When female teachers prey on male students, it’s no teenage fantasy

Think alleged sexual predator and 22-year-old substitute teacher Symone Greene is not what comes to mind.

Take a look at her résumé. She’s a college graduate who has worked as a summer intern in the Prince George’s County Police Department, a camp counselor, an intern at a Baltimore school for children with disabilities, and a leader of campus volunteer program at Coppin State University. She knows sign language, plays the piano, does ballet and jazz dancing. She wants to go to graduate school, she writes, “so that I can continue my studies and pursue a career in Special Education.”

But on a different piece of paper — a D.C. police arrest warrant — Greene is accused of having oral sex with a 17-year-old student at Options Public Charter School and then allegedly urging him to lie about it. 

I know what some of you are going to say. This is every boy’s fantasy, right? This case nearly broke the bro-verse section of the Internet. Men couldn’t get enough of the story. Twitter was full of them begging for a picture of her.

Whoa. Hold your horses, all you David Lee Roths. No matter how hot for teacher you are, what happened was wrong. And it’s more common than you think.

The most recent comprehensive study done on teacher-student sex was written 10 years ago. And author Charol Shakeshaft, a professor of education leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University, said she was surprised to learn that in a third of the cases she looked at, female teachers were the predators. 

In September and October alone, two teachers were arrested for having sex with a student in an apartment outside New Orleans, a teacher in New Jersey was arrested for having sex with students in her car and a teacher in Connecticut was booked after threatening to fail a student for trying to stop the sex they had been having since the summer.

Their behavior is every bit as creepy as male teachers who prey on female students. 

Symone Greene — who has pleaded not guilty — doesn’t fit the stereotype of an accused sexual predator. But what she allegedly did is just as dangerous.

The age of consent in the District, according to the statutes, is 16. So a 17-year-old is not considered a child when it comes to consensual sex and the law, apparently. And because she was a contract worker hired to fill in at Options Public for one day, Greene might not even be legally considered a D.C. public school teacher.

We’ll see how that issue is argued in court.

Meanwhile, the 17-year-old football player doesn’t exactly fit the profile of a traditional victim. Police said he gave his teacher his mobile phone number hours after meeting her, texted her throughout the day and asked her to perform oral sex the same number of times as his jersey number (seven, in case you want to know). He allegedly videotaped the encounter without Greene’s knowledge. And that video went viral throughout his school, police said.

Sounds like he was after a lot more than seven sexual acts. Locker room notoriety, maybe?

But what about Greene? She’s the one who stands accused of a crime. If the police documents are right — and they include the long text conversation she had with a detective whom she had believed was the student — she was well aware of what she was doing and how wrong she was.

What about these boys — and according to Shakeshaft’s study, there are thousands of them — aren’t they victims?

They might be high-fiving their friends, but let’s not forget that many of them were manipulated and sometimes intimidated by an older person in a position of power. That’s never a good life lesson.

The Options football player now probably has an even more skewed view of what it takes to get a woman to pay attention to you. 

This kind of crime creates unseen victims, too. The victims are countless other teachers whose students will read about this and be affected by it.

The victims are other boys who have had unrealistic expectations fueled and respect for women and teachers diminished.

The victims are women who are constantly fighting for the right to be respected, treated as authority figures and not perpetually sexualized, stereotyped and judged.

The victims are all of us.

Brutalism: How unpopular buildings came back in fashion

The National Theatre on London's Southbank was completed in 1976 (Getty)

Post-war concrete architecture was decried by many as ugly – but now Brutalist buildings are back in fashion, writes Jonathan Glancey.

Could there ever be a more bizarre choice of name for an architectural movement than Brutalism? How odd that some of the very architects charged with creating working-class housing and public buildings from the mid-1950s to the early-1970s should have been happy to be called Brutalists. It was hardly likely to make them popular. Who, especially among those hit hardest by the brutality of World War II, wanted to live in brutal buildings?

This peculiar name was a supposedly clever play on beton brut, French for raw concrete, which in the hands of an artist-architect like Le Corbusier, and especially under a Mediterranean sun, could be a strikingly beautiful building material. So, Brutalists – the name conceived and popularised by Reyner Banham, a determinedly hip and massively bearded English architectural critic in the influential pages of the Architectural Review – were meant to be a new breed of thrusting young architects who, while building a post-war socialist utopia, would challenge the very foundations of what they saw as the fey, bourgeois Modernism of the 1930s. And, even worse, of the charming, reticent kind of new state-approved British architecture represented by the Royal Festival Hall, centrepiece of the 1951 Festival of Britain.

