Airline Strike
Iberia pilots, disgruntled at Iberia’s plans to create a new low-cost airline called Iberia Express, staged the first of two holiday season strikes on December 18th.

The airline had to find new flights for twelve thousand passengers and they managed to find alternatives for 98 per cent of the affected travellers without any notable incidents. Many passengers arriving from abroad at the Madrid airport were discombobulated to find their connecting flights cancelled, and foreign airports had to adjust to the Spanish strike, but most were soon sent on their way.

Iberia normally operates about 300 daily flights but had to reduce that number to 195 owing to the strike. The next strike will take place on December 29, and there is a rumour that pilots may stage a wildcat strike in January. Be on the lookout if you plan to fly.

Economic Delinquency
The financial rating agencies are the teachers, and countries are the pupils: and lately most of us have been very bad indeed. The three main agencies, Standard and Poors, Fitchs, and Moodys, continue to take the rod to us, Spain being no exception.

The first of these illustrious entities recently downgraded ten Spanish banks and threatened further downgrades. Then Fitch applied its own downgrade. The main reason behind the downgrades has less to do with current economic activity (which, needless to say, is still grim) and more to do with future prospects.

The rating agencies have stated that economic growth is simply not going to happen if current fiscal policies as wielded by countries like Spain stay the same. Spain, remember, had zero growth in this year’s third quarter. New president Rajoy has his work cut out for him.

Murder Pays
Some stories you can’t make up, and this is one of them. Recently, a couple of cases have come to light whereby men who killed their wives and were sent to prison have been earning a survivor’s pension. Nemesio Antonio Pisonero, in jail for having killed his wife and son in 1998, has been receiving this pension since then. Pisonero (an ex professor of Mathematics) was condemned to 26 years for shooting dead his family. While the money piles up in a bank account, Pisonero, if he ever gets out, or if the law ever changes, will reap a tidy sum.

Another case involves Llorenç Morell, convicted in 2005 for the murder of his wife, has been earning a pension of nearly 600 euros a month. None of this makes any sense but the message is clear: kill your wife and, although you go to jail, you will be paid for this murder and paid well.