Ashifa Kassam

Spain

Community Affairs Correspondent, Europe at The Guardian

Correspondent covering communities and stories across Europe for The Guardian. Previously based in Spain & Canada for @guardian. Thoughts & ideas always welcome

Featured in: Favicon

theguardian.com Favicon

bbc.co.uk

reuters.com (+1) Favicon

apnews.com Favicon

msn.com

businessinsider.com Favicon

dailymail.co.uk Favicon

time.com

usatoday.com Favicon

yahoo.com (+14) + 98 more

Articles

Stockholm rejects US letter urging city to reverse diversity initiatives

6 days ago | theguardian.com | Ashifa Kassam

A city official in Stockholm has said that the municipality has no plans to comply after one of its offices received a letter seeking to impose Donald Trump’s rollback of diversity measures, in what is believed to be the first such missive sent to a foreign government. “It’s so bizarre,” said Jan Valeskog, Stockholm’s planning vice mayor.
Netherlands museum rethinks lending works to US amid Trump arts cuts

6 days ago | theguardian.com | Ashifa Kassam

A leading museum in the Netherlands has said it is reconsidering lending works from its collection to museums in the US amid the uncertainty wreaked by Donald Trump’s funding cuts and ideological impositions. Martine Gosselink, the director of the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, whose collection includes Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring and Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, said the turmoil had left her team wary of lending pieces to the US.
"Es tan estúpido"

1 week ago | eldiario.es | Ashifa Kassam

Los líderes de decenas de países se reunieron en Mozambique hace una década con el objetivo de liberar al mundo de una de sus armas más traicioneras: las minas antipersona. Años antes habían firmado un tratado histórico que prohibía su uso, producción y almacenamiento. En el encuentro de Mozambique se fijaron un objetivo ambicioso: terminar con ellas para 2025.
Francis’s popemobile to become a mobile clinic for children in Gaza

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Ashifa Kassam

Just over a decade ago, the converted Mitsubishi whisked Pope Francis through the streets of Bethlehem before it was left to gather dust. Now, in keeping with one of the late pontiff’s last wishes, the popemobile is being given a second life – as a mobile health clinic for children in the Gaza Strip. In a region ravaged by more than 18 months of war, the initiative is both symbolic and practical, said Peter Brune, the secretary general of the Catholic charity Caritas Sweden.
Why did Spain and Portugal go dark? - podcast

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Ian Sample |Ashifa Kassam |Jillian Ambrose |Tom Glasser |Madeleine Finlay |Tony Onuchukwu | +1 more

Presented by Ian Sample with Ashifa Kassam and Jillian Ambrose, produced by Tom Glasser and Madeleine Finlay, sound design by Tony Onuchukwu, the executive producer was Ellie BuryThu 1 May 2025 00.00 EDTAuthorities are still trying to understand what triggered the massive power outage that left the majority of the Iberian Peninsula without electricity on Monday.
US and Ukraine sign minerals deal after months of strained negotiations - Europe live

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Jakub Krupa |Tom Ambrose |Helen Livingstone |Andrew Roth |Kate Connolly |Ashifa Kassam | +1 more

US and Ukraine sign reconstruction investment fundThe US and Ukraine have signed an agreement to share revenues from the future sale of Ukrainian minerals and rare earths, sealing a deal that President Donald Trump has suggested will provide an economic incentive for the US to continue to invest in Ukraine’s defense and its reconstruction after a future peace deal with Russia.
‘Shipwrecked in the 21st century’: how people made it through Europe’s worst blackout in living memory

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Ashifa Kassam

The ski lifts, carrying 16 people, dangled high above the southern Spanish region of Andalusia. As parts of Spain and Portugal were plunged into a blackout on Monday, the swaying gondolas had come to a halt metres above the ground, leaving people trapped inside. About four hours later, video posted online by the ski station showed a rescuer lowering themselves into a gondola to set up a system of ropes that allowed the skiers to rappel to the ground.
Electricity restored to 90% of Spain and most of Portugal after massive power outage

2 weeks ago | aol.co.uk | Sam Jones |Ashifa Kassam |Jon Henley

Lights flickered back to life across most of Spain and Portugal on Tuesday after a massive blackout hit the Iberian peninsula, stranding passengers in trains and elevators while millions lost phone and internet coverage. Electricity had been restored to nearly 90% of mainland Spain by early on Tuesday, the grid operator REE said. Power was restored overnight to around 6.2m households in Portugal out of 6.5m, according to the national electricity grid operator.
Power begins to return to Iberian peninsula after unprecedented blackout

2 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Sam Jones |Ashifa Kassam |Jon Henley

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said “everything possible is being done” overnight to restore power to all parts of the country following an unprecedented regional blackout which left tens of millions of people across the Iberian peninsular without power. Speaking late on Monday night, Sánchez said the idea was to get the power back on across Spain on Tuesday, adding that 50% of the national electricity supply had been restored in the past few hours.
‘People were stunned’: Spaniards caught unawares by power outage

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Ashifa Kassam |Jennifer Rankin |Jakub Krupa

It was the moment the lights went out. In a post-match interview, after her straight sets win to reach the last eight of the Madrid Open, American tennis star Coco Gauff was joking about her avocado toast breakfast and bad night’s sleep, when suddenly the microphone cut. She looked surprised, while behind her the LED ad boards turned black. It was just after midday and all across the Iberian peninsula the power was failing, plunging Spain and Portugal into chaos.