health needs of all children and are they being met in our schools?” she said.She is due to deliver her report to government later this year, and some of it may be uncomfortable reading – in particular her criticism of the academic pressures on young people as a result of the testing regime.

In a speech on Thursday to the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, which represents headteachers of independent schools, she said: “Time and time again over recent years young people have spoken out about how a rigorous culture of testing and academic pressure is detrimental to their mental health. “At one end of the scale we’ve got four-year-olds being tested, at the other end of the scale we’ve got teenagers leaving school and facing the prospect of leaving university with record amounts of debt. Anxiety is the fastest growing illness in under 21s. These things are not a coincidence.”

Devon expressed particular concern about the independent school sector where she said the “the pressure to achieve is sometimes more rigorous”, but she stressed it was an issue that affected all schools across the board. The conference was told that though drinking, smoking, drug taking and teenage pregnancy were down among young people, rates of depression and anxiety have increased by 70% in a generation, admissions to hospital as a result of self-harm have doubled in four years and calls to the counselling service ChildLine about exam stress have tripled.

Lucía Gómez AguilarMadrid 2 May 2016

Lucía Gómez AguilarMadrid 2 May 2016

CULTURAL SHIFT18 3 MAY 2016 CULTURAL SHIFT 3 MAY 2016 19SPORTS SPORTS

Hillsborough disaster: deadly mistakes and lies that lasted for decadesAs the longest inquest in British legal history unfolded, a picture emerged of a callous-ly negligent police force led by an inexperienced commander whose actions directly led to the deaths of 96 people

t was a year into these in-quests, and 26 years since David Duckenfield, as a South Yorkshire police chief superintendent, took command of the FA Cup

semi-final at Hillsborough between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, that he finally, devastatingly, ad-mitted his serious failures directly caused the deaths of 96 people there in the stadium back when it happen.

Duckenfield had arrived at the con-verted courtroom in Warrington with traces of his former authority, but over seven airless, agonisingly tense days in the witness box last March, he was steadily worn down, surrendering slowly into a crum-pled heap and leap in the stadium that day of sadness really. From his concession that he had inadequate experience to oversee the safety of 54,000 people, to finally accepting responsibility for the deaths, Duck-enfield’s admissions were shockin-gly complete for his autonomy.

He also admitted at the inquests that even as the event was descen-ding into horror and death, he had infamously lied, telling Graham

Kelly, then secretary of the Footba-ll Association, that Liverpool fans were to blame, for gaining unau-thorised entry through a large exit gate near the rear door.

Duckenfield had in fact himself ordered the gate to be opened, to relieve a crush in the bottleneck approach to the Leppings Lane turnstiles. The chief constable, Peter Wright, had to state that eve-ning that police had authorised the opening of the gate, but as these in-quests, at two years the longest jury case in British.

Heard in voluminous detail, Duc-kenfield’s lie endured. It set the template for the South Yorkshire police stance: and instead to vi-rulently project blame on to the people who had paid to attend a football match and been plunged into hell, not at all. The evidence built into a startling indictment of South Yorkshire police, their chain of command and conduct – a re-lentlessly detailed evisceration of a British police force war and chaos.

Responsible for an English coun-ty at the jeans-and-trainers end of the 1980s, the force had brutally

policed the miners’ strike, and was described by some of its own former officers as “regimented”, with morning parade and saluting of officers, ruled by “an iron fist” institutionally unable to admit it, yes a chaos no one could afford. The dominance of Wright, a de-corated career police officer who died in 2011, loomed over the ca-tastrophe. He was depicted as a fri-ghteningly authoritarian figure who treated the force “like his own per-sonal territory” and whose orders nobody – tragically – dared debate next week in Pool.

The families of those killed in the “pens” of Hillsborough’s Leppings Lane terrace, who have had to fight 27 years for justice and accounta-bility, recalled the appalling way the South Yorkshire police trea-ted them, even when breaking the news of loved ones’ deaths and lo-ved ones, too.

Hillsborough StadiumRelatives and survivors recalled indifference, even hostility, in the unfolding horror although the fa-milies’ lawyers thanked individual officers who did their valiant best to help victims and their relatives,

yes. Then there was the unspeaka-bly heartless identification process in the football club gymnasium, af-ter which CID officers immediate-ly grilled families about how much they and their dead loved ones had had to drink and push them away from the grades.

