Gibraltar Olive Press - Issue 122

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Vol. 5, Issue 122 www.theolivepress.es May 13 - May 26, 2020

ON THE HUNT OF THE NAZI GOLD Hot on the heels of our dispatch on a Nazi U-boat base in the Canaries, we investigate the Nazi Gold Trail to Madrid and, allegedly Gibraltar, shedding new light on a shady chapter in history that has never been fully resolved. See Page 10

Unlock the Rock! by the public through social media and broadcasting.

By Diexter Thomas

FREE movement will be allowed in Gibraltar from May 21 - with the lockdown to be ended in August.

The Chief Minister announced the proposed ending of COVID-19 restrictions on the Rock after steering clear of a serious pandemic since the first case was recorded in March.

The ‘Unlock the Rock’ plan was unveiled on Tuesday, and will consist of four main phases, with two review stages to see if there has been any increase in cases.

The ‘Rock Unlocked’ phase could be in full effect from August 1, with over 500 emergency beds still available in case of a relapse.

Gibraltar is currently undergoing the first phase of the strategy, with the second phase set to start on May 21.

The second phase will see free movement re-established with museums, exhibitions and galleries opening again.

But it is not good news for everyone.

Chief Minister Fabian Picardo insisted that people with a BMI of 30 or above, who are older than 70 - or have a weak or compromised immune system - are recommended to stay at home as much as possible.

“This will take effect from the 21st of this month if things are progressing well, and we see no increase in infection rates,” explained Picardo.

“We will continue to have rules about large gatherings so the law will still restrict the constitutional freedom of association.”

PHASE FOUR The fourth phase is set to start on June 16 and will see people finally able to go to bars and cafeterias.

These establishments will need to get a permit, much like the opening of restaurants in phase three.

Picardo said he expected the bathing on beaches to be allowed by midJune, depending on the progress of the virus.

“I want to be clear that our ambition will be to see a normal bathing season with normal beach going,” Picardo revealed.

“We do not want to see any restrictions whatsoever on our ability to attend beaches, but this will require common sense from the public.

“You will have to pitch your tents further away from each other than we are used to.

“We will not be able to crowd around the shore and the best spots as we each like to do, this will be essential.”

Bathing

NEW DAWN: Locals can go out but must adhere to the rules for the Rock to be completely open Some schools, construction sites and gyms could also see a return in Phase 2, with the latter ‘subject to strict controls’.

Many health services will restart screening for patients on the GHA’s

UK

waiting list after a long 60 day hiatus.

PHASE THREE The third phase is set to take place from June 1 and will see religious services taking place ‘under very strict distancing controls’.

The Government’s own BASED

TRAVEL INSURANCE for Spanish residents www.globelink.co.uk

952 147 834

96 626 5000 +44 (0) 1353 699082

contact tracing app will start to kick into force, using people’s mobile phones to alert them if they come into contact with someone with COVID-19.

This is also the phase where people will be able to eat at restaurants, which will be limited to a 50% occupancy, but only if they have a permit from the Department of Health.

Line Wall Road will partially be closed and Chatham Counterguard will be shut off as part of previous announcements to reduce the amount of traffic to help with air quality.

Public transport will be coming with bus routes seeing new timetables for passengers and drivers.

Theatre performances will take place behind closed doors, but will be viewed

He warned that if there was a spike in active COVID-19 cases, the Government would reserve the right to ‘re-impose restrictions.’

“We are considering making Europa pool in the bathing pavilion at NASA exclusively available to our elderly citizens.

“It will allow them to bathe without mixing with younger members of the community,” added the Chief Minister.

Finally, phases five and six will serve as phases for reviewing those restaurants, cafes, bars and gyms that continue to remain closed.

“Assuming everything has gone well, which is a big assumption, then we will move to ‘Rock Unlocked’ - phase ‘new normal’ as we head into the autumn,” said Picardo “That is the moment when we must be most alert of how things progress.”

It is around then that weddings and funerals will have almost normal attendance figures returned.

Opinion Page 6

Tel: 952 147 834

See page 16

TM

2

NEWS

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NEWS IN BRIEF Super-saving MERCADONA has launched a four-day week as an ‘exceptional measure’ to protect staff from coronavirus.

School’s back THE Junta de Andalucia has said it plans to reopen the region’s schools on May 18 for ‘face-to-face’ teaching.

It’s no Djoke SERBIAN tennis number one Novak Djokovic has caused another controversy after posting a video on his Instagram account of a practice session at Marbella’s Puente Romano during Phase 0 of Spain’s de-escalation plans.

Over and out THE coronavirus will have left Spain by September 9, a new study from the Singapore University of Technology and Design has predicted, with 99% of cases forecast to be registered

by May 22.

Claws out A CHINESE expat has slammed a vet after she claims her cat died in mysterious circumstances at the clinic overnight.

Diana Wang, 34, believed her British shorthair cat named Minou was merely suffering from a bladder infection when she dropped him into the Mijas vet on May 1.

But the next day she got a call from the vet saying he had died of a ‘heart failure’.

Police are now looking into her claims and she is demanding explanations from the Butibamba vet in La Cala de Mijas.

At last!

THE president of La Liga has said he hopes Spanish football will return next month.

Javier Tebas expressed his hope that the league can resume on June 12.

The statement came just hours after it was revealed that FIVE top players have tested positive for the virus, as well as three non playing staff.

But Tebas remained positive and said: “It is less than we expected. We expected 25 or 30, according to the numbers seen in the Bundesliga and the potency of the virus in Spain.”

May 13th - May 26th 2020

gib Teens arrested

Expat denounces vet after her cat dies in mysterious circumstances EXCLUSIVE

By Dimitris Kouimtsidis

“I have asked the vet why he didn’t do a urine test on Minou and he said he didn’t have to because he could see what he had.

“I then asked how he could know what was wrong with him and then he got angry saying it was my fault the cat died because I took him to the vet too late”, she added.

She claims she was ‘manhandled’ out of the vet when she asked to see CCTV footage of the night in question.

“I felt so humiliated,” adding that she had phoned the police who arrived and took her statement, before phoning an ambulance as she couldn’t feel her limbs.

She was later told she had experienced ‘an anxiety attack’.

The clinic failed to comment before we went to print.

TRAGIC: Diana and her late kitty Minou

British THUG bust AN ‘extremely violent’ British fugitive has been caught in a sleepy inland town in Andalucia.

Known only as L.W.J and with a European Arrest Warrant hanging over his head, the man had been attempting to lay low in Albox in Almeria.

According to Guardia Civil, an investigation was launched after intel revealed he had moved to Puerto Lumbreras.

The man is wanted for serious crimes back in the UK, although the nature of the offences have yet to be detailed.

Neighbours described him as ‘extremely violent’ and told police they believed he could be

armed. Police initially tracked him to the port at the end of April, but he somehow managed to evade capture during a raid and went back on the run for several days.

Investigators set up a task force to track him down for a second time after receiving a tip off that he may be in the area of Paraje Ventarique. Within a few days, officers had located and cuffed the wanted man before starting the extradition process.

He will be transported from Madrid back to the UK to face justice.

Do you know the identity of this fugitive?

Contact newsdesk@theolivepress.es

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Bribers busted TWO senior figures of a Gibraltar construction company have been arrested for allegedly offering a €20,000 cash bribe to approve a £2million project.

The pair have been charged with bribery and for perverting the course of justice. The two arrests followed a complaint connected to a building project.

The RGP said that the two were interviewed and put on bail until August 25 while the investigation continues.

Shaken and stirred

COVID catches ‘Billy the Kid’ THE notorious torturer and Franco henchman Antonio Gonzalez Pacheco, otherwise known as ‘Billy the Kid’, died yesterday from the coronavirus aged 73.

According to Police sources, Pacheco died at 7am at the San Francisco de Anis Psyciatric Hospital in Malaga.

Known for his brutality and torturing of Franco’s opposition, Pacheco was in the middle of an inquest to remove his government funded medals and inflated pensions for his ‘services rendered’ during his time in the police force.

He entered the Police Force in 1971 and was assigned to the social research department, a group dedicated to the investigation and oppres-

FIVE teenagers have been arrested in connection with a string of burglaries which took place late last year.

It is thought that the youngsters were involved in eight burglaries in the Wellington Front area on December 17 2019. This included many shops and clubhouses in the area, and the arrests are a result of an extensive investigation by the RGP. Two 16 year olds were charged with seven counts of Burglary and one count of attempted burglary.

The individuals were seen by the juvenile court on May 11.

The other youngsters, aged 15 to 19, a+re currently on police bail.

POLICE were sent to track down a coronavirus patient who left her hospital in La Rioja to go and buy a coffee.

Nurses called the Guardia Civil when they noticed the woman was missing and hadn’t told any of the medical staff.

The agents found her sitting on a nearby bench drinking her latte.

The area was then evacuated, while the cafe she purchased the coffee, along with the bench she sat on, was sanitised.

DEAD: Coronavirus kills Franco torturer Pacheco sion of Anti-Franco groups.

He quickly grew a reputation for his aggressive nature and his willingness to reach for his pistol in the style of the Wild West, a quirk that gave him his infamous nickname.

Since his retirement in 1982, Pacheco has been apparently immune to prosecution, with numerous courts fighting to make him accountable for his crimes.

Polish mob raids THREE police raids alone since November 2019 have disbanded a Polish drug network operating out of Granada.

Swat teams from the Policia Nacional and the Guardia Civil have been putting pressure on the drug cartels operating out of Granada since they knew of their whereabouts mid 2019.

Operation ‘Cerros’ and operation ‘Mocy’ have so far arrested over one hundred people involved in the trafficking of marijuana, including three Polish mob bosses, thought to be at the head of the Spanish operations.

According to police estimates and statements given by the courts in Granada, the Polish gangsters spent in excess of one million per month acquiring marijuana to then ferry to Poland in transport lorries to distribute across the country.

In operation ‘Mocy’ over one tonne of marijuana was discovered hidden in various articulated trucks heading to Poland.

Capital punishment POLICE in Madrid broke up 400 house parties over the weekend.

They also broke up 97 social gatherings in parks across the capital. In addition, 3,847 fines were issued to those not adhering to lockdown restrictions. That figure represents a 22.8% increase compared to the fines issued last weekend, which were 3,133.

Fine time

THE number of people fined for breaking coronavirus restrictions in Spain has remained at around 15,000 a day on average.

This continuous civil disobedience takes the country’s tally of financial penalties during lockdown to more than 900,000.

Since March 14 when lockdown was announced, the Policia Local has had handed out 300,437 fines, the Guardia Civil 255,033 and Policia Nacional, 236,568.

NEWS

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May 13th - May 26th 2020

3

Signed, sealed, delivered (finally!)

THEY say when you move to Spain you should expect a slower pace of life...and that extends to the postal service.

While post can often take a few extra days, even a week to cross Spain, you don’t expect a letter going along the Costa del Sol to take FOUR YEARS. That’s exactly what has happened to a letter sent by Mrs J Hollowell, based in Benalmadena, who had wanted to give her opinion on the story of youngster Alfie Barton, who broke his leg while holi-

No new normality!

PENELOPE Cruz and Pedro Almodovar have joined Madonna, Robert de Niro and a host of Nobel prize winners in a new fight for the environment.

The Spanish stars have joined over 200 international notaries pleading that the world does not ‘return to normality.’

In an open letter led by actress Juliette Binoche and astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau, the stars claim the coronavirus crisis ‘has the power’ to confront essential issues over consumption and pollution.

Catastrophe

The group, also including Cate Blanchett, Monica Bellucci and Spanish singer Miguel Bose, hope the lockdown can help to avoid an ‘ecological catastrophe’.

Consumerism, according to their claim, ‘has led us to deny the value of life itself: that of plants, animals and a great many people.’

“Pollution and the destruction of natural areas are leading the world to breaking point, and for these reasons, combined with growing social inequalities, it seems unthinkable to us to return to normality.’

CRUZ: And Almodovar

daying in Spain.

But despite being clearly addressed to the Olive Press office in Manilva, and most importantly with a stamp, the letter, sent on October 5, 2016, arrived only this week.

