20 years ago she began working in the social sphere and now, after ten years in politics –first as an insular director and later as a counselor–, she returns. Bàrbara Torrent Bagur (Ciutadella, 1984) has been directing the Santa Rita Sociosanitary Center for a year, where she maintains contact with the elderly who require the most care in Menorca. October 3rd is her big day.

On July 21, 1936, three days after the coup d'état, the Catalan Marina Ginestà Coloma, a 17-year-old communist girl, accidentally became the great icon of the anti-fascist militia woman. She was working as a translator at the Hotel Colón in Barcelona, which had been converted into the headquarters of the PSUC, the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia. Her determined pose did not go unnoticed by Juan Guzmán, a Mexican photojournalist of German origin who was in the city to cover the People's Olympiad for the Efe agency, the alternative to the Olympic Games in Hitler's Berlin that, due to the military insurrection, did not take place. Guzmán asked the young woman if he could take a special photo session of her. He had her go up to the building's roof and lent her a rifle. The proposal caught her attention, as she had never touched one before. Due to the circumstances of the moment, however, she agreed to act as a model dressed in a militia uniform. In front of the camera, she exhibited a defiant attitude with the weapon hanging on her back.

An anti-fascist group has called for a demonstration in Maó on Friday to reject the far-right on the occasion of the rally that Vox leader, Santiago Abascal, will hold in the city.

The Menorca Firefighters rescued this Monday the body of a man between 60 and 70 years old who was floating in the sea at Cala en Brut, in Ciutadella, during the Adam DANA that punished the Balearic Islands and other parts of Spain.

Water reserves in Menorca reached their lowest level ever recorded in August, at 33%, and aquifers such as the Roca are in an even worse state, at only 24% of their capacity. The restrictions imposed by town councils are still in force in six of the island's eight municipalities and, although towns like Es Mercadal have reduced consumption by 23% among large consumers, the solutions, including a second desalination plant, will take time to become effective.

Menorca is on track to break the historical record for air passenger arrivals this year. Up to August, it has already recorded 3,140,000, 2.5% more than last year, when it registered the highest influx to date, with 4,210,152 passengers. The airport then exceeded the 2018 number of users by 800,000, when Aena had the idea of launching a pioneering project in Menorca, together with Vigo, to control its air traffic virtually and remotely.

The Labor Inspectorate has sanctioned Aena for a serious infraction related to the hiring of a worker at Menorca Airport, as reported by CCOO, the union that had denounced the facts.

The calling of early elections catches the right wing at its best moment in Menorca, where, according to polls, it already exceeds 50% of the voting intention and the Popular Party is one step away from regaining an absolute majority in the Council, which it lost in the 2015 elections.

A spectacular waterspout surprised this Monday off Cala Mesquida, in Mallorca, during a day marked by storms and intense rainfall in several parts of the Balearic Islands. The phenomenon was captured off the Mallorcan coast while instability affected a large part of the Archipelago.

The linguistic assertiveness courses by Plataforma per la Llengua offer resources to gain confidence and avoid the automatic switch to Spanish in everyday conversations.

Not building a new control tower has serious consequences for the operability of Menorca airport. On July 21, for example, the radar that makes it function failed, and flight delays occurred that were solely attributable to the deficiencies of the facility, the oldest in Spain.

The Platform for Decent Housing has announced through messaging channels that it is preparing demonstrations this Saturday in front of the town halls of Maó and Ciutadella in defense of the right to housing following the double state decree announced after the eviction of Maricarmen.

Andreu Servera Moll (Ciutadella, 1997), a graduate in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Pompeu Fabra University, has formalized his candidacy to be elected in primaries as a candidate for Més per Menorca to the Parliament. "In a world full of uncertainties and injustices, there are only two paths: indifference or involvement, and the three of us have chosen to get involved," said Servera as his first words to introduce himself.

Menorca is on track to break the record for visitor arrivals this year. The latest data from Aena counts more than 3.1 million passengers at the airport through August, 2.5% more than last year, when historic figures were reached. Meanwhile, the island's inhabitants are suffering from the housing emergency and have had to change their consumption habits. Because in Menorca, one can no longer live, by any means, like before.