The families, and many survivors, spoke up in the witness box at the-se inquests to reclaim the good na-mes of the people, mostly young, who went to Hillsborough that sun-ny April day, to watch Kenny Dal-glish’s brilliant Liverpool team that came from behind. The overwhel-ming evidence, shown in BBC co-lour footage of the horrific scene, contrary to the lurid, defamatory tales spun afterwards by the police, was of Liverpool supporters heroi-cally helping the relatives away.

The “fans” – a label too often applied to depict a dehumanised mob – included doctors, nurses and police officers, alongside sco-res of people with no medical training who, fought instinctively to save lives. They came from all walks of life: working-class, midd-le-class, wealthy, hard-up, from Liverpool, the Midlands, London

Liverpool dealt sucker- punch at the last by Villarreal’s Adrían López

1 - 0

This time Liverpool took the stoppage time sucker-punch. The Europa League semi-final had been Borussia Dortmund in reverse – devoid of the dra-ma, incident and sense of oc-casion that made for that ex-traordinary quarter-final – when Villarreal conjured a similarity that Jürgen Klopp could have done without. Adrián López’s 92nd-minute winner leaves Li-verpool in need of another An-field recovery next week.

“We were lucky enough to score,” said Marcelino, the Vi-llarreal coach. “But it was not an unfair result.” Klopp viewed it through a different lens. His team had produced a resolute, disciplined and patient Euro-pean away display to remain on course for the final in Basel, Europa League success and qualification for the Champions League but it was undermined by one disorganised moment and precise counter-attack.

Sevilla score twice at Shakhtar Donetsk to edge Europa League semi-final

2 - 2

Sevilla stayed on course for a third successive Europa Lea-gue title by claiming a 2-2 draw against Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine in the first leg of their semi-final.Unai Emery’s side are looking to become the first to win a major European com-petition three years in a row since Bayern Munich 40 years ago in the same area round the Anfield ground.

THE GUARDIAN - Fans climbing to the second level of the stadium after the disaster started.

THE GUARDIAN - Villareal scored a late winner to ensure them a win at Anfield

Alvonso MartinezMadrid 2 May 2016

Alvonso MartinezMadrid 2 May 2016

THE GUARDIAN - Sevilla score to ensure them a dras against Shaktar Donetsk

ICynthia Serna - LiverpoolMadrid 2 May 2016

The road to RIO 2016: how the key olimpic sports are shaping upFrom athletics to tennis, we give verdict on how compe-titors are working towards their medal goals for the Rio Olympic Games this summer

Bernie Ecclestone’s controversial views on women in Formula One could be preventing female drivers from being given a chance in the pinnacle of motorsport, according to British hopeful Alice Powell.

Ecclestone, the sport’s chief executive, this week reiterated his opinion that women are not physically able to drive F1 cars and would “not be taken se-riously”, promp-ting an outcry for the races that go forward. Bri-tish driver Pippa Mann, who has raced four times in the Indianapolis 500, and is also a race winner in the US Indy Li-ghts, hit out on social media, while Powell said Ecclestone’s stance is putting up barriers to female entry in Formmula One.

The 23-year-old, star from Chi-pping Norton, in Oxfordshire, is came close to racing with Cater-

ham in Abu Dhabi in 2014, and competed in the MRF Challenge Formula 2000 Championship last season at Formula.“I’m sure it will happen, but these comments from Bernie don’t help and they could

put off sponsors when a quick female does come along the

path yired. “Someone defi-nitely needs to prove him wrong. Racing drivers are

racing drivers and we know what the expec-tations are when we go into the sport. “Bernie’s views aren’t ever going to

change unless a female does make it while he is still in charge.

The first British woman to race in the Indy 500, wrote on Twit-ter: #HereWeGoAgain. Perhas someone should remind him [that IndyCar doesn’t have power steering. She wants to become a Formula One driver, the time will have its say now.

“You should want to be encouraging females, because they do want

to get into F1”

Ecclestone ‘holding back female drivers in Formula 1’

AthleticsMo Farah. Greg Rutherford. Jessi-ca Ennis-Hill. Four years on from London 2012, those familiar na-mes from Super Saturday remain British Athletics’ best hopes of gold in Rio. Farah insists he is in exceptional shape but will be wary of the challenge of the young Ken-yan Geoffrey Kamworor, who beat him at the world half-marathon championships. A recent jump of 8.30m. Ennis-Hill, meanwhile, says she is on track to compete in a warm-up heptathlon in Götzis next month.