If you’re reading this Mrs Hollowell, the letter DID find us well, it just got delivered a little later than expected.

And yes, some fair points on why Alfie’s family wanted him treated back in the UK.

No Yoke

Darlene the hen shocks British owners after producing triple-yolk egg EGG-CLUSIVE By Laurence Dollimore

A BRITISH expat couple are expecting a big lottery win after their hen laid a TRIPLE-YOLK egg this week.

The chances of that happening, according to the British Egg Information Service, are one in 25 million.

In fact you’re more likely to be struck by lightning (two million to one), or be involved in a plane crash (11 million to one).

“I hope she brings us luck in the way of a lottery win now,” Yorkshire-born expat Monalita Cairns, 48, joked to the Olive Press.

A PROFESSIONAL singer has been forced to end his balcony concerts following a slew of complaints from a not-so-appreciative neighbour.

Big-hearted Miguel Gonzalez, 45, thought he was doing a great community service during the lockdown, performing from his flat’s terrace in Nerja to coincide with the 8pm applause for frontline health workers.

But the crooner, who usually

Cher-ing is caring CHICKEN LICKEN: Darlene and expats “My husband Alex actually picked her out, he said he saw something special in her.”

And Alex, 63, wasn’t wrong.

According to the retired couple, who live in Alora in inland Malaga, the plucky hen, named Darlene, had been laying double-yolked eggs for most of last week before producing a triple-yolk stunner on Monday.

“I cracked it this morning and had it for my brekkie,” added

Sing bin performs in bars and restaurants, soon received several warnings from police to put a stop to the sessions.

After refusing to end his performances, officers were forced to deliver an official complaint to his home.

He is reportedly talking to Nerja town hall about a permit.

Monalita, “it was delicious.”

Darlene was one of seven hens bought from nearby Agrocementos Alora, a local animal food shop.

They had hoped the hens would give them a steady supply of eggs during the lockdown.

They joined five dogs, four cats, two goats and two horses who already lived on the couple’s land.

“It might seem lame, but our hens really cheer us up in these strange times,” said Monalita, who owned a furniture business in Wakefield, before moving to Spain, “And Darlene really eggcelled herself, I didn’t even know triple yolkers existed.”

A double-yolked or triple-yolked egg occurs when two or more egg yolks are released into a hen's oviduct at the same time and too close together and end up in the same shell.

Send us your animal funnies to newsdesk@theolivepress.es

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POP legend Cher is giving Spanish-speaking children something to cheer.

The 73-year-old has launched her version of ABBA hit Chiquitita in the latin language.

Proceeds from the recording will go to children’s charity UNICEF – just as the profits from the original do.

Cher said: “When everything changed in the world I wanted to help. This seemed like the right time to complete the cover.”

Web of shame

AN attempted burglary has gone spectacularly wrong after a man, dressed as comic book hero, Spiderman, fell nearly seven metres from an apartment balcony.

The incident occured in Malaga early on Sunday morning when a young couple were awoken by a noise coming from the kitchen.

When confronted by the couple the intruder - dressed in a Spiderman mask and gloves - fled back through the open window and fell off a tight ledge, failing to

grab hold of a gutter.

The couple phoned the police who arrived to find the wannabe thief unconscious on the floor.

An ambulance was called and by the time paramedics arrived, the 47-year-old had regained consciousness and was duly arrested for his botched attempt at breaking and entering.

He was transferred to the Carlos Haya Hospital in Malaga for multiple fractures where he is currently recovering from his injuries.

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The Media Group on the move!

May 13th - May 26th 2020

Fortress Europe

Big increase in testing set to be rolled out around the Rock

Office wizard some g for a sorcerer to weave The Olive Press is lookin expand again into new regions. we magic in its head office as ceful and become the glue in the young

our You’ll be energetic and res Personable and bi-lingual you will have a and rapidly expanding team.sociable and naturally computer literate. good phone manner, be

Graphic designers

The Olive Press also needs reliable, quick and talented graphic designers for its office in Sabinillas.

You’ll have a great eye for detail, plenty of job experience and a good record for turning up on time and working to deadlines

Sales executives We also need commercial sales agents in the following areas: Malaga, Sevilla, Almeria, Murcia, Catalunya, Canaries and Portugal. Great rates of pay for those with the right proven skills

Journalists and w

riters

LAST, but definitely not least.. we also need wordsmiths too... can you turn a phrase and/or turn up on a doorstep on time?

We are looking for qualified, hard-working hacks and writers around the whole of Spain

If you think you have what it takes to help the Olive Press expand to the next level, please get in touch at accounts@ theolivepress.es at the first instance, sending your CV and a covering letter. These jobs could be part time or full time and will suit either man or woman of any age or colour

mass tests A TOTAL of 1% of the population could be tested each day as part of the ‘seek and destroy’ COVID-19 strategy on the Rock, it has been revealed.

A second lab being prepared at the Gi-

Staying afloat THE Government should cover the salaries of shop workers temporarily employed throughout May. It dished out £6 million during April under the ‘BEAT COVID’ scheme. This gave the job market a lifeline by stopping people getting the sack and labelling these workers as ‘inactive’. Shops – open since May 2 – have seen profits slump amid decreased tourism numbers and are desperate for cash throughout this month.

By John Culatto

braltar University will help increase the capacity for testing. It will operate the five-minute test invented by Gibraltarian Nick Cortes.

It aims to increase testing over the coming weeks to 300 swabs per day with results available within 24 hours The second prong of the programme will be ‘aggressive contact tracing’ using a decentralised system.

‘Seek and destroy’ was preferred to the herd immunity strategy, resulting in no deaths on the Rock so far from the coronavirus pandemic. Over 4,000 people have been tested since March.

This includes those tested for symptoms, random swabs and a targeted sample of front-line workers. It amounts to 13% of the population, with only 147 confirmed cases since the pandemic began.

FUENGIROLA will use sophisticated technology to track how many people are on its beaches once restrictions are lifted.

A computer programme will monitor the capacity of beaches with the aim of avoiding overcrowding and minimise the risk of COVID-19 infections.

The system works via 50 sensors installed on lamp-

BRUSSELS may keep the EU’s external borders closed until at least mid-June.

The EU’s executive has asked countries to extend the travel ban – currently set to expire on May 15 – by another 30 days.

It is up to each individual member state to take part, however, this has so far been enforced within the Schengen zone.

Many, such as Spain, have also introduced restrictions within the EU as well, something which Brussels supports.

Avalanche

A BAR which received an ‘avalanche’ of clients on the first day it entered Phase 1 has been fined by Sevilla cops.

The Jota bar was found to be exceeding the limit of 50% capacity, with some 30 people being caught sitting outside on the terrace.

Clients were also failing to abide by social distancing rules of being two metres apart.

The owner had not provided protective equipment for his staff, nor were they disinfecting tables between new clients.

Any further breaches of the rules could lead to the bar’s closure.

The owner defended himself saying it was a case of ‘trial and error’ and he had been ‘surprised by the avalanche of clients’ who turned up.

Green for griddle posts, which measure the number of people entering and leaving the town’s seven beaches.

Information is then sent into virtual grids when they are approaching maximum capacity.

The information will be made

available to the public via a free mobile app, showing three colours green, yellow and red, which means capacity has been reached.

The computer application, the first of its kind in Spain, has been presented by mayor Ana Mula.

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AN 80-year-old expat is nearing the end of a marathon 1,060 kilometre bike ride to Barcelona – and he has not left his Mijas home.

Inspired by the amazing antics of Captain Tom Moore back home, Robin Drake decided to do 40 kilometres a day on his exercise bicycle.

“I was stuck at home in the lockdown and I needed a target to stay fit.

So I decided to ‘virtually’ cycle the 1,060 kilometres to Barcelona,” he told the Olive Press, having raised a sizeable €500 for Age Care.

“I would say Captain Tom was a factor in me setting myself the challenge, but I needed a destination target.

I picked Barcelona because it is a city I love. When I get there I will cycle down the Ramblas – it should be nice and empty,” he joked.

“That captain Tom is incredible – and he has 20 years on me!

The former Operations Manager at Heathrow airport, Robin has lived in Spain with his 89-year-old wife Doreen since 2002.

Speaking from his Mijas home, Robin, better known as ‘Gus’ added: “I have been pedalling 40 kilometres a day for 25 days now – 20 each morning and 20 in the af-

T PA ES EX RO HE

Barcelona or bust

By Dilip Kuner

ternoon. So I think I am due in Barcelona on Thursday.

“We might crack open a bottle of Champagne to celebrate.”

He added: “As I was putting all this effort in, I thought I might try to raise some money for charity, so I started getting sponsors with all the cash going to Age Care in Calahonda.”

Doreen said: “They have been very good to us over the past few weeks. They do our shopping for us and bring us meals twice a week – they really deserve as much as support as they can get.

“Most of their funds come from their charity shop and of course that has been shut during lockdown.”

When he has reached Barcelona what next for Gus? “Don’t give him ideas”, said Doreen, “he can turn around and come straight home!”

Donations can also be made to Age Care through Go fund Me – search Age Care Association https://www.gofundme.com/f/ age-care-association

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NEWS

May 13th - May 26th 2020

5

Wise up

Rock firm has novel idea about how to cut border congestion pollution

By John Culatto

BORDER FORCE: Customs officers hold a minute silence for those who have died from the Covid pandemic

Online parasites EXCLUSIVE

By Dilip Kuner

AN expat hotel owner has called for a boycott of online booking websites whose business practices could push countless businesses in Spain into bankruptcy.

Belgians Daniel Beauvoir and Catherine Hunter have pledged to abandon hotel sites like Booking.com and Airbnb, after the companies failed to support them as the lockdown began.

The couple, both 64 - who have run six-bedroom La

Rey of hope

Expat hotel owner calls for boycott of Booking.com and Airbnb after they leave thousands of clients in dire straits during the COVID crisis Fructuosa in Gaucin since 2017 - hope other businesses will join them in banning the Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) as they are known.

“I will do everything I can for a boycott of these parasitic platforms and, I hope, to be followed by many other hoteliers and owners of guesthouses,” Beauvoir told the Olive Press this week.

MALAGA’S El Caminito del Rey will reopen on May 29, it is hoped.

The iconic walkway will originally welcome back visitors at 50% capacity, with just 550 punters allowed in each day.

The breathtaking attraction’s annual maximum footfall of 300,000 visitors is set to be slashed to just 150,000 this year as coronavirus restrictions remain active.

The death-defying walkway, near El Chorro, will initially be open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but only if Malaga has entered ‘Phase 2’ by then.

“They blackmail you and squeeze you for money, sometimes up to 25%, then left us high and dry during the crisis.”

The final straw came when Booking.com unilaterally decided to return all ‘non-refundable’ deposits to forthcoming guests from around the world.

“Our so-called ‘partners’ made this decision without any discussion or warning, yet, we still had staff to pay and bills to meet,” he added.

“In most cases the amount in question covered the first night of the stay, which was the normal non-refundable part. Yet Booking.com sent it straight back to the guests.”

He continued: “No one looked at this from all sides of the equation – we were left to pick up the bill, which for a small business is very difficult.”

Luckily with some sites and those who booked directly he was able to offer a voucher to be used at a future date instead of cash. This has been done by many airlines as well.

“I would say 99.9% of our customers were very support-

ive and accepted this. They understood the pressures we were under – but not Booking.com.”

The online company has since changed its policy on enforced refunds but it has left a sour taste in Beauvoir’s mouth. Beauvoir does not know how many hoteliers will join his boycott, but knows many are angry like him and very supportive.

UP to the minute data could help cut pollution on roads in and around Gibraltar, a local company has claimed.

A study by Queue Wisely revealed carbon dioxide emissions could be cut in half if traffic jams, particularly at the frontier, were shortened.

This research flies in the face of plans to close down Line Wall Road to prevent pollution.

“We think by giving users real time data and setting notifications on when the queue times are less, we will reduce traffic build up,” a spokesman for the company told the Olive Press.

Now, the company’s large social media following has led to it being shortlisted for a Business Innovation Award by the Gibraltar Small Business Federation.