Eduardo Robsy was designated this Saturday as the PSOE candidate for the mayoralty of Alaior for the 2027 municipal elections, in an assembly of the socialist party.

In this route we explore the only viable path to descend from Ferreries to Cala Galdana, the Torrepetxina staircase. A well-known traditional itinerary of Menorcan hiking, the path allows overcoming the unevenness of the rocky walls of the ravine, connecting the inland area with the valley floor. The origin of this path is historical and purely livestock and agricultural. The Algendar ravine has been, since the era of Arab rule and the Middle Ages, one of the most fertile areas of the island thanks to its permanent water stream. The orchards at the bottom of the ravine needed to be connected to the places on the upper part of the rocky platform, such as the Torrepetxina site. Hence the existence of this route, given that the traditional one, which starts from the same clearing of the monumental holm oak of the Algendar ravine, has been closed for years.

“New York, New York!”, sang Frank Sinatra with his bass-baritone voice and exultant enthusiasm. With the same joy, or more, the news of the new direct flight between El Codolar and New York, specifically with Newark airport, about 24 kilometers from the city, has been received by the Ibizan tourism sector. “Great news for Ibiza”, said the Ibizan Council; a valuation that has been replicated by the Tourism Board, hoteliers, and travel agencies. It is certainly a remarkable fact that an airport named after a pebble beach connects directly with a city of 8.8 million inhabitants, one of the cultural capitals of the world; about 22 million people live in the New York metropolitan area, a figure that helps us calibrate the potential of the destination. The new route will begin in June 2027 with four weekly flights; tickets can already be purchased on the United Airlines website starting at 587 euros, prices that quickly climb towards 1,000 euros or more as the season progresses.