CyclingThe world champion Lizzie Ar-mitstead’s supremely dominant spring and strong showing at the championships in London have brought ample momentum going into the summer was more than timely, it was direly needed, and the men’s and women’s team pur-suiters are on track, led by Laura Trott favourite for omnium gold and Ed Clancy, newly recovered from back surgery.

BoxingA record nine boxers are confir-med to in Rio, It is, as performan-ce director of this sport in Rio Rob McCracken says, “a superb achie-vement”.

SwimmingThe mood in the camp is positive following some strong performan-ces at the British Championships, while the European champions-hips in London next month will provide another opportunity. Adam Peaty, the 100m breasts-troke world record holder, is set to lead the charge and continue his intriguing personal duel with South Africa where it will start soon.

GymnasticsIn January, Simon Timson, prai-sed in winning five medals at the world championships last year and there could be more to cheer in Rio games 2016, are you ready to rumble? Claudia Fragapane won four gold medals at the 2014 Com-monwealth Games and will be one to watch, at the world champions-

Cynthia Serna - LiverpoolMadrid 2 May 2016

hips in this past Oc-tober last year toge-ther.

TennisFew sports have more fluid Olympic qualification than tennis, but it’s as nailed on as it can be that Andy Murray will again lead the British charge, in singles and in doubles with his brother, Jamie. He might also play mixed doubles – although it is unsure with whom he will share companionship in the tournament in Brasil.

SailingIn decent shape, with world cham-pionship medals in gold, silver and bronze in five of the 10 Olympic events three of those gold meda-llists.

Finn class, and London 2012 silver medallists Hannah Mills and Sas-kia Clark are also in good form for the games. Britain won five sailing medals at London, with Sir Ben

Ainslie securing the only gold, me-dals overall in these.

RowingExpectation is high after Britain do-minated on the water at Eton Dor-ney in 2012. GB’s rowers won four gold, two silver and three bronze and therefore received the biggest proportion of UK Sport funding – £32.6m between 2013 and 2017. These years will mark the start of something new for them gloves like a Rocky film being live.

COUNTDOWN TO RIO 2016:

days98

DivingHighly encouraging. Although it did not loosen China’s iron grip on the sport, a haul of one gold and three bronze medals at World Championships was good enough for second spot in the medal table. That was backed up by two bronze medals at the Fina World Cup in February, both in the synchronised 10-metre platform for the pairings of Tom Daley and Daniel Good-fellow and Tonia Couch and Sarah Barrow, the latest arrival for GB.

CYNTHIA SERNA - The Rio games are coming up and the stakes are high.

Cynthia Serna - LiverpoolMadrid 2 May 2016

CULTURAL SHIFT20 3 MAY 2016 CULTURAL SHIFT 3 MAY 2016 21CULTURE CULTURE

Five years ago, the Turner prize-winning British ar-tist Martin Creed had an idea – a secret handshake. It wasn’t for just anyone; it

was for his stepdaughter, who was 10 at the time.“We’d go ‘peace, love and understanding’ with these hand signals when we were saying goodbye,” says Creed over the phone from his home in London.He and his stepdaughter would make the peace sign together, where they each lifted one finger.

They’d make a love heart with the shape of their hands over their chests. And then, they’d make a symbol for understanding by waving their hands, as if they were creating brainwaves between two people.Creed calls it “a hippy thing”, but it became a coping mecha-nism for stepfamily awkwardness.

“When I first got to know her, my relationship to her was not clear – am I her dad? Am I not

her dad?” he remembers.“This was a way to try and communica-te with my stepdaughter, but wi-thout saying what it is, in a way.”Now, Creed is taking the word “un-derstanding” from his secret hands-hake and emblazoning it in enor-mous red letters along Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier Six in New York City. Overlooking the East river, the 25ft-tall revolving neon sculptu-re simply says Understanding and is open for interpretation. Created with the Public Art Fund, which puts on major works for all in New York, it ties into Creed’s first US retrospective, which opens at the Park Avenue Armory on 8 June.