“We held talks with the government on passing data from the frontier hotline into our algorithms.

“These can be updated every five seconds allowing us to build predictive models for an app.

“We are still waiting on this integration, but it’s quite a small bit of development work on their side that would create a huge impact.”

The first study was carried out around the frontier queues which normally lasts about an hour.

“When we looked at the correlation between speed, traffic build up and volumes of cars crossing the frontier, we saw that this positively correlated to a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions.”

The mobile app could help users to stagger their use of roads to decrease pollution.

Surfer style

Support

“We got about 30% of our business from Booking.com and this figure may be higher for other hoteliers so they may not feel able to join a boycott, but we will wait and see.”

Karl Smallman, founder of Secret Serrania, an online portal featuring hotels and restaurants in the Serrania de Ronda area, said: “There is a lot of support for Daniel's call for a boycott of the OTAs. “Everyone has already lost a big chunk of their regular trade which normally takes off from Easter.

“Margins are already tight for everyone and costs must be kept to a minimum and are better spent positioning their business to a local, regional and national audience first before the international travellers return.”

Booking.com has been approached for comment.

WHILE many people have been at home worrying during the lockdown, a surfer who lives in Tarifa has been

putting her time to good use by drawing.

Sonia Puga Garcia, a teacher originally from Granada, took up surfing in 2016 and has carved out her own style of illustrations on surfing themes.

“Once I got used to life PEOPLE who need someone to under quarantine I retalk to during the coronavirus crialised I had so much sis will be able to use a new phone free time I had to service set up by the Gibraltar make use of it,” Puga government. Called the ‘BefriendGarcia told the Olive ing Service’, it will look after Press. those over the age of 60 as part “I recently started of the Rock’s COVID-19 mental painting surfboard health response. It will be run fins and have finished by volunteers known as ‘COVID six of them already, all friends’ for callers and open to all of which I then pubGibraltarians on 200 12494. lished on social media.

“The service is a valuable way of “In the future I hope connecting people,” said Minister to do an exhibition for Civil Contingencies, Samanand sell prints of my tha Sacramento. work so everyone can get a copy.”

COVID pals

6

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O LIVE P RESS

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GIBRALTAR

A campaigning, community newspaper, the Olive Press represents the huge expatriate community in Spain with an estimated readership, including the websites, of more than two million people a month.

OPINION

Locking horns

The lockdown might be finally winding down, but the Olive Press has not ceased in questioning the Gibraltar government on issues within the public interest.

A number of questions were sent in by readers on social media, email and telephone - and have been a great help to our local journalists on the Rock.

We must thank all the regular readers, both of the paper and online, who have helped contribute to the newspaper and ensured the government was held to task on many key issues during the lockdown.

The Olive Press will continue to challenge the authorities as long as this pandemic lasts, to make sure YOUR needs are expressed at the highest level.

To give an example, one concerned citizen asked recently if police officers could wear face masks when coming close to elderly people with hearing problems.

We put the question to the Commissioner of Police who admitted this was a reasonable measure that could help the Royal Gibraltar Police when officers could not keep their social distance.

All in all, we salute the government and the authorities for an impressive, well organised and slick response to this terrifying chapter in our long history.

Dead in the water?

WITH Semana Santa cancelled, the feria season binned and dining out a distant memory, what could possibly come next?

The scrapping of the summer season, that’s what.

It’s the nightmare scenario that thousands of expat businesses around Spain were coming to terms with this week.

The doomsday reality of hotels and restaurants without British tourists in July and August. And yes...the loss of perhaps half of their annual income.

It is a cruel twist of fate that Spain was one of the best performing economies before the COVID catastrophe hit. Looking forward to one of its rosiest years in history, it was all set for the good times to finally roll.

So it is heartbreaking to think that hundreds of thousands of businesses are facing collapse. One figure bandied about is 800,000 of them.

So many of these will be owned by plucky expats who settled here to pursue their dreams - many likely linked to tourism, the worst industry affected.

How can Spain expect people to survive if summer is cancelled?

We pray there can be some sort of U-turn and the British and Spanish authorities can cut a deal similar to the one with France. The coast urgently needs it.

Publisher / Editor

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FEATURE

Everything’s up in the

In three honest, contrasting views, a trio of wellestablished expat hoteliers give their incisive analysis on the current COVID crisis and the prospects for the season ahead Andy Chapell at Molino del Santo, in Benaojan, near Ronda, which has no opening date yet

F

OR the owner of a rural hotel and restaurant, I’ve never felt so concerned for my business.

In over 30 years of running the molino, nothing has come close to causing so much heartache and loss of sleep… and we’ve had floods, deep recessions and countless other irritations.

There are so many issues, the first being safety. After all, how can we possibly think of opening if we can't keep our staff and customers safe?

All of the money in the world is no use if you're dead or responsible for someone else’s death. With all due respect to the experts of the world, we do not yet know the full implications of COVID-19. Until we are able to control it with complete security, do I want to be responsible for risking people's lives? Definitely not.

Number two is uncertainty. And there are

How are we supposed to cover the additional costs of putting in safety measures? Big hotels, with economies of scale, can spread the costs of protective screens, extra cleaning, inspections, thermometers, etc, among hundreds of guests. Rural establishments with much less footfall are going to find these costs very difficult to allay.

What are the chances of a second spike? Assuming we do open, juggling the numbers, absorbing the additional expenses of opening safely, and working really hard to get things going… what happens if we have to close down again because the virus presents itself again?

This worry factor is a potential health risk to me personally. going

plenty of questions that are waking me up at 4am: When will international flights be resumed? Without them we are going to struggle to generate enough income to cover basic costs. At present 85% of our clientele live outside Spain so until borders are opened we would have to totally reinvent ourselves for a local market which will be saturated with offers from all hospitality sectors. A Guardia Civil source recently We are hinted that borders may not to need a lot open this calendar year.

My preference is that we Will people feel confident are given the opportunity of support to enough to travel even if borto remain closed without ders are open? We suspect it penalties until there is enable us to will take an effective vaccine more certainty on the fuemploy people ture. to restore real confidence.

How much help is the govYes, I really want to give my ernment going to offer? We staff jobs, I want guests are going to need a lot of support to ento be able to enjoy all that our business able us to employ people. We hear that and this wonderful country can offer but 80,000 small businesses in Spain are I need clarity. threatened with bankruptcy in the current At the moment everything is up in the climate unless there is significant assisair - apart from, of course, those aircraft tance. At the moment there is no indicathat we urgently need in order to start tion of what form any help may take. getting back to some normality.

Corona-rogues Middlemen screw farmers and consumers as demand for fresh food goes bananas

By Dilip Kuner & Laurence Dollimore

Y

OU may have noticed empty shelves at your local supermarket over the last month or two, but many of you have also noticed an apparent rise in the price of foodstuffs.

The Olive Press has discovered that greedy go-betweens are pocketing the difference as on-the-shelf food prices rocket while farmers are paid peanuts.

Demand for fruit and veg since the lockdown began in Spain has seen prices for some products such as mandarins shoot up by 42%, according to figures from the farmers’ association COAG. They now average €2.55 a kilo, up from €1.75 in February, while farmers still get a rock-bottom 35 cents a kilo.

Other big price hikes have been seen for cabbage (up 28 %), carrots (up 22%) and aubergines (up 20%). In all cases farmers get a fraction in comparison.

Price tags on pork and chicken have also risen by 6.4% and 2.5% respectively.

“The speculators and intermediaries in the food c h a i n , are making a killing,” insisted Andres Góngora, of COAG Andalucia.

“This is at the expense of the efforts of farmers, who are at the bottom of the ladder, producing quality fresh food for which they receive a pittance.

“The practice of the speculators is to reduce prices paid to farmers while keeping them high for consumers, even when consumption is up,” he added.

“They are abusing the supply-demand system.”

Greater demand might explain some of the rise. People worried about COVID-19 have been tucking into more fruit and veg to boost their immune systems.

According to official figures, consumption of fresh produce has risen 44%.

But at the same time farmers have seen ‘farm gate prices’ plunge by an average of 77% in Spain, claims COAG. The price rises have not gone unnoticed, with 82.8% of people saying they had seen an increase, according to Consumers’ group FACUA which received more than 10,000 responses to a recent Twitter poll. Just 17.2% said they had not noticed price rises.

Another 15.4% of the 10,606 consumers who took part believe that there have been increases, but only for certain products.

But 48.2% of people said they had noticed price hikes in the majority of items.

SCARCITY: Fruit and veg in short supply in Manilva Mercadona

Brand names only ONLINE buyers are being forced to buy expensive well known brands as cheaper white-label products are out of stock.

Unofficial consumers’ watchdog OCU says that since the start of the lockdown it has spotted ‘moderate’ price rises at online supermarket services from companies including Carrefour and Hipercor.

But the average shopper’s bill is set to be higher than normal as ‘out of stock’ notices mean they have to turn to brand names.

The Organisation has been monitoring the price of a basket of 25 food and household products at supermarkets in Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Murcia, Sevilla and Zaragoza.

Worst city for unavailability was Sevilla, where 40% of Carrefour’s products were sold out.

On average the French-based supermarket chain had 27% of its products out of stock across Spain, with unavailability rates at Dia and el Corte Ingles’s Hipercor both standing at 13%.

On top of this many people are unable to get delivery slots, with waits of a week or more common, reported OCU. On various visits to Mercadona supermarket over the last month, the Olive Press has noted numerous empty shelves (see above).

Are you being conned?

Price controls had to be brought in after speculators were bumping up the price of basic masks and alcohol-based hand cleaning gels by mark-ups of up to 1000%.

Numerous Olive Press readers reported having to pay over €10 for a pack of three to five simple masks at pharmacies along the Costa del Sol. Yet a state bulletin last month insisted that the price of masks had to be capped at 96 cents.

7

We hope to get 75% of summer trade

By James Stuart, of the Califa Group, in Vejer de la Frontera, Cadiz, opening some businesses in May

T

HIS year promised to be a record year for most of us in the hospitality trade in Andalucía.

With strong bookings from both the international and the Spanish market confidence had finally returned to our sector.

When the coronavirus lockdown hit us I actually told the staff to carry on taking bookings from March 29 and adjusted the website so that we would still be able to get the best of the very important Semana Santa trade.

Almost two months later we are still in quarantine with none of my ten hotels or restaurants reopened yet!

If business has taught me anything it is good to be optimistic when building a business, but when financial planning comes to mind pessi-

mistic is more realistic.

Of course I’d forgotten this rule, the great crash of 2008 and the long recession afterwards seemingly a long way back.

Like most businesses in our sector the winters are spent reforming our installations (in our case some new bathrooms for the hotels and an upgrade of kitchen facilities for the Califa restaurant). We were also just a few weeks away from finishing a stunning new Hammam.

All this work soaks up cash but hoteliers and restaurateurs in Andalucía have very reliable indicators and in normal years month on month revenues almost always creep upwards giving us strong confidence in forecasting income.

That has now gone out of the window and every tourist business in Andalucía has crashed, with some sadly likely to find it difficult to recover.

Stable businesses with a strong and loyal clientele and a secure hold on their market share will certainly recover but will also laden with debt.

The governments ICO-funded low interest loans have gone a long way to help keep businesses afloat however this ‘cheap money’ always comes at a price and next year will see many businesses struggling to repay their loans - and creditors won’t be quite as lenient as they are now.

So to recap: 2020 will be difficult, but the shock waves will follow us right the way through into 2021.

MISSING OUT: Local famer in Ronda

These are defined by the government as a “facial piece covering the mouth, nose and chin, which is fitted with a head harness and which meets the requirements of various technical specifications.

Meanwhile, the cost of alcohol gels should now be no more than 2.5 cents a millilitre when sold in bottles up to 150ml and 2.1 cents for containers from 151ml to 300ml. So a 100ml bottle should cost no more than €2.50 and a 300ml bottle a maximum of €6.30.

Now for the good news…

FOR those returning to work over the next week or two, the good news is that petrol is at its cheapest for a decade.