It is surprising that, after repealing the law of democratic memory and recognition, the Government of the Balearic Islands is now promoting the installation of what it has called 'walls of dignity', spaces that must contain the names of the victims of the bombings during the Civil War in the Balearic Islands.The idea, in itself, does not seem bad to us. Memòries de Menorca has long advocated for the placement of some sculpture that would commemorate the bombings and the victims. But any initiative of this type should be accompanied by an explanation that would allow the facts to be contextualized—we have the historical studies. Because remembering names without explaining why those people died runs the risk of turning memory into a simple list of victims detached from the causes and historical circumstances.In fact, the desire to remember the victims of the bombings is not new. In 1937, in Mahón, work began to install a monument “that reminds future generations of the criminal actions of the rebel aviation which, in its attacks on this population, has caused many victims and destroyed buildings’”. The monument, however, was never erected, among other reasons, because the economic situation kept worsening.Once the war in Menorca ended on February 9, 1939, the memory of the bombings was profoundly altered. There was no desire to speak of the civilian victims, as the attacks had been carried out by the Italian aviation operating from Mallorca in the service of the rebels. On the other hand, homage was indeed paid to the Italian airmen who died after crashing on the island, who rest today under a small monument located near the obelisk in the old section of the Ciutadella cemetery. Memory, even then, selected what should be remembered and what was convenient to forget.In the report Aerial bombings originating from the Balearic Islands and bombings caused in the Balearic Islands. Fourth Grave Plan 2023-2024. Government of the Balearic Islands’ that my colleague Carlos de Salort and I prepared—and which is now in open access—we were able to incorporate unpublished documentation that came from the work we have carried out over the last seven years in military and municipal archives. This has allowed us to systematize, especially, the aerial operations carried out from Mallorca and those that had Menorca as their target.It is not necessary to reproduce all the data from the report here, but some figures allow us to understand the magnitude of the phenomenon. The systematization of the flight reports and logs preserved in the various military archives allowed us to document a total of 1,416 attacks—bombings or strafings—carried out from Mallorca, with an especially high intensity during 1938. We have located nearly 70 attacked sites. Barcelona, with 158 attacks, and Valencia, with 154, are among the most punished cities.It is impossible to establish completely definitive figures regarding the victims and the destruction, but we are talking about thousands of deaths. In Barcelona alone, estimates are between 2,500 and 3,000 fatalities; in Valencia they exceeded 800. And, of course, a very significant part of these deaths was caused by planes that had departed from Mallorca.It is here that the Government's own initiative raises another question. If we really want to remember the victims of the bombings and prevent their memory from remaining solely in archives and historical studies, why limit the focus to the people who died within the Islands? Why has there not also been thought given to a memorial in Mallorca that remembers the thousands of people who died under the bombs of the planes that left precisely from the island? If we want to explain the history of the bombings in the Balearic Islands, this reality is also a part of it.The chronology, moreover, is important. A good part of the republican operations on Mallorca were concentrated in the context of the Bayo expedition and the battle of Mallorca, during the first months of war, in the attempt by the republican authorities to recover an island that had remained in the hands of the rebel military. That is to say, in acts of war against a coup d'état.In Menorca, practically the opposite happened: as the conflict progressed, attacks and air operations intensified. Our research has even allowed us to document another fatal victim of the Ciutadella bombing who does not appear in the figures of 29 deaths that have been made public these days. It is curious that the same Government that disseminates this figure possesses the report where this victim is documented.But the bombings were much more than thirty deaths. In Menorca, they also meant the damage or destruction of almost 300 buildings and, above all, they left a very deep mark on several generations.Over these last few years we have interviewed people who were children when they lived through the war and we have recovered numerous testimonies collected previously. A considerable part of the stories and anecdotes they have told us are related to the bombings. They acted, in this sense, as authentic memory capsules.But what fixed these memories was not only the destruction, but above all the fear: the sound of the alarms, the rushing towards the basements and shelters, the uncertainty about where the bombs would fall. Aviation allowed the war to be moved onto a civilian population that until then had been able to feel the front as a relatively distant reality. The bombings thus became an instrument of psychological warfare on the rearguard. The sirens of terror marked the daily life of Menorca, the bombs transformed the urban landscape and cut short some thirty lives.All of this was a constant from September 1936 until February 8, 1939, when Mahón was bombed a few hours before the surrender of the island. Reducing this historical experience to a list of deaths, without explaining who was bombing, from where, in what context, and with what objectives, seems to us a too poor way of approaching the past. Historical analysis allows for distinguishing between causes, contexts, and responsibilities.Recently, Professor David Ginard recalled some words from Josep Massot i Muntaner, who had precisely studied the bombings over Mallorca many years ago: “for me, the victims of a bombing are very respectable, whether they were on one side or the other, but I do not believe that any special honor should be paid to them, but rather to lament the results of a fratricidal war and do everything possible […] so that such a disaster is never repeated. I would not say the same of the people murdered in a ‘treta’, who deserve a special remembrance”.The distinction is important. If any person who dies during a war automatically becomes part of the same category of ‘victims’ devoid of context, where do we draw the line? Do we include those who died at the front? Those who died in accidents? And the victims of epidemics and famine? The problem is not remembering them. The problem is confusing remembrance and mourning with a public policy of memory that should necessarily explain the causes, responsibilities, and different types of violence.The danger of an abusive use of memory, as Tzvetan Todorov warned, is precisely ending up trivializing it. Because all deaths are terrible, we would do well not to simplify them or put them all in the same bag. It is in the differences, in the contexts and in the nuances where we find the explanations that allow us to truly understand the magnitude of the tragedy.That is why it is difficult not to see a contradiction in the policy of the Balearic government. A law of democratic memory is repealed and, at the same time, a memory of the victims of the bombings is promoted, presented practically without political conflict, without perpetrators and with almost no explanation regarding the causes of the war. It is a comfortable memory, because it can remain devoid of political and historical content.On the other hand, in Menorca, the same institutional interest has not been shown towards the Wall of Memory that will be installed in the Mahón cemetery. If it is a matter of dignity, there was a very clear opportunity: to dignify the space in the Mahón cemetery where more than a hundred executed republicans remain, for decades remembered only by a plaque that time has almost erased.Remembering the victims of the bombings is necessary. We ourselves have defended it. But remembering them well means also explaining what happened to them, why it happened to them, and in which war it happened to them. Without context, memory runs the risk of becoming a succession of names on a wall, detached from the historical processes that turned them into victims. Dignity should not consist only in remembering their names, but also in explaining their history.

Menorca will limit car entry from June 1, 2027. This is the common objective of the PP and the PSOE, who have hastily agreed to modify the Biosphere Reserve Law to make it possible. For various reasons, Més per Menorca and the renegade Vox councilor have voted against it.