Originally meant to be a three-part work, the piece would have read Peace, Love and Understanding, but proved too expensive. Creed had to edit it down. “I ended up thinking, ‘Maybe all you need is understanding,’” the artist said. “Peace and love can go out of the window a little bit, they’re abso-

lute ideals, but understanding is possible because it includes that what is not possible.” The sculp-ture goes beyond his family ex-perience to express his view on the wider political environment.

“I think it has to do with the bloody shit going on in the world at the moment,” Creed says. “It has to do with wars and communicating with people in a way that’s unders-tanding, for lack of a better word.”At the same time, Creed’s sculp-ture is ultimately personal. “I want to be understood,” he says.

“That’s what everybody wants. If we have an understanding of other people, or try to understand them and ourselves, it might help a bit.”Creed has worked in a variety of media, from concepts (his work All the Bells, first performed in Costa Rica and then for the Lon-don Olympics, encourages the po-pulation of a certain place to ring a bell loudly for three minutes) to

paintings. Born in West Yorks-hire but brought up in Glasgow, hence his Scottish accent, he won the Turner in 2001. The installa-tion he showed for the prize ex-hibition was Work No 227: The Lights Going On and Off – an empty room in which precisely that, and nothing else, happened.

Neon signs are an ongoing series for the artist. Sometimes he’s ir-ked, other times he’s inspired – his emotions filter through his glowing neon works. There are the more hopeful works, like Don’t Worry in lemon yellow, and the blazing white phrase Everything is Going to Be Alright, which was hinged at the Hilton in New York’s Times Square back in 2000.

Then there are his more ill-tempe-red pieces, such as Fuck Off, Shit and Whatever, which tie into his punk roots, as Creed is also a musi-cian who is releasing his next album on 8 July called Thoughts Lined Up.

Pausing, he chuckles, as if he has revealed too much. “I don’t know,” he sighs. I can’t help but remember his quirky, self-loathing neon sig-nage, like Feelings, Coconuts and Opium.

“I’m trying to look at the outside world and not trust my own interior world,” he said. “I’m not sure if it’s possible, but I try.” Aside from all this, do Creed and his stepdaugh-ter still do their secret handshake? The artist laughs.“We don’t do that any more,” he said. “She’s 15, so we just say goodbye now. I wouldn’t try to do it because I’d be scared she would give me the brush-off.”

Neon signs are an ongoing series for the artist. Sometimes he’s ir-ked, other times he’s inspired – his emotions filter through his glowing neon works. There are the more hopeful works, like Don’t Worry in lemon yellow, and the blazing white phrase Everything is Going to Be Alright, which was hinged at

the Hilton in New York’s Times Square back in 2000. Then there are his more ill-tempered pieces, such as Fuck Off, Shit and Wha-tever, which tie into his punk roots, as Creed is also a musician who is releasing his next album on 8 July called Thoughts Lined Up. This piece, however, is both philosophi-cal and playful. “It’s a wee bit of a joke that you can stand under un-derstanding,” Creed says.

The rotating sculpture is raised on a platform with stair-like seating to relax by the waterside. As pic-turesque as it is, the color red was chosen as a contrast to all the bri-ght white lights that pepper the city skyline.

“Neon red is one of the most strai-ghtforward colors, it is the color of neon gas,” Creed says. “And yet, red is a danger color.” Hinting as a warning for the danger the world is in, this is the third and largest of his rotating neon sign pieces after

MartinCreed’sWorkNo. 2630 – Understanding. Photograph: Courtesy the artist, Gavin Brown’s enterprise New York/Rome, and Hauser & Wirth/Public Art Fund, NY

I’m trying to look at the outside world and not trust

my own interior world

This piece, however, is both phi-losophical and playful. “It’s a wee bit of a joke that you can stand un-der understanding,” Creed says.--The rotating sculpture is raised on a platform with stair-like seating to relax by the waterside. As pictures-que as it is, the color red was chosen as a contrast to all the bright white lights that pepper the city skyline.

One of the most straightforward co-lors, it is the color of neon gas,” says. “And yet, red is a danger color.”Hinting as a warning for the dan-ger the world is in, this is the third and largest of his rotating neon sign pieces after Work No 1357, Mothers from 2012 and Work No 2070, People from 2014.The artist sees this public sculptu-re as a way to get out of his own narcissism. “I wanted something that looks to the street, rather than creating a wank world of my own,” he says. “I’m aware art ga-lleries are closed off and people create their own fantasy worlds.”

