Spain

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain’s state attorney called on Monday for the release of Catalan separatist Oriol Junqueras from prison, in what was widely seen as a gesture of political goodwill as the Socialist Party seeks support to form a government.

The state attorney’s office asked the Spanish Supreme Court to let Junqueras go to Brussels to take his seat as a European MP. He was sentenced in October to 13 years in prison over his role in a failed 2017 bid for Catalan independence.

MADRID, Dec 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Around 100 migrants were rescued off the coast of Spain on Thursday, adding to around another 200 plucked off makeshift boats on Christmas Day, Spain’s maritime rescue service said.

More than half of them were found off the Costa Blanca on Spain’s southeastern coast, with 10 people rescued just before dawn, among them eight men, a woman and a child.

Later in the morning, rescuers saved 16 men off a boat near Torrevieja, while another 12 men were rescued from a dinghy off Xabia, some 45 kilometres up the coast from Benidorm.

25 December 2019; AFP: The climate summit in Madrid earlier this month did not collapse -- but by almost any measure it certainly failed.

Five years after the fragile UN process yielded the world's first universal climate treaty, COP25 was billed as a mopping-up session to finish guidelines for carbon markets, thus completing the Paris Agreement rulebook.

MADRID, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The UN Climate Change Conference (COP25) came to an end on Sunday after an unprecedentedly long extension, as negotiators failed to reach an agreement on Article 6 of 2015 Paris Agreement about the details of the carbon market mechanisms.

MADRID (AP) — U.N. climate talks in Madrid dragged into a second day of extra time Sunday, with officials from almost 200 countries unable to break the deadlock on key points of difference.

The chair of the meeting, Chilean Environment Minister Carolina Schmidt, told weary delegates to examine new agreements drafted by her team and meet at 1:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) for further talks.

“This has been very tough, very long,” she said as the talks entered their 14th day. Still, Schmidt said some progress had been made, adding that “things are coming together.”

MADRID, Dec 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Spanish government authorised nearly 150 million euros in subsidies to ease the strain on its migrant-processing system after a recent spike in arrivals from Latin America overwhelmed its social services.

Government spokeswoman Isabel Celaa, who announced the measure at a weekly briefing, said the subsidies will be complemented by 25 million euros from European funds.

Provoked by national crises in Spanish-speaking countries like Venezuela and Colombia, the number of people seeking asylum in Spain has skyrocketed.

MADRID (AP) — Countries remain deadlocked in talks over combating climate change as U.N. talks drag on beyond the official deadline.

Officials from almost 200 countries met early Saturday to examine new texts drafted overnight.

Many nations and observers said the latest versions risked backtracking on existing commitments made in the 2015 Paris climate accord and didn’t reflect the urgent warnings from scientists that greenhouse gas emissions need to fall sharply, and soon.

MADRID (Reuters) - U.N. chief Antonio Guterres exhorted the world’s major economies on Wednesday to signal more ambitious commitments to cut greenhouse emissions as climate talks in Madrid hit an intense phase.

“We need to have the big emitters understanding that their role is essential, because if the big emitters fail, everything will fail,” Guterres told Reuters in an interview.

“If we just go on as we are, we are doomed.”

MADRID (AP) — New York billionaire and presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg led a high-powered charge against President Donald Trump’s climate policies Tuesday, assuring activists, scientists and politicians from around the world that Americans are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions “even with a climate change denier in the White House.”

Bloomberg, who launched his 2020 campaign less than three weeks ago, spoke during a trip to the U.N. global climate conference in Madrid, even as the official U.S. delegation at a booth nearby kept a low profile.

MADRID, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Karl-Heinz Lambertz, president of the European Committee of the Regions, said on Monday that the European Green Deal, which will be unveiled this week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid, needs to be ambitious, realistic and have the resources to make it work.