Due to a global collapse in demand, on May 10, the average price for 95 grade petrol in Spain stood at €1.08 per litre and diesel had dropped below the €1 mark to 98.3 cents.

These compare to historical highs of €1.52 for petrol and €1.45 for diesel in January.

But prices depend on where you buy it and who from.

On May 7, the average price of fuel at a BP station stood at €1.14 and €1.06 for petrol and diesel respectively, for example.

Previous lows in the past 10 years were in August 2016, when diesel fell to €1.001.

According to the European Union's Oil Bulletin, the price of petrol has fallen this year by 16.06% and that of diesel by 18.04%.

Curiously the price of cooking gas in bombonas has stayed roughly the same for the last four months.

FOOTNOTE: Technically we could be opening our hotels and the restaurants at a 50% capacity this week. It would be good news if we had any clients. But we don’t.

The incongruity of the new regulations means we can open our businesses but with no free movement of potential guests across province boundaries the whole thing is utterly pointless.

Bookings I am happy to say are relatively strong for July and Au-

gust however we are well aware that the entire summer could be written off very quickly with a resurgence in COVID cases.

However on an optimistic note revenues for the hotel and restaurant trade should be between 65-75% of last year for July and August but only for the businesses that focus 100% on the national market (including foreigners living in Andalucía).

This is not a time to step back, it is time to stride out with bold measures so that potential guests can see that an effort has been made in cleaning and safety not just for clients but also for staff. We will be opening when movement between provinces is allowed and we see happy, confident people walking the streets of Vejer looking for a cool glass of manzanilla under a palm tree. We hope it’s soon - almost certainly this month - and life might just seem a bit more normal again.

Olive Press online ‘Spain’s best English news website’

You read it here first!

WITH a team of 20-plus writers and journalists, you expect to break the odd few story.

The Olive Press has been been finding and standing up exclusives around Spain for 14 years - and had literally hundreds followed up around the world.

This month is no exception with our front page interview with the brave mother of tragic Ashya King (right), leading to NOT one, but TWO big shows back home in the UK, one in the Sun and the other a double page spread for editor Jon Clarke in the Mail on Sunday.

A taste of freedom

OLIVE PRESS MALLORCA

The

air - minus the planes!

FREE

Your expat

voice in Spain

May 1st - May 14th, 2020 Vol. 3 Issue 79 www.theolivepress.es

This is not ArmagedEdon!

XC LU SIV E

parents and children IT was a taste of what’s to come for at the weekend. headed out to take Mothers and sons, dads and daughters beaches around Palma. the air, pick wild flowers or stroll on roller skates or just On bikes, scooters, skateboards,

four-step plan to Expat restaurateurs welcome able to open agai fear huge losses despite being

Mother of cancer victim Ashya King tells the Olive Press why she has leftto the Jehovah’s Witnesses and wants move back to Spain with her family

See a mother’s moving interview on pages 6-7

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If planes fly we’ll be fine, I hope

Wife killer . . . Park

I

HOPE we will be half full this summer, ignoring Boris Johnson’s crazy quarantine idea, which is unworkable, given he’s letting the French and the Irish in.

That said, so many of our clients are Irish, British and northern European, it does mean the planes have to fly.

But they are looking at loosening borders around the Schengen area and Mallorca and Germany are already talking about a deal, plus KLM is now flying to Barcelona and Madrid and Ryanair has announced it will fly to the Costa del Sol again in July.

We had been looking at a record year for the hotel, but it is definitely going to be a very difficult one now, in particular for the staff who number over 150.

It is going to be a very slow resumption of business from June 6 with a skeleton staff and the government simply cannot expect hotels to suddenly open if they haven’t got clients.

Prices will be cheaper as we can’t offer the normal service in terms of entertainment and shows, etc, but I hope that we’ll get 50% occupancy at least in July and August.

Once the country is open the Spanish will be clamouring for the coasts, which are far cooler and that should help a fair bit.

It is a vital step for the local market which is at least 30 to 40% reliant on tourism, perhaps over 50% in places like Benalmadena and Fuengirola.

I just hope common sense prevails and if people take the right safety measures they will be fine to travel.

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t take it any more..I’m happier now7

By MIKE SULLIVAN

TEACHER Gordon Park was responsible for the “Lady in the ing of his wife,Lake” killof Appeal ruled the Court yesterday.

His three children tried to posthumously overturn his conviction for the 1976 murder of mum Carol.

Judges said “no doubt’’ aboutthey had ty and rejected its safeThe son and their bid. daughters said the judgment “marks the end of our fight”.

Park hanged jail on his 66thhimself in birthday in 2010 after to overturn hisa failed bid Teacher Carol,conviction.

30, vanished from the family home in Barrow-in-Fu rness, Cumbria, when the marriage was in trouble.

Divers found her weighted-down body in Coniston Water, Lake District, in 1997. convicted in 2005.Park was

Mark Wardell, Manager of Sunset Beach hotel, Benalmadena, which opens on June 6

Raids trio get 17 yrs

Meanwhile, last month our continuing investigation into Jodie Smart and Continental Wealth Management (CWM), made further headlines in both the Daily Mail and in a BBC documentary.

THREE burglars have been jailed for 17 years after a total of night raids on admitting the elderly in sheltered housing.

They even stole mobiles so the pensioners could not call for help around last Christmas in Buckinghamshire, Aylesbury crown court heard. One victim was aged 97.

Kristopher Barfoot, 36, of no fixed address, got six years, eight Ben Tompkins, months; 36, of Milton Keynes, six years; and Aaron Tompkins, 32, of no fixed address, four years and four months.

EXCLUSIVE by RACHEL and JON CLARKE DALE

THE mum of brain cancer survivor Ashya King is stuck in down Spain afterlockedsplitting from her Jehovah’s Witness husband.

Naghmeh and sparked a 2014 Brett King after taking their manhunt son, then five, out of a against doctors’ UK hospital advice.

They could therapy on the not get proton NHS and were arrested after ing to Malaga. fleeThe couple, both practising vahs at the Jehotime, were briefly jailed.

Ashya, ten, has now made an “amazing” recovery.

Love . . Naghmeh, But Naghmeh, Ashya. Left, family 50, with Sun, 2015 has revealed left Brett, 56, she their seven kidsand in Milton Bucks, and Keynes, headed to their home days holiday the travel banbefore was enforced last month.

And she said that Jehovahs were ing coronavirusbrand“Armageddon”. an children back. just want my before I want them She explained: come being released ‘“My kids are to efforts to over and live at home and extradite them when with me UK rified this is Armageddon ter- here in Spain to the were abandoned. and I have been I am stuck here while looking at bigger In 2016, two homes to rent.”

“The Jehovah’s in Spain.

Ashya had start of Ashya’s years after the been Witnesses say with coronavirus is treatment, a medulloblasto diagnosed NHS decided ma which it would pay the prophesied by the great plague was successfully for God and they surgeons removed by children with brain cancer will only be saved to if their belief July 2014. in Southampton in travel abroad for proton in Jehovah is therapy. beam strong enough.”

Admitting her He had a further In 2018, MRI marriage is on his scans conducted the rocks, Naghmeh brain soon after.operation on in Southampton added: “I couldn’t deal showed Ashya But to help prevent to be free of with it and came cancer. a return out at the beginning of the tumour, Speaking from his parents of March. wanted him her lockdown “I told them home, to I would isolate here therapy — whichbe given proton although Naghmeh added that where I willself- not Ashya is doing safe. Brett said be provide at the the NHS did still well he suffers he didn’t want time. with me to leave The Kings took profound disabilities the house but I but were him — and she believes couldn’t take arrested at theto Spain he would benefit it request of She added: anymore.” from living “I’m definitely heldthe British authorities and in Spain. happier now in Madrid’s Soto She added: I’ve Del Real properly “He can’t write prison.

“I feel free and left. have got more yet, his hand time to think The couple were shakes, but he is and study. Now I jail for more thankept in the do sums.” starting to read and 24 hours rachel.dale@th e-sun.co.uk

Left hubby in row over armageddon

Killer bug bee fears

HONEYBEES wiped out by are being a mystery disease that is sweeping Britain, researchers say.

Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus causes trembling of the wings and body and jumpiness, stopping It can contribute flight. death of a whole to the colony, with infected within a week.bees dying It has spread most of England across and Wales in ten has also been years and identified in Scotland.

Experts say it is being fuelled by queen bees fromimporting Europe.

ive Pres

By Isha Sesay apprecia in Palma lies on t spring b However, despite business-owners low us to being told they can potentially resume His prog activity this month, with more restric- he belie hotel w tions lifted by June, many are feeling re- benefits wholly dubious about how viable opening will be without an interna- For this the dec tional market.

Although retaining a healthy all-year- 2021 – the hot round population, Mallorca relies in- eration heavily on tourism and winter comes are complemented by signifi- Hiscock to Germ cant profits over the summer.

The Mallorca Hotel Business Federa- for tou tion and the Hotel Chain Association tourism have branded the government’s plans reiss’ w will no to reopen establishments as comit true, t pletely ‘unfeasible,’ claiming that provides a ‘false impression of return- suffer e Germa ing to a new normality.’ re“The de-escalation plan has been as- cant m one th ceived with disappointment and profound the shows and ket for tonishment, ignorance of the government towards million tourism and business in the Balearica and th homes Islands,” said the associations in Restau joint statement.

Stressing the need to implement pro- well-k tocols such as mass COVID-19 testing, also h the organisation believes the focus ports should not be on resuming activity “90% so it without a client base. witho This view was echoed by James Histhe cock, a British expat who owns the the O He a renowned Son Ametler Hotel in foothills of the Serra de Tramuntana the E mountains.

Stating the need to roll out a EuroSaturday, May 2, Olthe told he pean health passport, 2020 ...............

deA WAVE of uncertainty has scended across Mallorca after Prime his Minister Pedro Sanchez revealed life four-step de-escalation plan to get of back to ‘a new normal’ after a week positive COVID-19 results.

As long as the rate of infections conwill tinues to drop, restaurant terraces be allowed to open with a 30% capacity, as well as hotels and other tourist accommodation on May 11. dinrestaurant later, weeks two Some ing rooms can once again welcome clients, while cinemas, theatres anda museums will follow suit, albeit in limited capacity with strict separation rules.

www.globelink.co.uk

‘Lady in the Lake’ appeal is rejected

shanks pony, they met and cha corners and in parks, without fea Even better, from this weekend exercise, as long as social dista And, fingers crossed, the weathe

BITTER SWEET

Photos by Jon Clarke

www.theolivepress.es

ASHYA’S MUM FLEES TO SPAIN

10-PINT FATAL FALL

A MAN who night out was drank ten pints on a and found dead morning in a the next last diabetes at the time of garden, an inquest his death December.

John Downey, heard.

Mr Downey, with a pal who 66, had been boozing from Cheltenham, also over a wall and did not see him fall had an enlarged heart and the liver, Gloucestershire cirrhosis of He had sufferedland in a 3ft ditch. court was told. coroner’s no injuries on medication Heart disease for high blood but was diabetes was and pressure alcohol blamed, rather toxicity. Verdict: than Natural causes.

Sun

BRITISH Bruce Springsteen Hungry Heartfan club raise £10,000 hopes to for charity by streaming hours of non-stop 24 by the US rocker hits into people’s homes today.

SPOT

A&E BURN THREAT

A WOMAN threatened to burn down hospital and a would kill her,told a care assistant she arms and trying to take but once there her Abigail Forder,a court heard. began ranting own life Winchester crown 24, waved a lighter at staff, the air with court heard. in Forder, of terrified A&E oxygen tanks nearby as Basingstoke, staff looked on. threatening admitted She had been and damage, plusviolence admitted to hospital criminal Basingstoke, unrelated charges in Hants, after of cutting her attempted robbery and witness dation. She was intimijailed for 50 months.