Isabel HernáezMadrid 2 May 2016

„ Work No 1357, Mothers from 2012 and Work No 2070, People from 2014.

The artist sees this public sculpture as a way to get out of his own narcis-sism. “I wanted something that looks to the street, rather originally meant to be a three-part work, the piece would have read Peace, Love and Understanding, but proved too ex-pensive. “I ended up thinking, ‘Ma-ybe all you need is understanding,’” the artist said. “Peace and love can go out of the window a little bit, they’re absolute ideals, but understanding is possible because it includes that what is not possible.”

The sculpture goes beyond his family experience to express his view on the wider political environment. “I think it has to do with the bloody shit going on in the world at the moment,” Creed says. “It has to do with wars and communicating with people in a way that’s understanding, for lack of a better word.”

Artist’s neon sign calls for understanding in New York – and around the world

CULTURAL SHIFT22 3 MAY 2016 CULTURAL SHIFT 3 MAY 2016 23CULTURE OPINION

This election is an unpopularity contest

for the agesThe 2016 presidential election is shaping up as an unpopularity contest of unprecedented propor-tions.Assuming, as now appears most likely, that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomi-nation and that either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz becomes the Republican nominee, the gene-ral-election ballot is set to feature a choice between two candidates more negatively viewed than any major-party nominee in the his-tory of polling.Ruth Marcus is a columnist for

The Post, specializing in Republi-can nominee, the general Ameri-can politics and domestic policy. View Archive Trump is, by far, the furthest underwater: The la-test Wall Street Journal-NBC poll puts his net favorability rating at minus-41. A breathtaking 65 per-cent of registered voters see him negatively, versus 24 percent with a positive view, making him the most unpopular major party pre-sidential candidate ever recorded. Cruz is at minus-23, with 49 per-cent viewing him negatively, 26 percent in a positive light.

To underscore the challenge fa-cing the GOP, neither candidate

Teresa Móstoles19 ABR 2016

ce,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff. History teaches that a new president’s approval rating ri-ses between Election Day and the inauguration. Americans become more charitably disposed to their new leader once the campaign has concluded, if only briefly. Given these bargain basement favorability numbers, will the 45th president enjoy that luxury?

Does presidential popularity even matter in an era of congressional gridlock? Some political scientists think not, citing a shift in the locus of presidential authority away from legislating. “Presidential power is much more no longer the power to persuade,” said Johns Hopkins University political scientist Benja-min Ginsberg.

“Popularity at one time was a ma-jor factor in a president’s ability to govern, but we are in the era of the institutional president, where pre-sidents rely on their administrative powers and the powers of the offi-ce, and less on public opinion.” If Clinton is elected, said Middlebury College political scientist Matthew Dickinson, “the fact that she may be one of the most unfavorably viewed presidents.

ELECTING EITHER CLINTON OR TRUMP WITH THESE TYPE OF

UNFAVORABLE NUM-BERS IMMEDIATELY

MEANS A WEAKENED PRESIDENT

has been viewed more positively than negatively by voters since the start of the campaign.Clin-ton, by contrast, has a healthier (and more volatile) history with voters. Polls showed her favorable slightly ahead of her negati-ves when she formally launched her campaign last April.

But her trajectory is un-nerving. The new WSJ-NBC numbers have Clinton minus-24 (with 56 percent viewing her unfavorably and 32 percent favorably), al-most double the gap just one month earlier.

Why Trump could be a weak candidate in a general election Re-publican front-run-ner Donald Trump says he can’t wait to take on Democra-tic front-runner Hillary Clinton in the fall, but here are three reasons why he

could lose a general election. Territory, which is some-

thing Voters’ assessments of candidates between April and Election Day tend to stay stable; the notable exceptions were Bill Clinton in 1992, who moin the WSJ-NBC poll, and

Barack Obama in 2008, who rose from plus-7 to

plus-21.

