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THE MALLORCA FILES Life’s a beach March 8 division
TWO Spanish beaches are among the best in the world according to TripAdvisorand one of them is in Mallorca.
The online travel guide has published this year’s Travellers’ Choice awards, rewarding the favourite destinations, hotels, restaurants and activities among users, based on scores and opinions uploaded onto the site over the last 12 months.
And within the beaches category, Spain has once again hit the jackpot, with two names among the top 25 on a list headed by the spectacular Baia do Sancho in Brazil.
La Concha in Donostia (Basque Country) comes in at number 15, followed just two places below by Mallorca’s very own Playa de Muro in 17th place.
This is the second time running that Muro has made the top 25 world list, and curiously in exactly the same spot.
“A wonderful beach with golden sand, clear blue sea and not very deep to have a lukewarm swim and get out again easily,” states the review on the website.
But narrowing down the search to Europe, La Concha and Muro occupy the fourth and fifth places respectively, with a second Balearic beach appearing in ninth placePlaya de Sotavento in Costa Calma, Fuerteventura.
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THE BBC is preparing to film the third season of its hit series The Mallorca Files on the island this month.
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Starring Welsh actress Elen Rhys, Austrian actor Julian Looman and Spanish actress and theatre director Maria Fernandez, the first instalment of the British police drama was watched by an estimated six million viewers in 70 countries in 2019, with figures increasing for the second season now screening.
The CSIstyled drama follows Rhys and Looman as a pair of detectives with totally opposing characters and working methods as they attempt to solve a series of crimes on the island.
With viewers throughout the world following the team’s exploits, Mallorca is enjoying unrivalled exposure and promotion thanks to the series, leading to curious anecdotes such the Mallorca Film Commission reporting an avalanche of calls from the Tokyo tourism authorities requesting information about the island as Japanese fans sought to travel to Mallorca to visit the scenes appearing on screen.
This prompted the creation of a map detailing five routes through the various exterior locations used in the series for enthusiasts to visit.
The Mallorca Files has so far had a direct economic impact on the island of more than €11 million.
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THIS year’s International Women’s Day march in Palma was split in two.
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The recent approval of the ‘trans law’ by the central government has divided the movement. While the main demonstration on Wednesday March 8)was organised once again by the Mallorca Feminist Movement, with other organisations and political parties joining up later, a second march was scheduled by the 8M Transfeminist Coordinator, who believe they are being excluded by the socalled ‘classic’ feminists.
The trans law is just the latest in a series of heated debates taking place within feminism, added to ongoing discussions about whether to legalise or abolish prostitution and the ‘only yes means yes’ law currently passing through the Spanish parliament.
ONLY 42 per cent of teaching and investigative staff at the Balearic Islands University (UIB) in Palma are women. Analysts have suggested that the main reason for the low numbers of young women taking up careers in mathematics, biology, chemistry and all other areas of science is the absence of female names in textbooks and the media.
While most people are familiar with the name Marie Curie, the same cannot be said of the thousands of other women scientists and engineers who have achieved great feats throughout history.
“Since we are children we are told that science is a boys’ thing,” said young local scientist Julia Lopez, zoology investigator at the UIB.
In a bid to boost numbers of female scientists, a series of activities have taken place at the campus this month, including celebrating the lives and work of women investigators in all the different specialities with a series of exhibitions and informative talks with schoolchildren. Leading local investigators such as Physics professor Alicia Sintes and awardwinning biologist Mar Leza visited the UIB to explain that “without women there is no science,” and to highlight the importance of the socalled STEM degrees, which stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Dr Leza also criticised the existence of a glass ceiling for women scientists, which also partly explains the low numbers of female professors and investigative staff at the UIB and other institutions.
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