Rather ironically, the Royal Festival Hall has proven to be one of the most popular of all post-war British buildings, its charm appreciated by people of all walks of life, while Brutalist housing blocks and art galleries were generally regarded – until quite recently – as dank, dehumanising concrete monstrosities. Like all such labels, however, Brutalism was soggy around the edges. Buildings like Sir Denys Lasdun’s imposing National Theatre, rising in great concrete strata along London’s Southbank and completed in 1976, was labelled Brutalist even though – despite sharing some basic characteristics, like an extensive use of beton brut – it stood aloof from any such categorisation, its architect ploughing his own particular aesthetic furrow.

In fact, Lasdun’s centenary this month, focuses attention anew on what exactly Brutalism was, why it was so prevalent in so many countries, why it was so short lived and why, after a long period in the critical doldrums, it has been nudged back up the critical ladder to link hands with Modernism, Palladianism, Baroque and Art Nouveau.

This process has been going on since the early 1990s when young architects, designers and painters began to delight in such denounced buildings as Erno Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower, a terrifyingly brutal 31-storey concrete housing block completed in 1972 that casts a monumental shadow over what were once seen as the badlands, or bohemian hinterland, of west London. Living in Trellick Tower became a badge of fashionable artistry even if long-term residents held far more ambivalent views of this forceful high-rise housing block.

Attach the block.

Most people – certainly in Britain – would have gone along with the Prince of Wales at the time: he described the Brutalist Tricorn shopping centre in Plymouth as a “mildewed lump of elephant droppings.” Designed by Rodney Gordon of the Owen Luder Partnership, this had been one of the key commercial developments of a city that had been brutally blitzed by the Luftwaffe. Writing in the Guardian, the critic and broadcaster Jonathan Meades claims that “Gordon’s imagination was… fecund, rich, untrammelled. It was haunted by Russian Constructivism, crusader castles, Levantine skylines. There are as many ideas in a single Gordon building as there are in the entire careers of most architects.” Meades felt that he was “in the presence of genius.”

And, yet, other observers would have noted that along with so many other Brutalist “masterpieces” as London’s Hayward Gallery, Birmingham’s Central Library and the Barco Law Building at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as in the design of such lesser yet equally intriguing buildings as the John Lewis department store in Aberdeen or Rodney Gordon’s own Trinity Car Park, in Gateshead in the north of England (which played a special guest star role in the compelling 1971 thriller Get Carter starring Michael Caine), the Tricorn Centre also owed something to Nazi gun emplacements built along the Atlantic coast of France. Created by the formidable Todt Organisation, these were truly brutal buildings encountered by Allied troops in 1944.

Others, like the astonishing flak towers in Hamburg and Vienna designed by Friedrich Tamms, an architect who did much to shape the Atlantic Wall, resembled all too closely the art galleries and university libraries of 1960s Britain. How odd that these should have informed a new architecture for cities that had been carpet-bombed by Germany.

Shock of the new. 

This unfortunate association alone made Brutalism widely unpopular. There were other understandable reasons, too. Emerging in the era of ‘angry young men’, in literature, theatre, film and ‘musique concrète’, this new architecture was meant to be shockingly new. It also coincided – indeed it was often synonymous – with the radical reconstruction of city centres worldwide where urban motorways, concrete underpasses and crass commercial redevelopment went hand in brutally muscled hand. More than this, raw concrete looked relentlessly glum under grey skies, stained all too readily in the rain and, for whatever reason, appeared a natural target for even angrier young men, and women, who sprayed the walls of Brutalist structures with graffiti.

The architects who made among the best use of beton brut and brave new forms in damp, grey climates were those who saw new opportunities to create exciting new skylines with new materials. The roofscapes of the Barbican, a bravura housing development for the Corporation of London designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon to fill a colossal bomb site created by the Luftwaffe in 1941, are brilliant things, a kind of 1950s take on the early 18th English Baroque architecture of John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. Beautifully built, the Barbican might have appeared brutal, yet it was noble, it made reference to history and paid respect to Christopher Wren’s nearby St Paul’s Cathedral and the medieval churches in its shadows. No wonder it was listed in 2001, while more openly aggressive Brutalist buildings including Plymouth’s Tricorn Centre were demolished.

