Enda Brady: UK Correspondent on the latest in Spain and Portugal’s power cut

Spain has declared a state of emergency entire areas of the country and of Portugal are without power.

The outage has disrupted trains, cut cell phone and internet networks and trapped people in elevators.

Portugal’s power company said it may take a week to get the network back to normal.

UK Correspondent Enda Brady joins the show to give an update on the situation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the Brady UK correspondent with us Heyinda.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey, Heather, great speak to Yougham.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Have they got the power back on?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
So they have, but the question marks persist about just
what went wrong so badly in Spain and Portugal yesterday
the whole Iberian peninsula wiped out no power for hours yesterday,
disrupting everything from schools, shopping, the Madrid Open tennis flights
coming in and out with airports. It was chaos for hours.

(00:27):
So yes, the power back on today. Scientists are telling
us that it was a rare atmospheric phenomenon with a
huge temperature differential several kilometers up that was affecting the
power cables on the ground. I've never heard of this before.
My suspicion is that it just might have been a
cyber attack we haven't been told about. But look, it'll
all come out in the wash.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
There is some kind of speculation going on online and
we've been warned about the speculation. But there is a
speculation online that nit zero is to blame because of
the reliance, especially at Spain, on renewables. Is there anything
to that?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
So there is a point on that actually, so the
backup supply was powered by renewables, and a lot of
the scientific community are saying that, you know, renewables were
never meant to be the backup, that there should have
been other factors in there as well. And yes, so
when they went from Plan A to Plan B, plan
B was not working, So there is something to that.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yes, okay, interesting, Now what is going on here with
Kia Stama trying to get Trump the Open again golf diplomacy?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
So everyone's been watching the Prime Minister of Finland, Alexander Stubb,
who studied at an American university and is a very
seriously good golfer. So this guy flew the other week
to Florida, popped up at Mari Lago and said the
fancy around and played with Trump against some other guys
and they won. Trump and Stub won, and Trump was

(01:47):
heard saying what an incredible golfer he was. Everyone in
the UK has been watching the Finnish leader get close
to Trump through golf, and now the papers here this
morning have it the Keir Starmer has instructed officials to
start looking at how the Open Championship can be given
to Trump. Turnbury in Ayrshire in Scotland. So that is

(02:08):
he owns two golf courses, one in Aberdeenshire in Scotland
and one in Ayrshire, which is Trump Turnbury. They haven't
had the Open at Turnberry since two thousand and nine.
Trump did not own it, then he spent about eighty
million dollars buying it in twenty fourteen. It's his and
apparently Trump has been making regular phone calls to Starmer

(02:29):
and the only thing he's interested in is getting the
Open championship back to Turnbury.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Inda, do you think kiss Arma feels even slightly embarrassed
at doing this on Trump's Behalfn't everybody watching him just
be such a lepdog?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
I think they're all doing it. Every single country in
the world, yours included. Everyone is making him. You know,
he is a transactional president. He's out for as much
as he can get and I'm sure it sticks in
the craw of people like Kiir Starmer who modeled themselves
as public servants and decent, honest, right minded people. But
Britain's look at our economic figures here flatlining, nothing's happening tumbleweed.

(03:07):
So they want the trade deal. They're trying to remedy
all the detrimental effects of Brexit and if allowing one
man to have a golf tournament over four days in
Scotland fixes the UK economy. I think most people would say, good.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Luck to you, Inda, thank you so much, really appreciateti
ate As always, That's Inde Brady, our UK correspondent.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
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