And over the last six months, the Mail ran our story about an English couple in a mysterious house blaze in Sotogrande, a Brexit protest in La Linea, while the Sun followed up our series of excellent exclusives on the floods in the Costa Blanca

Here are the top five most read stories on www.theolivepress.es in the past two weeks: Air cancels its flights from Spain’s Tenerife to 1- Wizz London Luton on the day they were supposed to restart (52,442 visitors) beach disinfected with BLEACH near 2- Outrage asSpain’s Costa del Sol (31,098) Spain will lift coronavirus restrictions 3- BREAKING: in FOUR phases with islands given a head start (31,026) Officials in Germany say there will be NO holidays to 4-Spain this year in multi-million euro blow to Balearic Islands’ tourism sector (27,374) Air completes first flights connecting Spain’s 5- WizzCanary Islands to London Luton (19,981)

Get in touch today at sales@theolivepress.es or call us at 00 34 951273575 for a special quote

25

NEWS

www.theolivepress.es

China wasp alErt A TOWN in the province of Malaga has purchased over €5,000 worth of a predatory insect, in order to protect its chestnut productions.

The town of Farajan has spent €5,250 on purchasing 30 batches of torymus sinensis, in order to kill the Chinese chestnut wasp.

The torymus sinensis is the natural predator to the Chinese chestnut wasp which has been wreaking havoc on chestnut production in the area.

The insects that were acquired by the town council were released by the Mayor of Farajan himself, Fernando Fernandez.

According to Fernandez, the main criteria that they have followed when carrying out the releases has been to distribute the batches in lands and plots that are owned by residents of the town.

May 13th - May 26th 2020

Four feet forward

No fairway to treat us!

Mijas donkeys are being well cared for, exercised and fed, insists council MIJAS town hall has denied that its emblematic donkeys are being mistreated during the lockdown.

The councillor responsible for their welfare Nicholas Cruz insisted to the Olive Press that they are ‘being taken out for regular exercise’ and being properly fed.

The town hall added that their ‘burro taxi’ owners are also being given sizable tax breaks this year to make up

A LOCAL town hall has attacked ‘lies on social media’ for stirring up trouble in the passing of a controversial golf project in the Axarquia.

The PP party in Nerja insists that the mega-project of hundreds of homes and hotels on virgin land in Maro is ‘not new’ and was first put forward in 2015.

“We must be careful of the lies spread on social networks, causing a second state of alarm during a worldwide crisis,” insisted Planning boss Nieves Atencia.

She has been forced to defend the Maro Golf Project, which has been re-submitted for the Tetuan de Maro plot, currently protected as an area of Cultural Interest (BIC).

Developers Sociedad Azucarera Larios are centering the scheme around the 19th century San Joaquin sugar factory and aim to construct 680 homes, three hotels and a golf course.

However opposition parties and environmental groups are increasing pressure on the town hall to cancel the project.

"We need tourism linked to our natural heritage, that preserves our nature, that is respectful of climate change and that is linked to sustainable development," said Rodrigo Sanchez Haro, of the PSOE party.

Adelante Andalucia described it as a ‘stumbling block’ to the region’s economic recovery, while the IU party said it was a ‘predatory’ scheme that should be scrapped.

Its spokesman for Malaga, Guzmán Ahumada accused the mayor Jose Armijo of using the Royal Decree to speed up the process for approval, flaunting urban planning laws.

Local conservation group, Otro Maro - Nerja es Posible continues to raise a petition to hand in to the Junta and central government.

By Charlie Smith

for the huge loss in earnings.

His comments came, after various readers contacted our social media sites to complain that they were not being properly cared for.

One reader Susanne Larsen said they were being cooped up unfairly.

However, a video sent ap-

ONCE on the endangered-species list, Spain’s native Iberian lynx population is thriving.

The wild cat has truly bounced back from a depressing low of 94 individuals in 2004 to a stunning 461 in Andalucia in 2019.

There has been a 3.6% increase in the last year alone.

The Sierra Morena area (Guadalmellato, Cardeña, Andujar and Guarrizas) has established itself as the main territory with 356 cats in the wild.

OUT AND ABOUT: Mijas donkeys during lockdown peared to be three years old.

Mijas Councillor Bill Anderson, told the Olive Press: “I

have spoken to Nicholas and he has looked into it, and I am informed that they are being taken out on a regular basis for exercise, obviously just with their reins and no traps or heavy loads.

He continued: “And at the last council meeting we agreed unanimously that the taxes the owners pay for them will be cancelled for this year.

“Given that the owners are self employed, they have no income at the moment, so this will help them.”

He added that the council was looking at ways to subsidise the food for the donkeys to ‘ensure that they have enough’.

“We are taking the matter seriously, but, despite some bad press about the donkeys in the past, the owners do care about their animals.”

The lynx effect

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Former glory ANCIENT: Gold mask

Fool’s gold SPANISH police have recovered a priceless ancient gold mask that was illegally exported from Colombia.

Policia Nacional, working with colleagues from Colombia, recovered the stunning Tumaco gold art-piece at Madrid’s Barajas airport.

It was part of a shipment which included several extremely rare pre-Columbian gold figurines and jewellery illegally plundered from archaeological sites in Colombia.

Three traffickers were arrested in Spain and the Colombian authorities carried out house searches in Bogota, resulting in the seizure of another 242 pre-Columbian objects, the largest ever seizure in the country’s history.

Lights, corona, action!

THE Ministry of Culture has unveiled a raft of film funding for often-overlooked groups in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

Female-directed movies are set to receive grants for 75% of production costs, compared to 50% for male filmmakers.

Meanwhile handouts for 80% of costs are available for shorts, feature films that don’t exceed a €1.5 million budget, bilingual works or those with a disabled screenwriter.

Documentaries and animated films are also in-line for 75% grants, while European and American co-productions can get 60% of their costs covered.

Recovery project of Malaga’s Villa Torre de Benagalbon to start before June

ICONIC: Sagrada

Tools still down

By Cristina Hodgson

A JOINT venture has won a lucrative tender to restore an ancient Roman villa on the Costa del Sol. Work is set to begin on the 3rd century Torre de Benagalbon in the Axarquia this month.

The ‘Site of Cultural Interest’ located near the sea beside two streams, near the village of Benalgalbon, is to be turned into a museum to visit by the summer it is hoped.

May 13th - May 26th 2020

MAKEOVER: Of Villa Torre de Benagalbon The companies Copesol and Obras Generales del Norte won the tender by coming in some €263,000 under the

budget of €1mlllion.

They have beaten six other bids for the public tender, whose decision was postponed

Forget Brexit, here’s your Velazquez A BRITISH-run art restoration group are attempting to bring back to Sevilla one of the most interesting examples of Spanish-British relations.

The Factum Arte group are in talks with the Duke of Wellington’s estate to access a Diego Velazquez original

that was gifted to the British after they kicked Napoleon’s brother out of Spain in 1813. Factum Arte plan to put a copy of The Waterseller of Seville, currently in Apsley House, London, in a new museum being built in Velazquez’s childhood home.

Race against time Your perfect spy thriller

Former MI6 tech expert Marc Dane works as a security consultant at Rubicon. When one of Rubicon’s research assistants goes missing, Marc and his partner, ex-soldier Lucy are asked to investigate.

However, when an extreme right-wing terrorist escapes from police custody in Belgium, they soon

find themselves in a race against time to stop a bioweapon releasing a deadly virus that will kill millions across Europe and the Middle East. An action packed, fast paced spy thriller, Shadow is perfect for fans of Jack Reacher and I Am Pilgrim.

Available from The Bookshop San Pedro, www.thebookshop.es

due to the coronavirus crisis.

Moreover the bid has committed to reduce the execution period by two months.

The City Council of Rincon de la Victoria had envisaged the work taking one year.

The recovery project is based on the construction of an exhibition space and information centre alongside the remains of Villa Antiopa.

The space covers two areas and will have a total surface area of 1,026.75 square metres divided into three levels connected by stairs, walkways and a lift.

LA Sagrada Familia will not restart construction until the cathedral reopens its doors to visitors, it has been announced.

The landmark, which forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, stopped all building as Spain’s state of alarm was declared on March 14.

It is the first time work on the Gaudi’s Art Nouveau-Gothic masterpiece has been halted since the Spanish Civil War. This year was to be a decisive one for the Barcelona basilica’s completion, with significant work planned for the central towers.

La Sagrada Familia could start welcoming visitors from June during the latter phases of Spain’s deescalation, although this is yet to be confirmed.

Of the €103 million the site generated last year, €55 million of that was spent on construction.

10

May 13th - May 26th 2020

LA CULTURA

In gold blood

10

April 29th - May 12th 2020

SPECIAL DISPATCH: A secret Nazi U-boat base, macabre facilities for facial reconstruction surgery, bank transactions traced to the highest echelons of the Third Reich. Conor McGlone (right) asks how Fuerteventura’s mysterious past sheds light on Spain’s troubled history

LA CULTURA

ISOLATED: Windswept Jandia peninsula where Villa Winter allegedly hid fleeing Nazis

The shadow of fascism

crossed the peninsula from rines), Fumero vowed to uncover coast to coast. exterior, gulls wheel and cry pite- the truth. weather. the small cores of roosting doves blusteryis one conspicuous ex- ously. A rooster calls. own life is As we nosed about man barred our Gustav Winter's located in a stifling erupted from the de- There Few visitors make it A gruff, stocky a 'donation' as shrouded in mystery. We know museum I was struck by the crepit courtyard as we ception. dusty track, to Vil- way, demandinga lopsided piece that in 1928 he built the power back room, entered. I'm not easily up a second uncomfortable thought that the he gestured at plant CICER on neighbouring la Winter, a grandiose turreted spooked but something in the building, nestled impossibly at of wood with 'museo' scrawled island Las Palmas de Gran Ca- exhibits, laid out without any air felt very wrong. A punch bag the base of the mountains. In on it. This man, I later discov- naria, which has been described explanation or context, could be treated as pure memorabilia, a and gloves hung in one corner, a the 1930s, when the building ered, was Pedro Fumero. had as "a masterpiece of German Neo-nazi shrine (see below). grandfather couple of chained-up rottweilers was constructed, the setting Fumero's time his engineering". During were in the opposite. Budgies would have been even more re- helped to build Villa Winter and working on Gran Canaria, Winter There were old Nazi uniforms languished in a birdcage, next to mote, accessible only by donkey his four uncles were hired by (pictured top right) became fas- and news clippings, huge wartime radio sets and photographs Winter's family as guards of the cinated by the Jandía peninsula. an inscription that read: "History or camel. house at the end of the 70s. Legend has it that In 1939, Win- of dead soldiers. There were test is the cage that imprisons us."

Disturbing rumours had brought In the 90s the There was an unnatural stillness us here. Legend with tubes and nasty looking syringes batterWinter's sold the ter arrived on Fuerteventura to the air and a strong scent of has it that the with cash on a as well as serious-looking house to a large a suitcase filled to purchase the ies, alleged by Fumero to have sedentary humanity but there base was conHigh-ranking hotel and con- special mission was no turning back now - it had structed by the for the Nazis. powered submarines. a German engistruction compa- strategic peninsula been no small feat getting here.

SS officers denied this until Darwin Vidal, German engineer ny and his rela- While Winter 1971, historians neer who has been working with While the Canary Islands bring Gustav Winter, his death in to mind neatly packaged cheap financed by the underwent facial tives - unaware of agree that there were German Fumero for the last four years to told me sale - ceased winter sunshine, there is much Nazi the Canaries ar- investigate the rumours, regime. surgery to alter the to receive the submarines in the war. This is ‘everything indicates’ that the more to Fuerteventura than sun- During the Secchipelago during burn and cervezas. This you will ond World War, it their appearance small salary they despite Franco declaring Spain Winter house was used as a nahad formerly reknow if like us you have risked is said, the base the outbreak of ceived to look af- to be neutral at War. He was, the 40-minute hair-raising off- acted as a secret the Second World road drive on Fuerteventura's launchpad for U-boats, utilizing ter the house. after all, heavily indebted to Hitrugged southern tip, the Jandía a subterranean network of vol- Returning from Tenerife in 2012 ler for helping him brutally win peninsula, to be rewarded with canic caves. After the war, it be- and finding the place in a state the Spanish civil war. epic views of a ridge of volcanic came one of the last refuges of of utter disrepair, with his rel- During the Second World War, mountains trailing like a giant's the Third Reich, where high-rank- atives barely surviving in the the Jandía peninsula was squalid conditions, a heart-bro- blocked off from the rest of the stepping stones to the sea. ing SS officers fled to undergo faAt the foot of the mountains lie cial surgery to alter their appear- ken Fumero decided to stay to island. The local inhabitants miles of windswept beaches, ance, on the way to new lives in look after them. Remembering were only allowed back in the the stories his grandfather had 1950s, when the Franco regime with perfect white sand and South America. barely a speck of civilization in Now, wandering goats and don- told him about the "upside-down finally removed a fence which sight, a tapestry of cloud, light keys roam about the ramshackle ships" (as he called the submaand blue, changing quickly in the

S

val base. Local documents date the house as being built in 1946, but Vidal claims the "bunker" or base of the building was built before the war.

