Hola amigos, Stuart here from Spain speaks for the Spain news update and prime minister Sanchez's decision the other day to increase defense spending to 2 per cent has once again ruffled the feathers of coalition partner podemos but more about that in just a moment firstly a big thanks to all of the people that left comments on the last video lots of comments lots of debate happening there as usual thanks to people that supported the channel through a donation or by buying me a beer or a coffee many thanks for that thanks to people that bought merchandise and a big thanks to my patrons on Patreon for your continuing support.
now let's get into the news and as i said prime minister pedro sanchez the other day said that spain is going to increase defense spending to two percent of gdp as we can see here Sanchez pledges to increase defense spending to two percent because putin must be stopped in his tracks he said the spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez announced on monday that spain will increase defence spending to two per cent of its gdp in line with nato's commitment the spanish government's commitment is to increase defence spending to two percent in line with nato's commitment sanchez announced in an interview on la sexta we must be aware that we are at a defining moment for the eu and international relations sanchez pointed out shortly before stressing that stopping the war means stopping putin in his tracks so there we go spain to increase defence spending to 2 of gdp up from around one percent where it is currently and sanchez stressing that the russian leader mr putin must be stopped in his tracks
Now, and as i also mentioned at the beginning of the video coalition partner podemos is not happy with sanchez's decision and as we can see here podemos and government partners criticize the increase in defence spending there are more urgent priorities they say odemos erc mas pace e.h bildu and other parliamentary partners of the government have criticized on tuesday the announcement by the president pedro sanchez to increase the defense budget and reach the 2 percent of gdp set by nato and have asked him to focus more on the priorities of the Spanish people so that they are not curtailed in the budget as a result of this increase they criticize the fact that sanchez has made this announcement in the heat of the war in ukraine and most of them reiterated the need to focus more on diplomatic means to solve the conflict and not to increase the tension between the parties so podemos and other government partners not happy that more money is going to be spent on defence because they say that there are more urgent priorities for the spanish people and will this latest rift between the coalition partners the psoe party and podemos caused podemos to leave the government as they have threatened to do on numerous occasions well according to online publication el confidential the psoe rules out polymorphs breaking the coalition because they are afraid of disappearing the government is preparing for a scenario in which the war in ukraine will be long ministers are working on a plan to mitigate the effects of the escalating prices and lack of supplies in addition to the economy pedro sanchez's team is aware that he will also have to deal with the criticism from his podemos partners in politics yesterday a new rift was open with the announcement that the defense budget will be increased to two percent of gdp the vice president yolanda theath aligned herself this time with the ministers eden montero and ioni belara who have even described the socialist party as the party of war so the socialist party according to el confidential not worry about podemos threats to break the coalition government because if they did do that according to the socialist party they would disappear and given podemos poor election results in recent times i would tend to agree with what the socialists say.
Now, Prime Minister Sanchez also announced the other day that his government is going to start to go after russian oligarchs and start seizing assets and as we can see here spain has commenced sanctions by seizing oligarch sergey chemezov's super yacht spain's prime minister has confirmed the seizure of a super yacht allegedly belonging to russian oligarch sergey chemezov an ally of president putin and former general in the kgb and suggested there would be more such confiscations pedro sanchez said his government had provisionally immobilized the 85 metre yacht known as valerie which is valued at 130 million dollars or 98.8 million pounds and was anchored in barcelona's port the yacht which was built in 2011 and sales under the flag of sin vincent and the grenadines has been moored in barcelona since february the 9th after making a one-day trip from monaco according to the boat tracking website marine traffic and on a similar note the government has also said that they are tracing assets of 11 russian oligarchs with business interests in spain the government has launched a wide-ranging operation which includes the participation of dozens of experts from the national police the civil guard the national intelligence center the customs surveillance service and other areas of the administration to trace the possible assets in spain of the 893 russian and belarusian nationals and 65 companies that appear on the list of those sanctioned by the european union for their closeness to the regime of president vladimir putin which was updated on tuesday so spain now joining other european countries and seizing assets belonging to these russian oligarchs super yachts mansions and other business interests that they have here in spain now there were some harsh words yesterday from the bank of spain related to the inflation crisis that we're currently living and it has warned workers and companies that they will have to assume losses and asks the government for help governor of the bank of spain pablo hernandez has warned on tuesday of the relative impoverishment that the war in ukraine will mean for everyone and has joined the government in asking spanish workers and companies for a difficult income pact in which