FC Barcelona has announced on Thursday that they have reached an agreement with Pedro Rodríguez to renew his contract until 30 June 2019. The Canary Islander striker’s current contract was due to expire on 30 June 2016. His buyout clause will remain at 150 million euros. The Canary Islander will be signing the new deal over the next few days.
Veremonte has walked out on the BCN World project, the largest holiday resort in Europe based in the Costa Daurada, near Tarragona, as first announced by the Catalan Business Minister, Felip Puig, on Thursday and later confirmed by the company itself. However, Puig has assured that this will not impede the project's continuation as companies such as Melco, Hard Rock, Grup Peralada and Value Retail remain committed to it. Veremonte did not provide any further details about its decision. The investment company was initially leading the initiative and had reached an agreement with La Caixa bank to buy 500 hectares of land in 2012. However, it missed the final deadline last December to do so and the Catalan Government had to jump in to guarantee the project's continuation, reaching an agreement with La Caixa for the land. However, Veremonte was still linked to the initiative through the casino licences' tender, which it bidding for in partnership with Hard Rock and Melco.
Researchers at the Hospital Germans Trias in Badalona (Greater Barcelona) have taken an important step toward creating a vaccine for Type 1 diabetes, which currently has no cure. The discovery, published in the scientific journal 'Plos One', consists of the preparation of nanoparticles in the laboratory that, once introduced into the body, slow down the destruction of beta cells (whose primary function is to store and release insulin). With Type 1 diabetes, the body’s immune system attacks these insulin-producing cells located in the pancreas and destroys them. Currently, to combat the disease, patients must take insulin injections. In recent years, Catalonia has become a global hub for biomedical investigation, developing cutting-edge research initiatives and participating in leading international projects. With just 0.1% of the world’s population, Catalonia accounts for nearly 1% of global scientific production and attracts 2.2% of European competitive funds and 3.5% of European Research Council (ERC) grants.
The University of Barcelona (UB) has begun the first phase of its Humanities and Social Sciences Park in the 22@ business and technological district. The opening ceremony took place in Can Jaumandreu, one of the buildings that will hold the research park, along with Can Ricart. Both of these buildings used to be factories built in the late 19th and early 20th century in what was once the industrial centre of Barcelona, known as 'the Catalan Manchester'. This new research park is the latest addition to the 22@ district, which over the past 15 years has become a hub for business and technology in Barcelona. The park represents an effort by the UB to amplify its research in the humanities and social sciences and is a complement to the Barcelona Scientific Park, which opened in 1997.
The leadership of the Christian-Democrat party UDC supports Catalonia's self-determination but it is against full independence; it supports the creation of a Catalan State with greater powers than it currently has while remaining within Spain, which should embrace its plurinational nature and become a confederal country. However, an important part of UDC's base does support independence and has been trying to force an open debate and consultation on it within the party, in order to set the official party stance on this issue. Currently, the leadership's vision represents UDC's traditional stance on this issue, but the party does not have an official stance on independence yet. This situation has provoked tensions within the small party but also with their allies for the last three-and-a-half decades, the Liberal party CDC, which is the largest force within the two-party coalition CiU that currently runs the Catalan Government. UDC announced an internal consultation on 14 June to fix the party's definitive stance on this debate. However, the leadership has presented a question that avoids independence; a formulation that has created quite some controversy among UDC members.
SEAT President, Jürgen Stackmann, has shown "great optimism" for the future competitiveness of the company's plant in Martorell (Greater Barcelona). In early May, the Volkswagen group, to which SEAT belongs, announced it will invest €4.2 billion in two of its factories, those in Catalonia and Navarra, over the next four years. The investment will be used to upgrade the existing facilities and increase competitiveness, in order to assemble a greater number of models. However, it was not disclosed how this billionaire investment will be split among the two factories. During a conference held on Wednesday in Barcelona, Stackmann did not say how much of this investment would go toward the Catalan plant. The SEAT president said the company is changing its focus toward a more mature, adult market across Europe in order to cement the future success of the carmaker.
American television network HBO has confirmed that season six of the popular television series 'Game of Thrones' will be partly shot in the historic city of Girona, located in north-eastern Catalonia. With its enchanting medieval city walls, its old Jewish Quarter, a vast network of churches and monasteries, and four rivers crossing the city, Girona will host the worldwide hit show for at least three weeks in September. Filming will involve the city's Old Quarter (Barri Vell, in Catalan), where Girona's highlights are concentrated and two thousand years of history are on display. Although rumours have been around for some time, the official confirmation arrived only on Wednesday from Spanish television channel Canal +. Indeed, the agreement between HBO and Girona's City Council was signed four months ago but negotiations have been carried out with discretion. A portion of season six will also be shot in Peníscola, a Mediterranean seaside town in the Valencian Country.
Every party with representation in the 41-seat Barcelona City Council, except for one small party holding 3 seats, were present at the signing of the official proposal that will be sent to the Mobile World Congress' organisers in order to continue hosting the event until 2023. The MWC is the world's main event of the mobile phone-related industries and since 2006 has taken place each year in Barcelona. The current contract expires in 2018 and there are other cities that want to host the event besides the Catalan capital. The 2015 edition attracted 93,000 visitors in Barcelona, 9% more than in 2014. Most of those who attended were executives from international companies staying for 4 or 5 days in town. It was estimated that the 2015 edition had a €436 million impact on the local economy and generated more than 12,600 temporary jobs. Furthermore, Barcelona has been named the Mobile World Capital, a long-term project to make the Catalan city a hub for this industry, hosting standardisation organisations, multinationals and international research centres focused on related technologies.