Hillary Clinton, given the roller-coaster nature of her ra-

tings, may have the capacity to rise again. Still, the unpopularity of the leading candidates reflects both their unique characteristics as polarizing personalities and the broader political sorting of the American electorate. As voters assemble themselves into reliably and increasin-gly intense red and blue blocs, their assessments of the opposing side har-den. Which raises ques-tions about the poten-tially grim aftermath without the power to persuade from the day she or he [is] sworn into offi-

ENRIQUE FLORES, EL PAIS - Illustration of fighting men

PRINCE: a nonconformist, unknowable talentHe was impossibly gifted, wilfully obstinate, with a reluctance to conform that made him completely unknowable – just as he intended

It seems strange to relate now, but in the early years of Prince Rogers Nelson’s career, there were voices that doubted whe-ther he would ever be truly suc-

cessful artist.

He was clearly exceptionally talen-ted and possessed a vision for his music that bordered on obstinacy: not only had he produced, arran-ged, performed every instrument and composed all but one song on his 1978 debut album For You, he had also somehow contrived to get a record contract with Warner Bro-thers that entitled him to complete artistic control, almost unheard of for a new artist.

But he was also a strange, shy, awkward figure, apparently unwi-lling to play the promotional game. His interviews were almost wilfully unrevealing; an early appearance on that venerable US music TV institution American Bandstand was such a disaster that host Dick Clark later claimed Prince was the

most difficult artist he’d ever en-countered on the show. How could anyone so apparently unwilling to play the game ever hope to make it? As it turned out, Prince knew exactly what he was doing, even when it looked like he had no idea. The way he behaved as his career began in the late 70s would set a pattern for the rest of his life, whe-re he was overlooked by us.

He was, if anything, even more la-vishly talented than the credit that claimed he’d played 27 different instruments on For You sugges-ted. He went on to make ump-teen albums in a myriad of music styles: he could, it appeared, do everything from rock to funk to jazz to psychedelia.

Some of the albums were better than others – his output was so torrential that not even he could completely maintain his quality control – but whatever they soun-ded like, they always sounded like Prince. And he was infinitely more

obstinate than that first recording contract made him appear.

For the best part of 40 years, he conducted his career according to a whimsical internal logic that seemed to baffle even his closest collaborators. Whole albums were inexplicably shelved, songs that could audibly have been huge hits confined to The Vault, the legen-dary space in his Paisley Park stu-dio complex that apparently tee-med with unreleased material. His stubbornness in dealing with re-cord companies became so famous that at one point it threatened to overshadow the actual music he was making, a perhaps inevitable by-product of walking around with SLAVE written on his face to pro-test against the terms of his record deal, like a modern.

But the strangeness and reticence that characterised his early interac-tions with the media were anything but a hindrance: he used them entirely to his advantage, turning

himself into a genuinely mythic, unknowable figure in the process. His interviews were spectacular-ly unforthcoming about anything other than his music and records.

He developed his own shorthand in which all his songs were writ-ten – U for you, “eye” instead of I – and at one point, he changed his name to a symbol: for a time, you were either supposed to re-fer to him as Victor or The Artist Formerly Known As Prince. “I am something that you’ll never un-derstand,” he sang, knowingly, on I Would Die 4 U, a single from the album that made him a global superstar, 1984’s Purple Rain. It wasn’t hyperbole, it was his stage and his world.

The initial consensus seemed to be that Prince was a kind of Min-nesotan answer to Motown’s Rick James, intent on dragging R&B in a darker, more viscerally sexual di-rection; a reaction to the string-la-den sumptuousness of disco. Ja-

mes certainly thought so, baldly accusing Prince of stealing his act when the two toured together, and indeed, you could see where the confusion arose the question of why and how. Both had a pen-chant for performing in provoca-tive outfits, both were unafraid of incorporating rock influences into their music – James dubbed his sound punk-funk – and both were keen to parlay their success into svengali status: James with Teena Marie and the Mary Jane Girls, Prince with The Time and Vani-ty 6 among others. But in retros-pect, you can tell the two were cut from noticeably different cloth and many different stories.

Prince’s early albums seemed weirdly intent on picking at taboos, as if he were testing how far he could go to him, what he could get away with. It was one thing to wri-te dirty funk tracks that upset the infamous Parents’ Music Resour-ce Centre, quite another to write songs about incest.