According to Vidal, the 1.4-metre-thick reinforced concrete walls, the vaulted ceiling, and imposing tower - that looks suspiciously like a lighthouse - are all clues that the villa was used to provision German U-boats.

The rest of the house was built after the war, in Vidal's opinion as "an ideal place to hide and escape allied arrests". The presence of several windowless rooms, for example, could have been used to conceal people.

Vidal, who has been tirelessly combing the national archives in Germany, said there is ample evidence that Winter collaborated with the Nazi regime, bringing

Hot on the heels of our expose on a Nazi U-boat base in the Canaries, Jon Clarke tracks the Nazi Gold Trail to Madrid and Gibraltar shedding new light on a shady chapter in history that has never been resolved cornocopia of Nazi memoraMYSTERIOUS: Villa Winter and its bilia while (top) museum boss Fumero

H

OW could a stockpile of looted Nazi gold larger than some country’s bullion reserves disappear without trace?

The macabre mystery has been the subject of tireless investigations, books, conspiracy theories and even a failed civil suit brought against the Vatican Bank in January 2000. But the true story, and Spain’s part in it - possibly Gibraltar’s too - has never fully come out.

The story began on a cold and shivery morning in February 1945 with a covert meeting in Madrid.

The clandestine assembly took place in the plush top floor office of the Instituto de la Moneda, attended by its director and the heads of both the German and British secret services.

The topic: to decide, allegedly, how to divide up the enormous stockpile of Nazi gold – much of it looted from Jews – that had found its way into Spain towards the end of the Second World War. “There were two British agents and four German agents,” claims Dr Shimon Samuels, who has investigated the

movement of looted gold for decades. “Each of them were making offers. The British wanted the gold, insisting it should not fall into the hands of the Americans, while the Germans wanted their gold protected by Franco, officially to be used for post war reconstruction in Germany.

“But we think it went to Operation Odessa to help Nazis escape to South America.”

The piles of gold in question – conservatively estimated to have a value of at least $138 million – had been amassed in a series of safe deposit boxes at the Institute over the previous few years.

While many of the gold ingots had been looted from the bank accounts of Jews across Eastern Europe and Germany through the 1930s and early 1940s, much of it had come from a much more sinister source.

“A lot of it was tooth gold extracted from people who had been exterminated in the concentration camps,” explains Dr Samuels, the Director for International Relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem.

“This was looted gold and it should not have been here in

STASHED: The hoard was hidden in Gib, believes Dr Shimon Samuels (inset) Spain nor, most pertinently, should the British have had anything to do with it. There was clearly a lot of hanky panky going on.”

The fascinating chain of events first came to light when Samuels and his colleague Dr Ephraim Zuroff, the world’s most famous Nazi-hunter, spent time in Spain alongside Spanish investigator Jose Maria Irujo.

The group had been trying to ascertain how and where the billions of dollars in Nazi gold had ended up after the war in September 1945.

Most importantly they wanted to know who among the Nazi hierachy might have benefited from it. They spent a number of months compiling a list of ten key people who were allegedly still

living in Spain in the 1990s – string of meetings held with scattered around the country both German and English but mostly in Andalucia. They agents in Madrid. handed this list in person to Taking place in February and then Spanish President Jose March, most interesting of all Maria Aznar, who insisted was the entry in the diary for there was little April 19. that could be “It noted simply done.

Gold had been that the gold The ingot trail had been put on put on a train drew more suca train to Tarifa cess and the and from there to Tarifa and team of invesit was transtigators quite ferred to a buildfrom there to literally struck ing in Gibraltar.”

Gibraltar gold when they An intriguing stumbled upon and highly the ageing widdamning note ow of the former director of for the Allied authorities, the the Instituto de la Moneda. team from the Simon Wiesen“It was a stroke of luck that thal Centre wasted no time in she was still alive to tell us heading south to investigate the story,” says Dr Samuels. further.

“And, even better, she reBut after weeks of pressing, called how all of her the Gibraltar authorities inbest sheets, blansisted they were unable to kets and tablecloths find any sign of the gold. had disappeared “Of course we pushed them around that time but we met a complete brick and how she now wall. The trail went cold. It realised that they was absolutely scandalous.” had almost cerThe Gold Trail that emanated tainly been used to from Germany in the 1940s cover and carry the spread out in a number of dimountains of gold rections. ingots.”

It included everything from On top of that, the silverware and watches to widow had even wedding rings and gold teeth kept a copy of her stained with human blood. late husband’s diThe Nazis had seized most of ary, including the it as they ejected Jews from entries for 1945, their homes around Eastern which included a Europe and Germany.

Remarkably efficient, the Jews’ belongings were minutely chronicled, explained investigator Ronald Zweig.

“The crucial period was around April 1944, when the Jews were handing over their property; it was put into individual bags and closed in front of them,” he explained.

“The address was recorded, and they were TRACKED: Gold was set by armoured train from Germany given receipts,

LA CULTURA

11

May 13th - May 26th 2020

NAZI HOARD: Hitler ordered the looting of Jewish goods, with millions stolen and even ripped from the fillings in their teeth, while (inset) Nazi Martin Bormann but within weeks it all became meaningless because these people were shipped off to Auschwitz and didn’t survive.”

Often melted down into ingots, the gold was used throughout the war to buy raw materials from around Europe including much from Spain, through a complex network of companies.

At the centre of this German-Spanish trading relationship was the large commercial conglomerate Sociedad Financiera Industrial (SOFINDUS), formed in 1936.

Through special agreements, SOFINDUS eventually acquired a commercial empire that included 10 agricultural subsidiaries, nine transportation companies and significant mining interests.

In shipping alone, by 1941 it was operating as many as 53 vessels with a combined capacity of 55,000 tons.

SOFINDUS served as the Nazis’ commercial agency in Spain, handling all non-military trade and developing its nascent mining and agricultural industries, principally to supply the Third Reich with raw materials vital for its economy and war industries.

By 1941 Germany was buying almost all of Spain’s iron ore for its weapons industry, paid for in gold, the only ‘currency’ it had.

After the German surrender in 1945, an Anglo-AmericanTrusteeship took control of German businesses and properties in Spain. By July 1946 their worth totalled 278 million pesetas ($25.3 million) out of an estimated 1,045 million pesetas ($95 million) of German assets in Spain.

The Allies based their estimates of Spain’s wartime gold acquisitions on captured German Reichsbank records, statements by Swiss banking officials and records seized from the offices of SOFINDUS. Conservative estimates put the amount of gold Spain acquired between 1942 and 1945 at a minimum 122 tonnes of gold worth around

$138 million. Of this 11 the gold was long gone. In of them came in the 1940s tonnes came from Germany, total, Spain agreed to repa- and 1950s and, under Fran74 tonnes from the German triate just $114,000 in gold, co, they obviously got a good account at the Swiss Nation- much of it believed to have reception. al Bank and 37,852 tonnes come from the Netherlands - “The amazing thing was that directly from the Swiss Na- a scandalous fraction of what in 1975 nothing changed. tional Bank, which the Allies had been stolen and later fer- They could still live in peace.”

Indeed it wasn’t until Zuroff believed included loot. reted away.

The report concluded that of Even more of a ‘joke’ - as part and his team started to inthis total, an estimated 72% of the agreement the Allies vestigate the movements of of the gold Germany used were forced to issue a state- leading Nazis, such as Aribert during this period was looted. ment insisting that Spain had Heim (known as Doctor Death What is also now quite appar- been ‘unaware’ that the gold for his part in the massaent was that the had even been cre of numerous Jews – and ease with which looted by the Spaniards – in Mauthausen the Nazis could Spain agreed to Nazis in the first Concentration Camp) that the cloak their place. world started to learn about repatriate just This businesses in shady their existence in Spain.

Spain was due in the El Pais journalist Irujo worked $114k in gold, chapter to the ease with history of Spain hard to locate a string of which Spanish much of it from – and, in partic- wanted Nazis, including Belofficials could ular, the involve- gian Leon Degrelle.

Netherlands be corrupted. ment of Gibral- “But Spain still didn’t take It also became tar – has still much interest,” said Zuroff. clear that Tangnot been prop- “They basically favoured the iers and Morocco were being erly resolved nor investigated. biological solution and I guess used as a conduit to move Neither the British govern- we had other more important Nazi assets from Spain and ment (Sir Malcolm Rifkind countries to investigate, so we Portugal to Argentina. This was approached at the time), kind of let them off the hook.” conduit confirms leading Nazi nor the Spanish authorities As for where the gold is now, Martin Bormann’s infamous were prepared to help in the some say it could still be in programme of flight capital. location of the looted gold safe deposits in Gibraltar, In the autumn of 1944, the and other treasures. others that it was distributed Allies made their first request “It is why Spain was such a to help Nazis flee to South for Spain to cease all gold popular destination for Na- America. transactions involving ene- zis,” says Dr Ephraim Zuroff, “The ultimate destination of my interests. Spain failed to who has spent four decades the gold is anyone’s guess, reply. In January 1945, the tracing Hitler’s former associ- but I imagine some went to Allies cut off all land routes ates around the globe. “Most Africa and plenty went to Nabetween Spain and Germany.

In May that same year, Spain finally issued a decree to freeze and immobilise all assets with Axis interests.

Negotiations with Spain started in November 1946 in Madrid and dragged on through 1947 beforefinal agreement was reached on both Nazi assets and the gold issue on May 3, 1948.

But by then TOP MAN: Nazi hunter Zuroff gets a handshake from the pope

zis fleeing Germany to live in Spain,” said Dr Samuels.

Either way, the Gold Train is one subject that is unlikely to be derailed.

While temporarily on the buf-

fers, it is extremely likely that there are officials in Gibraltar, or their older family members, who can shed light on this disgraceful chapter in Europe’s recent history.

FOOD,DRINK & TRAVEL

12

May 13th - May 26th 2020

Serves 8 (starter) or 4 (main course) Method: Ingredients:

Gorgeous Gazpacho F W OR the last two months they have been holed up in Granada following a coronavirus travel nightmare (Into the frying pan, Issue 340, March 16). But now British couple Yianni Papoutsis, 44 and Sophie O’Hara, 26, have turned lockdown into HO knew this rich chilled red soup started out white with no tomato con-

tent at all.

Gazpacho has its origins in a simple soup of olive oil, bread, garlic and water eaten by the Greeks and Romans. We have the Moors to thank for refining it when tomatoes were

When life gives you squishy tomatoes during lockdown, make Spain’s signature summer soup!

a culinary showdown.

To continue their new series of quarantine recipes for the Olive Press, the pair show us their fresh twist on the country’s most famous soup. Stay tuned for more and check out their blog @nice.olation on Instagram.

brought back from the New World in the early 16th century, and they threw in a few almonds too.

It's a great way to use up stale bread and soggy tomatoes which might otherwise be destined for the bin.

It freezes really well and you can go wild with the extra bits for toppings: now’s the time to

dig out any jars of gherkins, beetroot and pickled onions gathering dust at the back of the cupboard.

Best enjoyed in the glaring sunshine with an ice cold glass of manzanilla, you can even use the leftovers for pasta sauce - or add a slug of vodka for the healthiest, tastiest Bloody Mary you'll ever try.

History, adventure and romance.

That’s just the setting.

