Guy Hedgcoe

According to the Spanish government, everything is going to plan.

We have government ministers here, the head of the World Health Organization, and 300 police officers all at the ports of overseeing this operation.

But there was a bit of drama last night when the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Capabijo, who had expressed concerns about the arrival of the boat recently,

Last night, he said he was not going to allow it to arrive at all.

He expressed concerns about the possibility that rats might come to land from the boat and therefore infect local people.

However, the state authorities have overridden his concerns.

On the 18th of January, a high-speed train derailed in southern Spain, colliding with another one travelling in the opposite direction, causing 46 deaths.

The investigation into the accident is focusing on a cracked section of track.

Two days later in Catalonia, a trainee driver was killed when a collapsed wall caused a local train to derail.

The striking drivers are demanding increased investment and maintenance and the hiring of more staff.

Sure.

Well, when he presented this measure, he talked about how he sees the state of the digital world and in particular the social media companies that are operating.

And he describes that whole environment as being akin to the digital Wild West.

He said that social media had created an ecosystem in which laws are ignored and crimes are tolerated.

And so he said his government wants to create an environment that's safe, democratic and respectful for all Spaniards, but in particular for young people.

So he unveiled this plan to ban social media for under-16s.

That would require social media companies to introduce age verification systems that would obviously have to be effective.

And he's looking to push this through pretty quickly, isn't he?

He said that this is going to be approved at the next cabinet meeting, which theory is next Tuesday.

Now, it's not entirely clear how this will be implemented and exactly when, but it seems that the government's keen to get it through soon.