Prince performs during the halftime show at the Super Bowl XLI football game at Dolphin Stadium in Miami in 2007. Photo: Chris O’Meara

7TH JUNE 1958-

21ST APRIL 2016

Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people

Isabel HernáezMadrid 2 May 2016

„

CULTURAL SHIFT24 3 MAY 2016OPINION

If Trump is nominated, the GOP must keep him out of

the White House

Donald Trump’s damage to the Republican Party, although alre-ady extensive, has barely begun. Republican quislings will multiply, slinking into support of the most anti-conservative presidential aspi-rant in their party’s history. The-se collaborationists will render themselves ineligible to participa-te in the party’s reconstruction.

Ted Cruz’s announcement of his preferred running mate has en-hanced the nomination process by giving voters pertinent information. They already know the only impor-tant thing about Trump’s choice: His running mate will be unquali-fied for high office because he or she will think Trump is qualified.

Hillary Clinton’s optimal run-ning mate might be Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a pro-labor popu-list whose selection would be balm for the bruised feelings of Bernie Sanders’s legions. Running mates rarely matter as electoral factors: In 2000, Al Gore got 43.2 percent of the North Carolina vote. In 2004, John Kerry, trying to improve upon Gore’s total there, ran with North Carolina Sen. John Edwards but received 43.6 percent. If, howe-ver, Brown were to help deliver Ohio for Clinton, the Republican path to 270 electoral votes would be narrower than a needle’s eye.

Republican voters, particularly in Indiana and California, can, by su-pporting Cruz, make the Republi-can convention a deliberative body rather than one that merely ratifies decisions made elsewhere, some of them six months earlier. A con-vention’s sovereign duty is to choo-se a plausible nominee who has a reasonable chance to win, not to passively affirm the will of a mere plurality of voters recorded epi-sodically in a protracted process.Trump would be the most unpo-pular nominee ever, unable to even

come close to Mitt Romney’s insu-fficient support among women, mi-norities and young people. In lo-sing disastrously, Trump probably would create down-ballot carnage sufficient to end even Republican control of the House. Ticket spli-tting is becoming rare in polarized America: In 2012, only 5.7 percent of voters supported a presidential candidate and a congressional.

At least half a dozen Republican senators seeking reelection and Senate aspirants can hope to win if the person at the top of the Re-publican ticket loses their stateIf Trump is nominated, Republicans working to purge him by, say, only four points, but not if he loses by 10. A Democratic Senate probably

would guarantee a Supreme Court with a liberal cast for a generation. If Clinton is inaugurated next Jan. 20, Merrick Garland probably will already be on the court — confir-med in a lame-duck Senate session — and Justices Ruth Bader Gins-burg, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer will be 83, 80 and 78, respectively.

The minority of people who pay close attention to politics includes those who define an ideal political outcome and pursue it, and those who focus on the worst possible outcome and strive to avoid it. The former experience the excitements of utopianism, the latter settle for prudence’s mild pleasure of avoi-ding disappointed dreams.

Both sensibilities have their uses, but this is a time for prudence, which demands the prevention of a Trump presidency.Were he to be nominated, conservatives would have two tasks. One would be to help him lose 50 states — con dign punishment for his comprehensive disdain for conservative essentials, including the manners and grace that should lubricate the nation’s civic life. Second, conservatives can try to save from the anti-Trump un-dertow as many senators, represen-tatives, governors and state legisla-tors as possible.

It was 32 years after Jimmy Car-ter won 50.1 percent in 1976 that a Democrat won half the popular vote. Barack Obama won only 52.9 percent and then 51.1 percent, but only three Democrats — Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson — have won more than 53 percent. Trump probably would make Clinton the fourth, and he would be a tonic for her party, undoing the extraordinary damage Obama has done.

If Trump is nominated, Republi-cans working to purge him and his manner from public life will reap the considerable satisfaction of preserving the identity of their 162-year-old party while working to see that they forgo only four years of the enjoyment of executive power.

Six times since 1945 a party has tried, and five times failed, to secu-re a third consecutive presidential term. The one success — the Re-publicans’ 1988 election of George H.W. Bush — produced a one-term president. If Clinton gives her party its first 12 consecutive White House years since 1945, Republi-cans can help Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, or someone else who has honorably recoiled.

Teresa Móstoles19 ABR 2016

DAVE GRANLUND - Caricature of Trump „ If Trump is

nominated,

Republicans

working to

purge him

Final Project. Informative Functions of News Design. GROUP 3

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