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Photo: ESA. Teide is the location for a space-age solution to space junk as the European Space Agency is preparing to test a laser to be fired at space debris from old rockets and satellites left in the Earth’s orbit. The debris is considered capable of causing immense damage to satellites in current use as well as to the International Space Station, and ESA says the problem is increasing with collisions becoming impossible to prevent or even to attempt to control. The laser is housed in the Observatory at Izaña in a building set up a couple of decades ago specifically to research space laser communication,READ MORE

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Updated 15 June: The horse-trading still continues, incredibly, to determine which party governs the Canaries, or rather which coalition will govern the islands because no single party has an outright majority, but one result is in, and it is an incredible one. Coalición Canarias, the nationalist party in control of Santa Cruz Ayuntamiento for forty years, has lost the borough, and the PSOE have taken it thanks to support from Ciudadanos and Podemos. As I said in last month’s post below, the CC retained Santa Cruz though without an absolute majority for mayor Bermúdez. He needed to form pacts to govern, but following the breakdown ofREAD MORE

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For a week or so now there has been a cluster of microtremors in the Pico Viejo area. Most have been under magnitude 1 though quite near the surface, but they seem to be increasing in number and perhaps strength with a “long-period seismic event” of mag 1.8 registered yesterday afternoon around 3.30pm at a depth of 10km. The Instituto Volcanológico de Canarias says that it is one of the largest such events since late 2016. The 1.8 is not the only long-period seismic event registered, however, with a cluster of some 500 recorded by Involcan in just two hours yesterday afternoon/evening. The cause isREAD MORE

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A 39-year-old motorcyclist died this lunchtime after an accident on the main Carretera del Sur TF28 in Taco, a suburb of Santa Cruz. Emergency services say that they were called out at 1pm with reports of a collision between a car and the motorbike at a roundabout, with the female motorcyclist needing assistance. Ambulance crew found her with serious injuries but while they were attempting to help her she suffered a cardiac arrest from which they were unable to resuscitate her. Sadly, she was declared dead at the scene.READ MORE

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Atlantic Holiday Centre, Callao Salvaje. Photos: Adeje Ayuntamiento. Ashotel and Adeje Ayuntamiento say that for the third year running the Atlantic Holiday Centre hotel in Callao Salvaje has donated a dozen week-long holidays to cancer sufferers in the municipality. All are under the care of the Spanish cancer association and Adeje Ayuntamiento’s socio-sanitary programme. Adeje health councillor Amada Trujillo Bencomo said the council is delighted to be part of the initiative which has been hugely beneficial to those who have been given holidays, “people who are suffering not just from cancer, but from high levels of personal stress during the palliative process”. Councillor Bencomo underlinedREAD MORE

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For the EU, the Spanish Economy has been in “special measures” since February 2009, with the EU Council subjecting the country to an excessive deficit procedure, with a requirement for its deficit to be reduced to below 3% by 2012. That deadline has been extended four times due to “major unfavourable consequences for government finances resulting from unexpected adverse economic events” – i.e the “crisis” we’ve all been very aware of, but today the EU has announced that Spain’s economy is now “corrected”, with the excessive deficit reduced below 3% of GDP. Spain is on the mend, and officially, as far as the EU isREAD MORE