Institutions like English Heritage have had an ambivalent relationship with Brutalism, recommending the listing of some, like the Barbican, Sheffield’s Park Hill housing estate and the Moore Street electricity substation, Sheffield by Jefferson Sheard Architects, while refusing others, notably the Hayward Gallery, the Tricorn Centre and the Trinity car park. As Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage explained at the time of last year’s Brutal and Beautiful touring exhibition, “Few areas of English Heritage’s work are as disputed… some still view the buildings of the era as concrete monstrosities, others as fine landmarks in the history of building design.”

Perhaps this helps explain why Sir Denys Lasdun, a distinguished modern architect, who landed on a Normandy beach on D-Day and who wanted to create a bold new post-war architecture everyone might appreciate was keen to stress that he was “not a Brutalist” even though he masteredbeton brut. Although perhaps hard to believe today, Baroque and Gothic were once terms of derision too. Will Brutalism finally come to outlive its wilfully controversial tag?

Source: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140828-why-brutal-is-beautiful

Spain needs 'major cultural change' to do better in science, international panel says

A map of Spain's most valuable landscapes, produced by researchers from the Spanish National Research Council, one of the institutions the panel says should be reformed.

BARCELONA, SPAIN—More cash and many profound structural changes—that, according to a panel of European experts, is what Spain's national science and innovation system needs to become more competitive.

A full report will be issued later, but on Thursday, the group released a six-page document containing its key messages. It says the Spanish government should raise its contribution to science and innovation to 0.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and argues for the creation of a national funding agency that gives out merit-based grants, more autonomy for the universities, and a major overhaul of Spain's national research centers. Above all, what is needed is a stronger culture of evaluation and accountability, even if it means increasing inequality between universities, the document says.

The report was put together at the request of the Spanish government by a peer-review panel of the European Research Area and Innovation Committee (ERAC), chaired by Luke Georghiou, vice president for research and innovation at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.

The report acknowledges “islands of excellence” in Spain, in particular a fleet of recently created research institutes that enjoy greater autonomy. But it deplores the “low” performance of the Spanish science system as a whole. The system's main ills, it says, are fragmented governance, insufficient mobility of people and knowledge across institutions, a lack of effective science policies and research performance evaluations, and the private sector's meager R&D contribution.

At the top of the panel's recommendations is to increase public spending for research to 0.7% of GDP over the next 3 years; now, according to a recent report from the Foundation for Technological Innovation, it stands at 0.61%, compared with 0.72% on average in the European Union and 0.97% in Germany. But the increase must come with a sustainable 10-year national spending strategy, so that institutes can plan their activities ahead; the institutions in turn must see the increase as an incentive to meet predetermined targets and implement structural changes.

"The most pressing problem,” according to the group, is the human resources pipeline. Due to a near-total freeze on hiring, staff members at Spain's research institutions are aging. To give young talent a career path, Spain could provide incentives for the retirement of senior researchers and introduce the tenure-track positions that were promised in the 2011 science law and again in the 2013 to 2020 science strategy. (Amid Spain's economic crisis, they never materialized.) The report also calls for a “radical change” in the civil service to foster staff mobility, reward excellence, and promote the best researchers to leadership positions quickly.

The panel says there is “an urgent need” to create a national research agency that distributes competitive grants and fellowships based on independent and international peer review—another unfulfilled government promise. National research organizations should be reorganized by merging some of them with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and some CSIC institutes should be relocated to universities, the panel says. Research institutions and universities should have more autonomy and become more accountable. The panel suggests that Spain initiates such “a major cultural change” by allocating 10% of its national funding on the basis of institutional assessments through international peer review.

“Some hard choices may be needed here," the panel acknowledges, "including a review of international commitments … and accepting that funding may concentrate in the best performing institutions.” The former would likely raise eyebrows elsewhere in Europe, where Spain has repeatedly gotten in trouble for not paying what it had pledged for international projects. Tying core funding to institutional performance would also likely be met with resistance.

