Spain PM Sánchez sets snap election for April

Spain PM Sánchez sets snap election for April. Oh dear. It looks like the right wing could take power in Spain.

While the end of Pedro Sánchez's tenure looked inevitable, following his parliamentary budget defeat, this adds further uncertainty to a fragmented Spanish political landscape.

His PSOE is leading many polls and could win this election, but might find it hard to form a majority and govern.

The leftist Podemos, the PSOE's natural ally, is riven by infighting and struggling in polls.

With the Catalonia issue likely to dominate the upcoming campaign, the hardline pro-unity stance of parties on the right - the PP and Ciudadanos - could see them benefit. If the numbers add up, they could try to form a majority, possibly with the support of far-right Vox, which has enjoyed a surge in polls, due mainly to its uncompromising policy on Catalan independence.

Those damned Catalan nationalists.

I truly hate giving any credence to Russia conspiracy talk, but this story about alleged Russian agent Sergey Vyacheslavovich Fedotov flying into Barcelona twice in the run-up to the Catalonia referendum is mildly interesting. However, the time-table that the article gives for this man's movements relating to various events is a little sketchy.

about that Spanish pigment on the Egyptian mummy

That headline about Spanish pigment being used on an Egyptian mummy seemed to be a fun bit of news when it first appeared. However, it was just the headline that seized my imagination. The mummy dates to 2,000 years ago... of course there were elaborate trade networks across the Mediterranean at that time. Why wouldn't Spanish pigment not be used in Egypt?

It was a cool little discovery, but in my childish glee, i imagined that it was from a much earlier period, and would help validate my silly belief that civilization arose earlier than is conmventionally accepted. Wishing doesn't make it so though.

1 million year old hominid tooth found in Spain

A tooth from 1 to 1.2 million years old that comes from what seems to be a human ancestor has been found in Spain. The immediate suggestion is that the tooth is from an ancestor of Homo antecessor.