Spain: A country tempered by sadness

Public adulation of Franco has ended; private sorrows remain.

Spain returns to the shadows of its Civil War past

One reason the United Kingdom must act from within the European Union.

Away with the tyrannical General Franco!

Some 350,000 Spanish citizens died during Spain’s calamitous civil war (1936-39) and a further 200,000 afterwards – of hunger.

The Iberian lynx: Prehistoric feline grace

Until recently the survival of the Iberian lynx, one of the world’s rarest wildcats, was in doubt. But conservation efforts are finally paying off.

Reopening old wounds in Spain and making a mockery of justice

United Nations experts are urging Spain to investigate what happened to thousands of people who went missing during the Spanish civil war and under the Nationalist Franco dictatorship. Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church has beatified 522 people killed by Republicans, rubbing salt into the open wounds of impunity and denial.

The wages of sin: Time to abandon Spain’s pact of silence

Many countries have been persuaded that it is better to ignore and suppress the past in the interest of forgiving and forgetting. Such arguments are often put forward by those who have most to hide and most to lose. The opposite argument – that past sins must be publicly acknowledged – recognizes that in violent conflict everyone is scarred for life.