Spanish science secretary of state Carmen Vela welcomed the recommendations, Europa Press reported on Thursday. Raising public spending to 0.7% of GDP is “ambitious but reasonable,” she said. When it asked ERAC for the review, the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, which oversees science, pledged to incorporate the recommendations in the government’s 2015 reforms. But on Thursday, Vela revealed little in the way of concrete new measures.

Spanish scientists are skeptical that true change will come. “The suggested reforms require stable investment and political will, and both are lacking,” writes astrophysicist Amaya Moro-Martín of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, in an e-mail toScienceInsider. “Many of the recommendations in this report were already made by the science community in an open letter that ended up taped to the closed gates of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness,” says Moro-Martín, who recently returned to the United States after spending several years in the grassroots movement to improve Spanish science. Moro-Martín, who would like to see even more sweeping changes herself, notes that all parties in the Spanish Congress of Deputies signed an agreement in December to implement several of the panel's prescriptions—except the ruling Partido Popular.

“The good news for the Spanish government is that even in a crisis context, these reforms can be done,” writes Joan Guinovart, the director of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Barcelona, in an e-mail. “No more words are needed, now … is the time to apply the recommendations.”

By Elisabeth Pain

Source : http://news.sciencemag.org/europe/2014/07/spain-needs-major-cultural-change-do-better-science-international-panel-says

Smarter urban water: how Spain's Zaragoza learned to use less

Facing severe crop failure and forest fires, pioneering citizens transformed habits in a decade and reduced water use by 27%.


The Ebro River seen from near the top of Basilica of Our Lady of The Pillar in Zaragoza, Spain. Photograph: Alamy

The drought, when it came two decades ago, was severe. As reservoirs across Spain dried up in the early 1990s, the number of forest fires soared, crops whittled and more than 11 million Spaniards faced water shortages. Scientists would go on to note that the five-year drought – the worst on record in the last century – ranked among the country’s worst natural disasters in terms of people affected. 

When the rains began to fall again in 1996, municipalities scrambled to secure their quotas and set water restrictions on residents. But in the northern city of Zaragoza, one group took a very different approach.

Water had always been managed in a reactive way in Spain, said Víctor Viñuales, co-founder and director of the Spanish NGO Fundación Ecología y Desarrollo (Ecology and Development Foundation). His approach was, as he put it: “We need water, where will we find it?” It was an approach that had pushed Spain into a counter-intuitive position of having one of the world’s highest per capita water consumption rates despite limited access to freshwater. “There simply weren’t any policies in place to manage the demand.”

Trained as a sociologist, Viñuales wondered what would happen if municipalities focused less on making sure residents had access to all the water they wanted and more on reducing demand. From that thought began a 15-year experiment in Zaragoza that has revolutionised how many in Spain – from locals to public officials – think about water management.

Military firefighters at Castejon de Valdejasa, near Zaragoza, Spain, try to tackle wildfires during a period of severe drought. Photograph: Pedro Armestre/AFP/Getty Images

Today Viñuales rattles off statistic after statistic to show how this city of 700,000 has transformed itself. Between 1997 and 2012, per capita use of water in Zaragoza dropped from 150 litres/day to 99 litres/day. The drop even sustained an increase in population; between 1997 and 2008, the city’s population grew by 12% but daily water use dropped by 27%.

The project started simply, with a challenge put to the city’s residents to save 1bn litres of water in a year. “It was a collective challenge with a simple objective that was easy for people to understand,” said Viñuales. “Because behind any of these processes of social transformation lies an exercise in the seduction of the citizens.”

Spurred into action by widespread media coverage and school outreach campaigns, more than 30,000 residents formally pledged to reduce their water use. In the first year of the project, the city’s residents surpassed their goal, saving 1.176bn litres of water, an amount equivalent to 5.6% of annual domestic consumption. 

The next phase of the project relied on a network of what Viñuales called 50 volunteer “accomplices”. Free audits were offered to help implement water-saving – and ultimately cost-saving – measures to a diverse group that included a hospital, a fish vendor and a swimming pool. As soon as positive results came rolling in, Viñuales’s group would spread the word to similar business, handing out guidebooks that explained which techniques were used. 

