News, May 2007

More News

A few more news items and where to find more news about Spain:

Water reserves:

Water reserves mid October 06 (MMA)

After two years of drought, water reserves are noteworthy. The past winter was again largely dry, particularly in the Mediterranean basin (Eastern and Southern Spain) Easter, however, brought rain to the neediest regions in abundance, although on Easter Day the reservoirs serving Valencia were still unbelievably low. At 24th April the reservoirs had recovered well in most regions of the peninsula. The total reserve was 62.7% of capacity (mid-October 40%) but only 54.5% (up from 32.3%) of drinking water capacity. Yet the situation remains bad in parts of the South East. Reserves, in October at the lowest ever, are now close to average after rainfall in the west filled some river systems to overflowing. However, the Mediterranean coast and Balearics remained in a dire strait until Easter.

Segura Water reserves April '07

In particular, the Jucar river reservoirs, feeding the Costa Blanca, have just 13.5% of capacity, the Segura (Mar Menor) has 21.2%, Malaga has 24.7% and the upper Tajo area, Spain's largest reservoir system, which could feed many parts of the south and east, has a mere 15.8%, now reasonably above the limit for allowing transfers to other regions. This year's orange crop was badly hit by the ban on watering, but supplies human use over the coming summer are now more or less secure.

On 2nd March, there was final agreement to transfer 38 cubic hectometres from the upper Tajo reservoirs to the Segura basin to guarantee drinking water supplies. In addition, farmers in Estremera, Madrid have 'given' 31 hectometres of Tajo irrigation water to the Segura farmers. Madrid has been well provided with rain in the past few months.

In the hope that reserves are now sufficient in most regions to cover the summer months, we now leave this water watch until alarm is once again raised.

In Mallorca, falls of over 200mm in the mountains on 15th April brought the reservoirs (only 2!) to overflowing for the first time in a decade.

Technology

Most of our technology statistics have now been moved to a new page.

Here are some of the key headlines:

Spanish TV across the world: The Spanish national station TVE has an international service with two channels. TVE Internacional and Canal 24 Horas. TVEI includes the evangelical programme Buenas Noticias TV (which runs on Sundays). Programme: at this link. The menu offers programme (2 days in advance) and technological details.

93.9% of population have mobiles (cell phones)

4.4 million Spaniards have Broadband access

El Mundo.es has almost 10 million unique monthly visitors

Annual visits for 2006 to P4S 38,750 (about 212,000 hits) January saw another peak, with 5,500 visits.

Older News archives

Past news is not all forgotten by P4S! Such items as can be found on the news pages at the end of every month are being filed in our archives. For earlier archives, here are the links:

News from August 05 to December 06
Older news archives (before summer '05)
Comment on the news and other issues

Your response and concerns are also of interest to us. Don't hesitate to let us know them

Finally, more news from the churches is always available at the Protestante Digital site.

This week on Protestante Digital: (25th May)

Turkish Church says thank you to Spanish Christians
No justification for offence or violence
Spanish Dr Schindler is also heading for the big screen
Evangelical singer makes record for Mauritanian refugees
62% chance that God exists
Big Crunch and even bigger Creation
Thy king may come (to the 7th Evangelical Congress)
Ten thousand support martyrs in vigils across the country
Evangelistic tract causes storm
Immigration boosts minority religion numbers
Christian demo to protest against ´street preaching fees´
The prize of telling it like it is