everyone assumes losses to fight inflation all the agents involved have to take a loss neither workers will be able to maintain their purchasing power in the short term nor companies will be able to maintain their margins he said previously he explained that the need to reach this income pack lies in the decline in income of the national economy compared to the rest of the world due to recent increases in costs so there we go as i said harsh words from the bank of spain we're all going to have to take a hit workers companies it does not matter we are all going to be affected so some positive news to start the day now let's have a look at a summary of the health situation in spain and we can see the accumulated incidence rate now sitting at 432 hospital pressure remains low at four percent and icu pressure also low at 7.5 percent now there's some more bad news for spain when it comes to foreign investment as computer chip giant intel has decided not to invest any new money in spain as we can read here germany ireland italy and france beat spain to intel's 33 billion in key investments the u.s multinational intel has unveiled its long-awaited gigantic investment in manufacturing semiconductors in europe and the governments of germany ireland italy and france have won the race against spain intel's president pat gelsinger has announced that in the first phase intel will allocate 33 billion euros to produce this asset considered strategic by the european commission for the eu's future technological autonomy and spain is unfortunately at the bottom of the u.s giants new european projects in line with what was published by this newspaper last january so spain missing out on some valuable foreign investment dollars from intel with germany ireland france and italy chosen above this country i wonder why now let's have a look at some of the comments from previous videos one here from dana in toronto price of gas today is 1.70 cents per litre lowest octane went down from 2.25 cents a liter a few days ago yeah dana thanks for the comment and that certainly is a big drop in petrol prices down from 2.25 a couple of days ago to 1.70 currently but unfortunately we haven't experienced a similar drop here in spain yet checking my petrol app here to find the cheapest price for 95 octane unleaded and we can see that it's close to 1 euro 84 cents a litre so it might be down a couple of cents but nothing like the 55 cents that you mentioned in your comment one here from heather plenty of sunflower and corn oil but one shot massey mass are limiting the purchase the two bottles you heather thanks for the comment and a lot of supermarkets here in spain are currently limiting the purchase of certain products oil for example i wouldn't be surprised if we see more purchase limits if panic buying sets in i went to the supermarket yesterday the biggest supermarket in my area and there were some empty shelves there wasn't any salt there wasn't any vegetable oil and packets of rice pasta and lentils in short supply so some people are definitely stocking up on these products don't know why but as we have seen over the last two years or so when things start to go off the rails people act a little strangely one hear from ken not seeing any shortages of food at supermarkets here in alcocer spain a bit of increases in prices but only slightly only thing is manchego cheese so i buy pretty much same sheep cheese that's not labeled manchego for half the price you can thanks for the comment and good to see that you are not experiencing any product shortages there in castillon on the mediterranean coast but some products as you said have increased in price and that's also what i've noticed here in madrid especially olive oil and when it comes to cheese you're right you can find cheaper varieties than manchego cheese because obviously because it has that denomination of origin they charge more for it so plenty of good tasty cheeses similar to manchego available here in spain one here from eamon under the rules of nato membership a two percent defence spend of a country's gdp germany is another country whose nato defence spend has been underwritten by other member states yaman thanks for the comment and obviously related to that piece of news that we saw at the beginning of the video that spain is increasing its defense spend to two percent because that's what nato requires and you're right there are other european countries in nato that don't pull their weight in fact the majority of the nato countries i believe spend less than two percent of their gdp as we can see here so spain not the only country under spending on defense one hear from julia not having a car for the first time in my life i experienced frustration in the beginning but now three years later i only use public transport i have done a rough estimation of how much i have saved and it's mind-blowing believe me it can be done julia thanks for the comment and you're right there are a lot of cities here in spain where you don't need to have a car because public transport systems are very very good and can take you everywhere you need to go in fact that's one of the main advantages of many cities in this country small densely populated cities with good public transport so good on you julia for ditching your car and as you said you have saved lots and lots of money over the last three years and finally you want to hear from scott that's sand dude not dust dust is dead skin yes scott thanks for the comment and obviously referring to that saharan dust storm or saharan sandstorm in your opinion that covered most of spain yesterday with a red substance and i don't know what other people living here in spain think that that substance was but it sure looked like dust to me and i'm pretty sure that dust is not only dead skin but then again what would i know on that note i'll wrap the video up questions and comments please leave them in the section below debate the video out as you normally do give it a thumbs up if you liked it thumbs down if you didn't tell us what you think dust is i'll see you in the next one hasta luego
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