Aerial view of a dried river shore, Zaragoza, Spain. Photograph: Gaston Piccinetti/Getty Images/Gallo Images

He pointed to a local hairdressing salon, where the audit resulted in water savings of 90%. “Immediately we spread the news about these good practices to the other 1000 hairdressing salons in the city.” With the leaders marking the path, the majority soon followed, he said, prompted along by an ongoing large-scale awareness raising campaign.

Behind the scenes, his group worked with the municipality to offer discounts on water-saving products as well as to residents who managed to reduce their water consumption. The city’s water bills were redesigned so that residents could see how much water they had used that month in comparison to previous months. Viñuales’s group also worked with retailers to ensure that water-saving options – for products ranging from toilets to taps – were widely available to citizens. “What we did was articulate the project, then use social and economic actors to weave the project into the lives of citizens. The project really belonged to everyone,” said Viñuales. He and his team are now working with officials across Spain to implement similar programs in various cities and regions.

In Zaragoza, the focus has shifted to innovation in water management, through a research cluster that uses the city as a “living lab,” said Marisa Fernández who leads the Zinnae cluster.

A public park in the city that sits on a steep slope, for example, has become the site of several experiments to tackle erosion. “A plant company from Zaragoza has put a certain type of plant there and a company from Madrid developed a watering system for it. Both are testing to see if they can avoid erosion without wasting water.”

The city’s aquifer is also getting a makeover, as the cluster, the University of Zaragoza and various companies work together to develop a “smart” system to manage its use. “When we began, we inherited years of raising awareness amongst residents, companies and the city,” said Fernández. “There was a trajectory of collaboration of many years.”

As the Spanish economy fights off a double-digit recession and rampant unemployment, environmental issues have been pushed to the back burner, she said. “Municipalities in Spain have limited their spending on infrastructure. They’re not looking for innovation, but rather just maintenance.” The cluster has responded by increasingly tying their work to cost-saving benefits as well as setting their sights beyond the Spanish border, targeting markets across Europe and in central and south America.

Spain’s crippling economic crisis served to underscore a virtue that’s been key to the project, said Viñuales: Patience. “We’re talking about a process of 15 years. To achieve profound change – whether it be environmental, social or cultural – you have to be prepared to take it on for the long haul.

“Here in Zaragoza we’ve had that profound change. The population grew, but we use fewer resources than before.” He paused before he adding, “It’s really what needs to be achieved on a global level.”

Source : http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/30/zaragoza-smarter-urban-water-zaragoza-spain-learned-to-use-less

Spanish PM and Catalonia leader hold talks over referendum plan

Artur Mas says meeting with prime minister Mariano Rajoy was 'quite positive' and two sides are willing to keep talking

Spain's prime minister and the secession-minded leader of Cataloniahave begun talks amid a bitter dispute over the wealthy north-eastern region's plans for a referendum on independence in November.

The Catalan president, Artur Mas, said the two-and-a-half-hour closed-door session with Mariano Rajoy "wasn't the end of anything, and that in itself is quite positive". There was a willingness on both sides to keep talking, he said.

His press conference was slightly delayed by a man who yelled "Long live Spain!" in Catalan repeatedly until being forced to leave by the police.

With about three months before Catalonia's referendum, the meeting was widely seen as a last-ditch opportunity for the political adversaries to find common ground and ward off a potential crisis between Madrid and Barcelona.

Mas said the pair addressed a wide range of issues, including the region's economy and infrastructure, but failed to reach any kind of consensus on the November plebiscite. Rajoy said in a statement that he had reiterated that the referendum could not take place as it would be illegal under Spain's constitution.

In the absence of any alternative proposal from Rajoy, Mas said he would continue to push for the central government to allow the referendum to be held legally. Polls show that more than 70% of Catalonia's 7.5 million residents would like to hold a referendum.

In recent months there has been growing pressure on Mas and Rajoy to discuss alternatives such as a reform of Spain's 1978 constitution to transfer more powers to the country's 17 regions.

Source : http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/spain-catalonia-leaders-talks-referendum

Plan to Give Former King Immunity Splits Spain

MADRID — When he gave up the Spanish throne recently after nearly four decades, Juan Carlos I forfeited some perks and privileges, not least among them immunity from legal proceedings. And in the weeks since his son Felipe took the crown, Juan Carlos has gotten a glimpse of what it might be like to be treated by the courts like any other citizen, including the threat of two paternity suits.

