Word: spain
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...GRANADA, Spain — No one should ever leave Andalucia without watching flamenco, the quintessential dance of southern Spain, at least once. Admittedly, I had my doubts when I signed up for what appeared to be some kind of packaged “deal” (it included transportation to and from the performance, with a free drink thrown in). I was prepared for a cheesy evening, ready to encounter the clichéd España of American films and guidebooks. But, once I entered the darkened flamenco club and the guitarist struck the first note...
When a handful of students in northern Spain got together in July 1959 to form a group dedicated to winning independence for the Basque Country, they could hardly have known that they would one day become Europe's longest-enduring terrorist group. This week, ETA (the initials stand for Basque Homeland and Freedom in Euskera, the Basque language) marked the 50th anniversary of its founding with yet more bloodshed: more than 40 people were injured by a bomb in the northern city of Burgos on July 29, and two civil guards were killed by another on the holiday island...
...attacks were not wholly unexpected. ETA often steps up its campaign of violence during the summer months, and in recent weeks Spain's Interior Ministry had heightened security at a number of sensitive targets across the country. It wasn't enough - the Burgos bomb was attached to a van parked outside a civil-guard barracks; the Majorca one was tied beneath a civil-guard car. (See pictures of terrorism...
...years, the story of ETA has been the story of its decline. In the past decade - and especially after the failure of a 2006 cease-fire - the combination of increased police effort, greater cooperation between authorities in Spain and France (which ETA, desiring independence for the French Basque-speaking territories as well, frequently uses for safe houses, logistics-planning and weapons storage), a growing public weariness with the group's tactics, and factionalism within the organization itself, has resulted in an ETA that is, by all accounts, at its weakest in its history. The arrests of several high-ranking leaders...
...trust the Iranians, even though they had been pretty straight in their dealings over al-Qaeda and the Taliban," says the official. Instead, the U.S. decided to protect the MEK, even over the objections of Iraq's elected government. (Read "Bin Laden's Son Loses Political-Asylum Bid in Spain...