●● 80 g stale crusty bread (if yours is fresher, dry it out in the oven) ●● 800 g ripe tomatoes (a mix of varieties, colours and sizes is best) ●● 1 red pepper ●● 1 green pepper ●● 1 cucumber ●● 1 jalapeño pepper (or other mild chilli pepper) optional ●● 3 large cloves garlic ●● 100 ml olive oil ●● 2 1/2 tbsp sherry vinegar (or red wine vinegar) ●● Salt and pepper to taste ●● 6 ice cubes A selection of the following toppings:

Castaway cooking

By Yianni and Sophie

Step 1: Soak the stale bread in water for 10-15 minutes.

Step 2: Set aside one third of the tomatoes, red and green peppers, cucumber and jalapeño. Roughly chop the remaining two thirds with garlic cloves and blend using a food processor or stick blender.

Step 3: Squeeze the excess water out of the soggy bread with your hands and add it to the mixture. Pour in the oil and vinegar then blend until smooth. If your oil is extra virgin it can taste bitter so add it slowly, tasting as you go; sometimes it helps to add a pinch of sugar. Season to taste, then let it rest in the fridge for half an hour to chill.

Step 4: Push the mixture through a sieve, then discard what's left retaining the liquid. Toss in the ice cubes and return to the fridge for a minimum of half an hour.

●● 100g feta, crumbled ●● 1/2 an avocado, diced ●● 4-8 grapes, cut in half ●● 1 shallot, diced ●● 1 handful toasted almond shavings ●● 1 green spring onion, sliced ●● 1 handful of torn mint leaves

Step 5: Finely dice the reserved tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and jalapeño and place a handful in the centre of each bowl.

Step 6: Give the soup a stir and taste; if you like it less thick you can add a splash of water.

Gently pour the soup around the mound of diced ingredients. Serve with your choice of toppings and a drizzle of olive oil.

Join us for a celebration of history, art, heritage and pageantry in a unique part of the world.

With a UNESCO world heritage site offering 120,000 years of human history and only short drive from the Costa del Sol, enjoy the warmth of the British Gibraltarians and splash out VAT-free in Sterling.

Gibraltar. Sun, sea and history served with a very British twist.

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For further information call: Gibraltar Tourist Board +350 200 74950 Or to download a brochure go to: www.visitgibraltar.gi

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FOOD,DRINK & TRAVEL

Flightmare

THE cost of plane tickets could rise by up to 54% due to social distancing, it has been suggested.

Airlines such as Easyjet have stated their intent to keep their middle seats empty once flights resume, to keep some forms of social distancing.

It’s thought that more airlines will follow suit, causing the maximum capacity of flights to be reduced by a third.

The aviation industry has grounded to a virtual halt, with many airlines suffering huge losses and these plans could potentially make things worse.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) this could cause the price of flight tickets to surge.

The IATA supports the plans to make use of face masks compulsory for all passengers and crew, but doesn’t support the idea of leaving middle seats empty.

Takeoff KLM has resumed some of its flights connecting Amsterdam to Madrid and Barcelona.

The two Spanish destinations however are not the only resumed routes, as passengers can now also travel from the Dutch capital to Budapest, Helsinki, Milan, Prague, Rome and Warsaw.

On all these routes however, use of face masks will be mandatory by both passengers and crew members until at least August 31.

Ready, steady, cook!

World’s top 50 kitchens launch e-cookbook to support restaurants left reeling amid pandemic IF you are a foodie with nothing to do during lockdown, now is your chance to compare your cooking and mixology talents with the very best.

The organisation behind

the 50 Best awards – won seven times in 18 years

by Spanish restaurants El Bulli and El Celler de Can Roca – wants people to join a social media-based contest called #50BestRateMyPlate.

A DUTCH firm has started planning for a high speed train that would connect Amsterdam and Barcelona in just 90 minutes.

The company, Hardt, has published a new report on the environmental and economic benefits of the Hyperloop, which could reach speeds of up to 965 kilometres per hour.

The Dutch capital would be the European hub of the futuristic project, which could start as early as eight years time.

As well as speed, vast ecological benefits are on offer, as the decrease in travel time would help draw people away from air travel.

NO FRILLS: Victor Arguinzoniz of Asador Etxebarri, Spain’s best and world’s third best restaurant Open to anyone across the to pass on tips and ideas to globe, they want home cooks food and drinks enthusiasts. and aspiring bartenders to People downloading the cook prepare dishes and cocktails book will be asked for a doinspired by the downloadable nation to the organisation’s Home Comforts recipe book. recovery fund, which will be It will feature recipes from used to help restaurants get world-renowned chefs and back on their feet when the cocktail specialists, and aims lockdown crisis is over.

William Drew, Director of Content for 50 Best, said: “50 Best has long been about more than just rankings.

Through its lists, awards, live events and content, it has helped build an international community around food and drink.”

Now he is putting the call out for people on social media to join in this community by taking part in the competition.

It is not available for download yet, so keep an eye on 50 Best’s social media channels for the book launch and entry details.

Dam, that’s fast!

13

May 13th - May 26th 2020

Life’s a beach... almost RESTAURANTS are brushing off the news that the lockdown exit on the Costa del Sol has stalled and are planning to throw open their doors.

The Beach House – a popular eatery and beach club in Marbella – is being positive, with plans to reopen now firmly set.

That’s despite their hopes of a limited re-opening on May 11 – and those of thousands of bar, cafe and restaurant owners – being scratched after it was announced that the whole of Malaga would remain in ‘Phase 0’ of the staged lockdown exit.

But the situation will be kept under review and Malaga province may be allowed into Phase 1 from Monday May 18.

A spokesman for The Beach House said: “Regardless of this sudden news, our plan is still to reopen on Friday, May 22.”

Celebrity hotspot La Sala Banus is also making sure it’s ready for a phased reopening too.

Plans to reopen the celeb’ favourite and its sister restaurant Villa Toscana are in place.

They are just waiting on the official go-ahead from the Spanish Government.

May 13th - May 26th 2020

Have you put on a ‘Corona Stone’?

Most expats in Spain will be up to five kilos bulkier after the strict lockdown

EVIDENCE is mounting that people have been losing the battle of the bulge during the coronavirus lockdown.

Despite claims that those locked at home are eating healthier, it seems to be the opposite.

They have been hit with a double whammy - no exercise (particularly in Spain) and the temptation to snack throughout the day.

The result for many has been the inevitable expanding waistline – and people are starting to fret about it.

And so they should.

Clinical reports suggest that obesity-related conditions are a major risk factor when determining if people recover from contracting the deadly COVID-19 infection.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that people with heart disease and diabetes – both effects of being overweight - are at higher risk of COVID-19 complications.

Albert Goday, head of the Endocrinology and Nutrition Service at Hospital del Mar in Barcelona said: “I expect most people will put on between three and five kilos during the lockdown.”

But it can be hard to stop being a couch potato snacking in front of the TV. This has been seen first hand by well established Malaga health expert Martin Shirran, who has been an expat in Spain for two decades.

“The concept of the Corona Stone is starting to get a hold. Many people are noticing weight gain and are really getting worried, and scared they won’t fit into their clothes when the time comes to return to work,” he tells the Olive Press.

“But let’s remember, the reasons people put on weight are always psychological.

“My advice is every time you go to the fridge, think. Is it because you are hungry? If it is because you are bored, tired or stressed, do something else.”

Martin and his wife Marion run the Gastric Mind Band clinic, in Fuengirola, which has gained a world-wide reputation for weight loss techniques.

Thanks to their many appearances on UK TV show Good Morning Britain among many other programmes, they have been very busy during the lockdown.

“We have been submerged by inquiries. Many are booking appointments from May 11 when we reopen, while others have been booking remote sessions via Skype.”

Have you put on a Corona Stone? Tell us your experience of the lockdown - We want to hear from you if you have succumbed, or if you have beaten the bulge, give tips to our readers on escaping the dreaded expanding waistline.

Email newsdesk@theolivepress.es For more information visit gmband.com

HEALTH Paws for thought

SPAIN has registered its first feline victim of COVID-19.

Negrito, a four-year-old cat in Catalunya, caught the disease after its owner died from the virus.

It is the sixth cat in the world reported to have caught COVID-19.

The cat had to be euthanised after suffering severe heart disease, reported La Van-

First feline death in Spain as Catalan cat catches COVID

guardia.

“He is a collateral victim of the disease in humans,” said Joaquim Segales, a researcher at the Centre for Research in Animal Health (CReSA).

Negrito had one of the most common heart diseases in

LOCKDOWN’S devastating impact on the mental health and abuse of children has been laid bare, following a spike in emergency calls.

From March 23 to May 3 there was an 11.6% rise in the proportion of youngsters reporting violence at home.

Leading non-profit organisation the ANAR Foundation (Ayuda a Niños y Adolescentes) received 1,441 cries for help from kids during this period.

Around 47.7% of these were for violence, the group said, compared to 36.1% for the previous month and a half.

Psychological issues (including anxiety, sad-

cats, which is usually genetic.

He was taken to a veterinary hospital with breathing difficulties, a temperature of 38.2C, low blood platelet levels and heart failure.

After he was put down, vets sent the body to CReSA to be

Breaking point ness and self-harm) make up 23.5% of reports to ANAR. Suicidal thoughts and attempts have made up 8.3% of calls during the crisis, compared to just 1.9% on average throughout 2019.

An ANAR spokesperson said: “Without a doubt, these psychological problems should make us think about the despair which many children and adolescents are experiencing.”

For more information visit anar.org

analysed. It was there that experts discovered the RNA of COVID-19 in samples taken from Negrito’s nose and digestive tract.

“The viral load was low and none of the lesions he presented were compatible with the virus,” added Segales, “The cat was already suffering from cardiomyopathy and later became infected with COVID-19.”

Disease

Five other cats around the world have been known to test positive for coronavirus.

Eight lions and tigers also tested positive at the Bronx Zoo in New York.

Most of the animals showed mild symptoms of respiratory disease and have recovered without problems.

Natalia Majo, director of the CReSA, said: “The possibility that a person infects a cat is extremely low.”

On my final Mo Farah lap

I

SAW with awe the sheer will and determination that 100-year-old Colonel Tom Moore showed when he began his 100 laps of the garden for the NHS. I glanced at my tiny balcony here on the Costa del Sol and realised lapping was going to be impossible and clapping every night at 8pm would have to suffice.

It did give me inspiration though, so I decided it was finally time to put Project Lisa into action and insist I had the next series of tests to check whether life-saving breast cancer treatment was working.

With two vital tests postponed since September - one due to radiotherapy burns and one due to COVID-19, in April - I knew I had to take up the Colonel Tom baton.

So I forged ahead with a flurry of phone calls to the hospital, emails to the AECC cancer association and to its patron, Queen Letizia.

Something worked and, miraculously, I got an appointment for May 6 and was met by a female doctor who was not my usual oncologist.

Elvis had left the building, clearly, and neither I nor my partner Joffrey, who speaks good Spanish, got anywhere

Olive Press columnist Lisa Burgess finds strength in heroes to keep on going and finally gets those vital cancer tests

in finding out where he was.

Where is a rich Either way, my new oncolo- Russian, Norgist is superb and told me wegian or SauI was on my ‘final Mo Farah di when you lap’, as she appropriately need them? I doubt Putin put it. will be landing his helicopter The key tests are all now or- anytime soon near La Zaganised for June, so watch galeta but I believe someone this space. A request has out there in the universe will been put in for my new help us. boobs which come with a Joffrey once cooked for complimentary tummy tuck, Prince Charles, not to menapparently. I tion the British know patience ambassador is necessary here in Spain.

I became like but when I am But here at Julie Andrews Casa de Buddone, Barbie can eat her Lockdown, to his grumpy get heart out. chef faces One project challenges. I Emmanuel ticked off, next have chickpea, Macron one to go. Projroasted tomaect Joffrey, my to, spinach & long-suffering coriander curGallic partner. I just got his ry nestled in my fridge along CV sorted and he is at the with a batch of homemade ready to work as a private tomato sauce to eat as I enchef in a home in Marbella viously watch my neighbours or Mijas. splashing about in their His dream is to open another pool.

