Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has declared a second nationwide state of emergency in the hope of stemming a resurgence in coronavirus infections.
The Socialist leader told the nation in a televised address that the extraordinary measure will go into effect on Sunday.
He said the government will use the state of emergency to impose an 11pm to 6am nationwide curfew, except in the Canary Islands.
The prime minister said Spain's 19 regional leaders will have authority to set different hours for the curfew, as long as they are stricter; close regional borders to travel, and limit gatherings to six people who do not live together.
"The reality is that Europe and Spain are immersed in a second wave of the pandemic," Mr Sanchez said after meeting his Cabinet.
The leader added he will seek the endorsement of the Parliament to extend the state of alarm for six months until May.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here