Last month Catalonia was where the most intense monthly and annual drops in unemployment were registered in Spain. At the end of May, 531,899 people were on the Catalan Public Employment Service's (SOC) lists. This means 21,075 fewer jobseekers than in April 2015 (-3.81%), representing the most significant monthly drop registered for the month of May for 19 years (when the historical record started). Catalonia also registered a 10.2% annual drop in unemployment in comparison to May 2014 - representing 60,405 fewer people unemployed - the biggest annual decline since May 2000. It is has now accumulated 23 consecutive months of annual decline. In Spain as a whole, at the end of May 2015, the number of people registered as unemployed stood at 4.21 million, with 117,985 less jobseekers than in April 2015. An encouraging sign given that in the last 7 years registered unemployment had been falling at an average of 58,000 people from April to May.
Catalan cuisine is continuing to gather top international distinctions and the restaurant run by the 3 Roca brothers, El Celler de Can Roca, is the flagship of this trend, following the path opened by Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli in the 1990s and 2000s. Each year the London-based ‘Restaurant’ magazine compiles a ranking of the world’s 50 best restaurants. El Celler de Can Roca tops the prestigious list for the second time, after already doing so in 2013. In fact, since 2011, the Girona restaurant has been either the world’s best or second-best establishment, competing with the Danish restaurant Noma, which falls to 3rd position this year. As well as this, Catalan Albert Adrià, who is the younger brother of Ferran Adrià, has been recognised as the World’s Best Pastry Chef, an award created last year. In 2014, the World’s Best Pastry Chef was Jordi Roca, the youngest brother of El Celler de Can Roca trio. In addition, Adrià’s restaurant Tickets, which is located in Barcelona, is included among the top 50 for the first time.
Messi (2) and Neymar score as FC Barcelona claim 27th cup title and move one step closer to historic treble. Two down, one to go. FC Barcelona confidently disposed of Athletic Bilbao 3-1 in Saturday’s Spanish Cup Final at the Camp Nou and can claim a historic treble if they can repeat the trick against Juventus in Berlin next Saturday. Messi scored the second and third, with Neymar getting the one in between, and Williams’ late header was little more than some consolation for Athletic’s swatches of travelling supporters.
Christy Burke says Irish people “understand the position, the views and the feelings of the Catalan people” because they “know what it was like to be treated as second-class citizens”. The Lord Mayor of Dublin, who is an independent councillor but was formerly a member of Sinn Féin, said that Ireland “would assist in whatever way possible” in order to help Catalan leaders achieve “an adequate, decent, independent by self-determination, country to live in”. Burke said this during an interview with ACN after meeting a delegation from the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia and the Catalan Government.
In 15 years, Primavera Sound has established itself as the most international musical festival in Southern Europe and a global point of reference in the realm of urban music events, particularly among indie and pop fans. With more than 190,000 festival-goers expected this year, the core of the show takes place in Barcelona's Fòrum Park - an enormous setup by the sea - from Thursday the 28th to Saturday the 30th of May. During this 3-day-session, a total of 193 concerts will be held, with international artists performing non-stop from the afternoon (around 5 p.m.) until the next morning. The 2015 line-up looks once again to be pretty spectacular: The Black Keys, Interpol, The Replacements, alt-J, Underworld, Damien Rice, Belle & Sebastian, The Strokes, Patti Smith, Tori Amos, Antony and the Johnsons, Ride, Caribou and many (many) others will be playing on the 8 main stages of the festival. 49 concerts can be followed in high definition streaming on both the web and via the festival’s official app.
Ada Colau, who leads the alternative left and green coalition Barcelona en Comú, is very likely to become the Catalan capital's next Mayor, with there not being enough ground on which to build an alternative majority. Colau won Sunday’s elections by obtaining 11 seats in the 41-seat City Council, just 1 seat more than the incumbent Mayor from the centre-right pro-Catalan State Coalition CiU, Xavier Trias. In the last days, the People's Party – which runs the Spanish Government – and some economic powers have been pressuring for the building of an alternative majority led by Trias. However, the essential parties involved do not support the idea. In order to facilitate her election, Colau has cleared up any doubt surrounding her fully supporting the continuing of the Mobile World Congress, the world's main event of the mobile phone-related industries, which will take place each year in Barcelona until 2018. Colau has validated the offer prepared by Trias' team to extend the organisation of the congress until at least 2023.
A team of researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) has developed an electric car that can move without a driver, identifying roads, obstacles and traffic signs with its cameras. In fact, the use of cameras instead of expensive sensors is the main difference from similar existing models and makes the Catalan car much cheaper than its potential competitors, such as Google's prototype. In addition, the use of less sophisticated devices, such as simple cameras, makes the UAB prototype demand more intelligent algorithms and programmes than its competitors, says Antonio López of UAB's Centre of Computer Vision. In the last few years, Catalonia, and particularly Barcelona and its Metropolitan Area, has become one of the main centres at world level developing electric vehicles. In addition, Barcelona is also a world reference point within the mobile industry, as well as the Internet of Things and smart cities industries, hosting the Mobile World Congress each year and many smart city projects.