The Catalan energy company reduced its debt to 54.4%, thanks to disinvestments. Gas Natural Fenosa ended the first nine months of the year with a net profit 0.3% lower than that in the same period in 2010. However, taking into account the effect of the disinvestments, the net profit increased by 11.6%.
The last ‘SCImago Institutions Ranking’ classified the 3,000 best research institutions in the world. Harvard University tops the ranking, but the Catalan institute, is ranked second in Spain and among the best European research centres. Catalonia, and in particular Barcelona is consolidating its position as a biomedical science centre at international level.
Next November 20th, Spaniards will vote for the new Spanish Parliament. They will elect one of the lists running in their province, which is their constituency. Catalans will thus elect the lists running in the four Catalan provinces. Therefore, they will not directly elect Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba (PSOE) or Mariano Rajoy (PP), but their party candidates in Catalonia, as well as parties only running in Catalonia, such as the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU), the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC) or the Catalan Green Socialist Coalition (ICV-EUiA).
Spain boss Vicente Del Bosque has called up 8 Barça players for the friendlies against England and Costa Rica . FC Barcelona manager, Josep Guardiola, will be able to call on them for this week’s Spanish Cup tie against the modest Hospitalet.
In-Edit 2011, Barcelona’s International Music Documentary Film Festival ended its ninth edition after eleven days of showings that gathered 54 national and international new releases and around 30.000 spectators. ‘Next Music Station: Morocco’, a documentary produced by Al-Jazeera and directed by Fermín Muguruza, has been this year’s National Prize winner. The International Prize was for ‘Last Days Here’, about the life of Pentagram’s singer, Bobby Liebing. Another great surprise was the presence of musician Michael Nyman, author of many Hollywood soundtracks.
Cesc Fàbregas and Leo Messi, the latter in injury time, twice scored to bring Barça back from behind. The real protagonist was the pouring rain, which made the field as good as unplayable for Barça and Athletic Club of Bilbao.
The main Catalan bank allocated 1.953 billion euros for insolvencies and raised its core capital to 11.8%, 2.9 percentage points more than the ratio it had in December 2010. These operations made their net profit decrease by 16.6% compared to the previous year. Besides, CaixaBank announced that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim will quit its board to rejoin that of the bank’s industrial holding ‘Criteria CaixaHolding’. Slim’s seat will be occupied by former Chairman of Citigroup and the New York Stock Exchange John S. Reed.
Barcelona’s City Council announced that tourist buses will not be able to access the adjacent streets of the famous Sagrada Família Basilica. The reason: in the last few months there have been too many buses and they have been congesting the church surroundings, creating problems. The church, designed by well-known Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, will welcome 900.000 more visitors this year compared to 2010, which means 3.2 million people will visit the Sagrada Família in 2011.
The Barça goalkeeper has said that it was his manager who taught him a number of things on a tactical level. Valdés also denied that there are any problems between Villa and Messi, and feels the comments were intended to destabilise the team.
According to polls, Catalonia might be essential to ensure the absolute majority to the People’s Party (PP) or to save the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) from getting its worst results ever. The Socialists risk loosing more than a third of its seats in Catalonia while the PP, far from winning in Catalonia, could get its best results. Catalan nationalists ‘Convergència i Unió’, who are the third largest group in the Spanish Parliament, could win the elections in Catalonia, ending the ten Socialist Party victories in a row in these elections.
Perajaume is one of the main Catalan artists of our time, part of a generation that is already gaining a lot of international recognition, with artist’s such as Jaume Plensa. Perajaume is known for his landscape visual poetry, expressing the excess of the current times and exhorting the return to natural roots. The exhibition is not a conventional retrospective, but instead a “programmatic proclamation”, an element of reflection on the function, the limits and the fate of art when opposed to excess.
With this label, foreign house buyers can be 100% sure that the new bought property fulfils all the quality and town planning regulations. The Catalan Minister for Territory and Sustainability, in charge of Housing, Lluís Recoder, announced the creation of an official label recognising the “quality of real estate”, in order to offer more legal safety and guarantees to consumers. Recoder hopes this certificate will help the sector, as consumers will be in a safe framework, from a juridical point of view.
For the first time in the world, a foetus having the spina bifida congenital disorder went through a new intra-uterus surgery technique. A medical team from Barcelona’s Vall d’Hebron Hospital operated on the foetus in its 24th week by placing a biological fabric on the spinal cord, in order to protect it from amniotic liquid and to ease the gap’s closing. The baby is now five months old and doctors are confident she may walk without any problems.
FC Barcelona have beaten Viktoria Plzen thanks to a Messi hat-trick and another goal from Cesc Fàbregas. Barça also made the 500th goal in the Guardiola era and qualified for the second round of the Champions League.
‘Tots Sants’ or All Saints Day is celebrated in Catalonia with the traditional panellets, a small sweet made of marzipan pastry and coated with different ingredients available at every bakery in every Catalan town. Together with grilled chestnuts and sweet potatoes, the elaboration of the panallets points out the definitive arrival of autumn.