But the former king’s exposure to legal liability is likely to be limited. On Thursday, the Spanish Parliament is scheduled to give final approval to legislation declaring that he can only be tried by the country’s Supreme Court. In the process, the governing Popular Party has ignited a fresh debate over the fairness of the practice of shielding government officials from prosecution, especially at a time when nearly every major Spanish institution, from the royal family down, has been caught up in corruption cases.

In relation to the United States and some other European nations, Spain is more generous in granting legal protection to its officials. About 10,000 lawmakers, judges, police officers and other civil servants have some form of special legal rights that allow them to be tried only by the country’s highest courts, rather than by ordinary tribunals.

In the wake of the debate triggered by the legal status of Juan Carlos, the government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced recently a broader review of Spain’s legal protection system, which is likely to limit its reach.

The review comes at a sensitive time, not only because of the royal handover but also because Spain’s courts are overloaded with corruption cases, many of which have come to the surface following the bursting of the country’s construction bubble in 2008. One of the main cases has landed on the very doorstep of Mr. Rajoy, when his party’s former treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, was imprisoned ahead of a trial over whether he hid millions of euros in Swiss banks while running a slush fund to pay Mr. Rajoy and other senior party officials kickbacks from builders and other companies. Mr. Rajoy and other politicians have denied wrongdoing.

The proposal to grant Juan Carlos protection covering both criminal and civil lawsuits has upset opposition lawmakers and divided legal experts.

Juan Manuel Gómez Benítez, a former judge who now works for a private law firm, noted that officials lose their protected status once out of office, just as he lost his special status once he left the bench. But such protection, he added, had also never previously extended as far as civil lawsuits.

“The king who has abdicated is nothing more than a former head of state and as such should not get any protection,” Mr. Gómez Benítez said. “The government and its parliamentary group have acted against the constitutional principles that guarantee equality before the law and prohibit arbitrary usage of public powers.”

The government, however, has strongly defended Juan Carlos. His legal protection is “reasonable, fair and sensible,” Mr. Rajoy said last month.

Mr. Gómez Benítez suggested that the protection being considered for Juan Carlos also reflected concerns that the monarchy was already embroiled in a corruption case centered on Iñaki Urdangarin, Juan Carlos’s son-in-law. Last month, Mr. Urdangarin, some of his business associates and several regional officials were charged with embezzling millions of euros in public funds that had been meant to pay for sports events. The judge handling the case also accused Mr. Urdangarin’s wife, Princess Cristina, of tax fraud and money laundering.

Juan Carlos has not been implicated in the sports corruption case. But his image has been tainted by revelations of a sort that were previously taboo for the Spanish media. In April 2012, for instance, Juan Carlos was forced to make a public apology after going elephant hunting as Spain was enduring deep austerity.

In his speech last month when he was proclaimed king, Felipe VI, who is 46, promised transparency and integrity as part of “a renovated monarchy for a new time.”

But almost coinciding with that speech, Albert Solà Jiménez, a Catalan waiter, moved ahead with a paternity suit against Juan Carlos that was rejected two years ago because the king had immunity as head of state at that time. A Belgian woman, Ingrid Sartiau, is separately also renewing her legal efforts to support her assertion that Juan Carlos is her father.

Francesc Bueno Celdrán, the lawyer representing Mr. Solà, said the protected status of Juan Carlos was “bad news and good news” — bad in that he expected the Supreme Court to rule eventually against his client, but good in that any ruling could then be appealed before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The Strasbourg-based court, Mr. Bueno Celdrán suggested, “should be far less politicized than Spain’s judiciary.”

Mr. Solà's lawsuit includes as evidence a laboratory test that matches his DNA to that found on a cup that was allegedly used by Juan Carlos and stolen by one of his security agents, according to Mr. Bueno Celdrán. The royal household did not immediately return a request for comment on the paternity claims.

Mr. Solà, who is 57, was adopted by a farming family. He said that he was not interested in the Spanish throne, and that his lawsuit was not seeking financial compensation.

“I’m asking for recognition, nothing more,” he said.

