The PP and PSOE have been at odds throughout the government of Zapatero, who came to power in the elections shortly after the March 11th attacks on commuter trains in Madrid. The PP had been in control at the time of the attacks, and they proposed suspending elections, and still claim that the bombings were not the work of Al Qaeda, but rather a collaboration with ETA, the Basque separtist group. King Juan Carlos stepped in and assured the Spanish people that elections would not be affected by terrorists of any kind. The PSOE won an overwhelming majority in the election, based largely on its promise to withdraw all Spanish troops from Iraq if elected.

The PSOE has worked consistently to improve the rights of women, immigrants, the gay community and to continue to modernize Spain. The PP, closely allied with the Catholic Church, continues to push for reactionary measures, a retreat on social reforms, and increased control for the Church in public affairs (it is notable that the Church in Spain has the authority to fire public school teachers if they don’t align their private lives closely enough with Church doctrine. Last spring, in a closely followed case, the Supreme Court upheld the firing of a teacher who lived with a man with whom she was not married).

Earlier in the summit, Chavez, known for his strident statements, had called the previous president of Spain, José María Aznar, a “true fascist”. To be fair, Aznar’s far right “Partido Popular” (el PP) is in fact a direct descendent of Franco’s regime, but couldn’t honestly be called a Fascist party nor compared in any way to Hitler.

The current president of Spain, Zapatero, from the Partido Socialista de Obreros de España (el PSOE) is the traditional rival of the PP, but Zapatero spoke very eloquently that even if one had strong philosophical and political differences with someone, as Zapatero does have with Aznar, reducing the dialog to personal attacks in inappropriate.

Counter-intuitively, the study showed that the otherwise healthy aspects of walking is accompanied by an increase in coronary disease–and that fast walkers are much less likely to help others.

Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende with the illegal assistance and backing of the US Central Intelligence Agency under orders of Richard Nixon.

For more information about the overthrow of the Allende government, and the oppressive regime which followed, see the Spanish 3 site.

Here, a regular poltical cartoonist from El País, Máximo, pays homage:

Guns lacking identification, or which have been identified as having been used in a crime will not be accepted. The program begins in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, and will be expanded to encompass the nation as a whole.

See the El Pa??s article here.

If only the US had the constitution to do the same…

?ÄúEl alto el fuego cubre todos los aspectos, es real?Äù

According to Zapatero, if the cease fire lasts through the remainder of the spring, his government plans to begin talks with the Basque separatist group in the summer.

See the El Pa??s article.

The radical Islamic straw in the eye of the foreigner doesn’t allow him to see the radical capitalist in himself

…but it’s still felt!

Javier del Pino is an El Pa??s journalist based in the US. Mart?? G??mez is another journalist formerly based in the UK and now, I believe, back nearly full time in Spain.

The two blogs are of interest because they write back and forth to each other. del Pino writes from a slightly left of center perspective (with some surprising exceptions with a conservative bent), while G??mez appears to be mostly a conservative (in the Spanish sense–most center and near right conservatives in Europe would be considered liberal in this country in the current reactionary right wing climate).

(a parenthetic note is that Prisacom is using the same blog engine, WordPress that the Fair Haven High School site uses for all of its website.)