Joffrey’s in Marbella (his last At least we could finally go one in Mijas was amazing but out at the weekend. While was just not a good location) Joffrey gets a bit sulky on but this is not the time. a walk (he’s more of a gym

OP Puzzle solutions Quick Crossword Across: 7 Axe, 8 Yearning, 9 Nail file, 10 Rag, 11 Hilly, 12 Success, 14 Astride, 16 Admit, 18 Ash, 19 Boldness, 20 Magnetic, 21 Ewe. Down: 1 Canaries, 2 Cellular phone, 3 Lyric, 4 Maseru, 5 Unprecedented, 6 Snug, 12 Sue, 13 Spinster, 15 Debate, 17 Elect, 18 Away.

SUDOKU

14

Lisa Burgess and boxing guy), being let out after two months indoors was a breath of fresh air and I quickly became like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music to his grumpy Emmanuel Macron.

The highlight of the lockdown has been watching so many old movies. Remember Chariots of Fire? This great classic got me thinking about giving it your all, and while trying to nurture myself back to health and help Joffrey in his new projects, I am also trying damn hard to assist on various UK and Irish TV projects.

I have worked in TV for years and just finished helping a friend with a documentary on Andalucia. Now I’m doing one on Valencia - a progressive and forward-thinking virtual project.

However sometimes you must look back and learn from history. Like Eric Liddell, who won gold in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Played by Ian Charleson in Chariots of Fire, his words moved me about winning not being everything.

Now, as I face my own final lap, I look to that famous Scottish athlete and well up to his wonderful line: “In the dust of defeat, as well as the laurels of victory, there is a glory to be found if one has done his best”. I’m trying.

Write to Lisa at lisa.foley13@gmail.com

BUSINESS

15

May 13th - May 26th 2020

THE Government has said it may cover the salaries of shop-workers temporarily employed throughout May. It dished out £6 million during April to fund employees under the ‘BEAT COVID’ scheme launched in March.

This gave the job market a lifeline by freezing all employment, stopping people getting the sack and labelling these workers as ‘inactive’.

Shops – open since May 2 – have seen profits slump amid decreased tourism numbers, are desperate for cash throughout this month. However many of the applications for the relief money have been turned down

Through the minefield

Chartered Financial Planner Jonathan Holdaway explains the Spanish tax compliant bond

Staying afloat as the employers were not up-to-date with their payments.

A similar scheme was adopted for ‘excluded companies’ in the gaming, financial services and insurance sector, in which firms accepted to pay 50% of the costs.

Wise up

Rock firm has novel idea about how to cut border congestion pollution UP to the minute data could help cut pollution on roads in Gibraltar, a local company has claimed.

A study by Queue Wisely revealed carbon dioxide emissions could be cut by half if traffic jams like at the frontier were shortened.

H

This research flies in the face of plans to close down Line Wall Road to prevent pollution. “We think by giving users real time data and setting notifications on when the queue times are less, we will reduce traffic build up,” a Queue Wisely said.

The company’s large social me-

dia following has led to it being shortlisted for a Business Innovation Award by the Gibraltar Small Business Federation.

“We held talks with the government on passing data from the frontier hotline into our algorithms.

“These can be updated every five seconds allowing us to build predictive models for an app.

“We are still waiting on this integration, but it’s quite a small bit of development work on their side that would create a huge impact.”

The first study was carried out around the frontier queues which normally lasts about an hour.

“When we looked at the correlation between speed, traffic build up and volumes of cars crossing the frontier, we saw that this positively correlated to a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions.”

The mobile app could help users to stagger their use of roads to decrease pollution.

AVING recently completed the pur- in both a Spanish tax compliant and a chase of our first home in Spain non-compliant bond, and there is no other – thankfully we were able to move income from savings. just before lockdown came into for- If the growth in the first year was, say ce too, it is quite apparent that the country’s €10,000 in each case and this was all taken tax authority seems to have various ways of as ‘income’ - the investor must declare this relieving us of our money! as savings income and pay tax on the total However, when looking to make other in- amount. vestments, there are legitimate ways in The taxable amount varies considerably which excessive taxation can be avoided – between the two investments – the entire as long as you have the most appropriate €10,000 for the ‘non-compliant’ bond, yet financial plans. for the compliant bond this reduces to just For a UK resident these sorts of plans will €625. include ISA’s, personal or company pension The amount of tax therefore reduces from schemes and in some cases trusts. €1,980 to only €119 (source OMI).

If a Spanish tax resident – like in most EU Bear in mind that until withdrawals are countries, these ‘tax efficient’ taken, or the bond is totally suPOLLUTION: From Rock border queues rrendered, no tax is payable on plans are not recognised, and tax authorities will always ex- Spain is almost the ‘growth’ in either bond’s pect you to pay the appropriavalue. a ‘tax haven’ te rate of savings income tax In conclusion, not only do in the country and region in you need to consider the tax for residents which you reside. rules and rates of tax in your who take Trusts are not recognised at all country of residence, but also advantage and often viewed as bordering the investment arrangements on ‘tax evasion’. available to you.

As I said Spain is seen as a In this respect you could argue country with relatively high-tax – as such that Spain is almost a ‘tax haven’ for resimany UK expats try to keep their tax resi- dents who take advantage of the tax saving BREAK DOWN COVER dency there, by spending less than 183 days opportunities available to provide growth or out of the country in the tax year. The Spani- income from their assets.

If your car breaks down it can be an upsetting sh tax authorities are beginning to look clo- In addition, if you are currently holding moexperience, especially if you don’t have roadside assistance cover. But they are also the sely at these people, requiring written proof ney in cash – which will actually be reducing most common type of problem on the road. of the time spent in the UK. in value with inflation, now is an attractive Opting for Spanish tax residency may be opportunity to take advantage of buying STAY SAFE BREAKDOWN KIT more attractive than first envisaged, as there into world stockmarkets at a considerable are ways of avoiding savings income tax if discount, if investing for the medium to long If you break down, stay calm and safe un- To help you stay safe here is a checklist of using sanctioned investments, however: term. til rescue support arrives. Remember that some important safety items in the event of - A tax-compliant life insurance bond must This article should not be considered as while you wait for help, your priority is to *Fullya comprehensive breakdown.

This emergency breakdown kit offer valid for new customers only. Guarantee subjec t to cover, repair at hold the funds specific investment advice as it is general in garage, be and cour tesy vehicle availabilit y. Subjec t toat conditions.

O ffer ends The 30/11/18. safeguard yourself and any fellow passen- approved should kept in your vehicle all times. gers. Línea Directa policyholders simply kit includes: a torch and spare batteries, warm - It must pay out life insurance slightly in ex- nature. call 919 171 171 and inform the emergen- clothes and blankets, high-visibility jacket, first cess of the bond value on death To discuss the Spanish compliant investTheOlivePress-256x170-CAR-4.inddcy 1 hotline where you are. Línea Directa proaid kit, jump start cables, empty fuel can, food2/8/18 ment bond, or indeed any investment please - Only EU UCITS funds are allowed vides emergency roadside assistance any- and drink, two reflective warning signs, a road - A fiscal representative in Spain, responsi- contact me for a free initial discovery meewhere in Spain 24/7 and 365 days a year, atlas, and a mobile phone charger. ble for paying any taxes due, must be nomi- ting on zoom – you don’t even need to leave with a national network of operators and nated by the bond company the comfort of your own home. recovery vehicles.

OVER 20 YEARS OF EXPERTISE Investments such as these are not liable for annual taxation, unless ‘withdrawals’ are GEOLOCATION SERVICE As Spain’s most experienced provider of insurtaken – and even then a small part is assesance for British expatriates, Línea Directa has Jonathan now has an office This service is exclusive to Línea Directa and been keeping motorists on the move for over sed.

Malaga, which can be found allows breakdown recovery and roadside as- 20 years.

Therefore, if no withdrawals are taken, no here: Alameda Colón, 9, 1, 7. sistance services to pinpoint your location and tax is payable and the bond does not have send help directly to you. This service is avail- We hope the information provided in this 29001 Málaga, Spain. Phone: to be declared. able throughout mainland Spain, the Balearic article is of interest. If you would like to +34 For example, assume an investment of 951 579226 Islands and the Canary Islands. The technolo- contact Línea Directa please call 952 €150,000 was made into identical funds, gy is simple to use and really useful when you 147 834. More information about Línea

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need it most.

Contact me for a no obligation investment product and/or portfolio review and at my expense on +34 654 898 303/+44 77230 27864 or email me at jonathan.holdaway@chasebuchanan.com I’ll even buy the coffee.

Directa online at www.lineadirecta.com

We hope the information provided in this article is of interest. If you would like to contact Linea Directa please call 952 147 834. More information about Linea Directa online at www.lineadirecta.com

17:01

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Tweet hurts FAR right political party Vox has said it will sue Twitter after #killabascal in reference to its leader started trending on the social media site.

FINAL WORDS

Whats prats POLICE have reported 18 people – who face fines of between €601 and €30,000 – for setting up a WhatsApp group to warn members of coronavirus lockdown checkpoints.

DJ dimwits AN incredulous cop has asked 18 ‘foreign’ revellers ‘do you know the situation in Spain?’ when he found them partying complete with DJ and buffet in Ibiza.

R0520.indd 1

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Dog days aren’t over Sexpert warns against snogging, saying ‘doggy style’ is safest post-covid position

A SPANISH sex expert has warned against French kissing and ‘rimming’ amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

As the country begins to open once more, director of the Andalucian Institute of Sexology says it’s not time for our legs to follow suit.

In fact there are several activi-

By Laurence Dollimore

ties Francisco Cabello has advised against if we want to prevent another wave of infections.

“Of all the sexual relations that could take place during this period, the most dangerous is kissing with tongues,” said Ca-

bello, “since the highest concentration of the virus is in the saliva.”

He advised that couples who have not been living together should take precautions when reigniting their sex lives.

Because one of the two may be asymptomatic, Cabello advises the avoidance of mouth-to-

George, dinner’s ready!

BRITISH F1 star George Russell (left) has raced to victory in the Spanish Grand Prix – without leaving his bedroom.

The 22-year-old Williams driver from King’s Lynn secured a dramatic late win in the virtual event as his Ferrari rival Charles Leclerc picked up a time penalty. The race at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya featured a host of other sportsmen out of action due to coronavirus, including Manchester City forward Sergio Aguero, Real Madrid keeper Thibaut Courtois and English golfer Ian Poulter.

mouth contact.

To make this easier, he reccomended ‘doggy style’ or ‘spoon’ style sex as safest.

He added that while no germs have been found in sexual fluids as of yet, it is still accepted as a possibility and therefore it is best to avoid oral sex.

It is particularly important to avoid oral-anal sex, he said, also known as ‘rimming’, given that a ‘large amount’ of the virus can be found in faeces.

The sexologist added that if symptoms begin to appear, it would be ‘tremendously risky’ to have sex, advising to opt for masturbation – solo or together, while maintaining a safe distance.

For couples who have been going through the lockdown together, sex is ‘totally safe’, however extra hygiene precautions should be taken, said Cabello.

A CONTESTANT on Masterchef Spain has been kicked off the show after serving judges a whole, uncooked, unplucked partridge.

The panel were left dumbstruck when the less than appetising dead bird was served up to them – complete with a cherry tomato garnish and sauce.

Saray Carillo – who describes herself as a 27-year-old transgender Gypsy - made a stand after she was left spitting feathers by previous comments from the judges.

113 not out MARIA Branyas, who at 113 is Spain’s most senior citizen, has overcome COVID-19.

Born in San Francisco in 1907, where her father had gone for work after spending some time in Mexico, Maria currently lives in the Santa Maria del Tura care home in Olot, in northern Catalunya.

The centennial grandmother has spent the last 20 years living in the residence without cognitive problems or serious illnesses.

The centre confirmed 17 coronavirus-related deaths among its elderly residents on April 1.

TM

952 147 834

*Based on third par ty. Offer valid for new customer s only.

Subject to conditions. Ends 31/12/20.

11/5/20 9:45