Source : http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/10/world/europe/plan-to-give-former-king-immunity-splits-spain.html?ref=europe&_r=0

Novak Djokovic: ‘It’s the best grand slam final I have ever played’

• Wimbledon champion thrilled at overcoming ‘mental challenge’
• Djokovic admits his poor run in finals was on his mind

A jubilant Novak Djokovic said his mental strength was the key to winning Wimbledon for a second time, describing his five-set victory over the seven-times champion Roger Federer as the “best grand slam final I have played in my career”. The Serb, who let slip a two-sets-to-one and 5-2 lead as Federer forced a deciding set, held his nerve in the final set to clinch a 6-7, 6-4, 7-6, 5-7, 6-4 victory, giving him a seventh grand slam title and denying Federer what would have been a record eighth win at the All England Club.

Djokovic, who become world No 1 when the rankings are updated on Monday, said he had been through the mill, mentally, as Federer hit back in the fourth set, winning five straight games to clinch it and take the match into a deciding set. “That’s why this victory meant so much to me,” Djokovic told the BBC. “First of all, because it was against a great rival on his court and also considering the fact that I had lost three out of [his past] four grand slam finals.”

Having failed to serve out for the title at 5-3, Djokovic had match point on the Federer serve at 4-5 but the Swiss held firm and then broke again to extend the match before Djokovic recovered his poise to edge Federer in the fifth thanks to one break, in the 10th and final game.

“I would be lying if I said it was not in my mind,” he said, of his poor run, having lost five of his past six grand slam finals. “Of course it started playing with my confidence and I had some doubts. Of course people told me things, trying to help, but I managed to overcome this and I was the one to find a way. Today was a huge test, a mental challenge. We pushed each other to the limit and I could not drop concentration throughout the whole match to win it. That’s why it was extra special.”

Djokovic remained calm throughout, keeping his focus and concentration even when Federer threatened to become the oldest winner in the Open era, at 32. The Serb, with his coach Boris Becker watching on, snatched victory and now sits alongside such asJohn McEnroe, Mats Wilander and John Newcombe on seven grand slams. Playing in the same era as Federer, who has 17, and Rafael Nadal, with 14, it is an incredible achievement.

The 27-year-old said winning for a second time was even more special than the first. “This is a tournament I always dreamed of winning, so it never gets boring winning Wimbledon that’s for sure,” he said. “Winning in 2011 was the highlight of my career but this win over Roger is probably the best grand slam final I have ever played in my life.

“I overcame a lot of challenges, in my life and tennis career in the last two years and that’s why I had tears of joy. That’s why it was very emotional for me to rewind the memories of what we have been through in the last three years and what we’ve been through as a team.

“There are some private things I went through, that I won’t talk about now, but it wasn’t easy. Everyone has issues so you have to understand how to deal with them, grow as a person, strengthen your character and manage to win grand slams. You can’t separate yourself a as person and professional tennis player. It’s the same person who walks on the court, so if your mind is not clear you won’t be able to compete on a high level.”

Having missed the chance to close out the match in four sets – and having missed set points in the first – Djokovic showed enormous mental fortitude to gather himself at the start of the decider, something he was also proud of.

“After I lost the fourth set, I knew the only way to win in the fifth was to try to find that inner strength and not get carried away by emotions, even though I had plenty of opportunities to fade away,” he said.

“It was an incredible match to be part of and very proud of what I achieved. We pushed each other to the limit, had a lot of great points from the baseline. When I was serving for the match, the only way he could come back was by being aggressive and that’s what he did, came to the net, served very precisely.

“On the last match point I wasn’t really thinking of the importance of the point because I had so many opportunities to win the match beforehand; match point, being a break up twice, so I told myself to focus one point at a time. It’s not easy when the result can go either way. The only way to win it is to stay mentally strong because that’s what he does the best.”

Djokovic also paid tribute to the impact the three-times Wimbledon champion Becker has had on his game, getting him over the line in a grand slam once more. “It’s a team victory in the end,” he said. “I know I am by myself on the court but I appreciate what they are doing for me. They show their support day in day out.

“I’m sorry Marian [Vajda, his long-term coach] wasn’t able to see this match live but of course we’re in touch every single day and he’s been working very close with Boris. I’m very happy to win a grand slam with Boris because many people doubted him.”

Source : http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jul/06/novak-djokovic-best-final-wimbledon-2014