Correspondent / behind the news

Madrid-based correspondent Roland Lloyd Parry has discovered that Spain's unfolding social drama is also being acted out on a much smaller stage, that of Spain's ever-popular itinerant puppet theaters. Parry recently caught a performance in the capital's Retiro Park, and the show - along with the reaction of audiences young and old - clearly echo rising class tensions, he says.  

AFP PHOTO/Georges Gobet

Spain chokes in the eurozone

Between now and the end of the year, AFP is highlighting some of the stand-out images from 2012.

In this, the second of the series, Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker appears to choke Spanish Finance Minister Luis De Guindos, providing an apt visual metaphor for the country’s turmoil in the eurozone. Brussels photographer Georges Gobet describes how he got the shot.

Desperate Straits at Gibraltar

Photographer Marcos Moreno regularly heads into the busy Strait of Gibraltar with Spanish rescuers on the lookout for immigrants trying to cross from Africa to Europe. The treacherous stretch proves deadly for many. This week, Moreno captured a desperate rescue as immigrants packed into a rubber dinghy risked everything to avoid being picked up by Moroccan authorities and sent back home.

Comparative Crises Analysis has become something of an academic cottage industry in Europe over the last three years, with Greece reigning atop the ranking of economies in distress. But Spain, with even higher unemployment and a banking sector on the edge, is not too far behind, and the question lingers: how do Europe's two most hobbled countries stack up? AFP correspondent Roland Lloyd Parry, based in Mardrid, went to Athens to find out. (AFP Photo/Aris Messinis)

Eviction notice

Madrid, the night of May 12, and there are some 30,000 protesters on Puerta del Sol Square to mark the first anniversary of “los indignados”, the loosely-knit grassroots group that inspired the global “Occupy” movement.  Hours later, Spanish police are evacuating, by force, some 200 demonstrators who have defied an order to disperse by 22:00. A freelance photographer in their midst, Juan Plaza, tries to resist. Riot police, who probably know him from previous encounters, aggressively subdue him. Seating amid the protesters to cover the event, AFP photographer Pedro Armestre has just enough time to snap this picture before being expelled from the square himself.  Here’s his account of a hot night in the Spanish capital…