australia

L'Escolania de Montserrat gave concerts on March 3, 4 and 5 as part of 2023 Adelaide Festival

Rugby player Liam Hampson's friends had been searching for him for over 30 hours

Liam Hampson's friends took to social media to report his disappearance

Redcliffe Dolphins sportsman was last seen leaving Sala Apolo nightclub on Tuesday

Nine southern African countries moved from 'high risk' to 'risk' category

Catalonia set to have 18 offices in all of the world's inhabited continents

Catalonia will have 18 offices around the world, as those in operation "have helped 3,000 people stranded in 109 countries" during Covid-19 crisis

The Catalan multinational, through its international power generation business company Global Power Generation (GPG), has been awarded its first wind farm contract in Australia. The 91-megawatt park will be constructed in the state of New South Wales, 90 kilometres from the capital city Canberra. Gas Natural will invest €120 million euros in the wind farm, which will be named Crookwell II and will be situated in one of the more environmentally friendly areas of Australia. The contract will last for 20 years. The wind farm will be operational in the second half of 2018, according to Gas Natural.

The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, presented on Monday the model for Catalonia's own Treasury, which will be developed should "the political conditions" be there, he stated. "This is the most serious attempt to build our own Treasury in the last 300 years", stressed Mas. "After two years of work, we are ready" to launch and Catalans should not waste "this great opportunity", he stressed. "Without our own Treasury, there is no real self-government", the Catalan President stated. The system would include Catalonia's own Tax Agency and  is inspired by the taxation authorities in countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Australia, which prioritise cooperation with taxpayers over controlling them. In these models, efforts are concentrated on severely persecuting tax evaders and underground economy, while the vast majority of tax-payers who deal correctly with their fiscal obligations receive assistance and have unlimited access to their fiscal data.

On Sunday the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) approved another solemn declaration proposing a Constitutional Reform, after it already did so in July 2013. Once again the PSOE has not detailed their proposal, but insists on building a true federal model, going beyond the current Autonomous Community system. The People's Party (PP) – which runs the Spanish Government – opposes such a reform although they "agree to talk" about it. The PSOE wants the PP to "immediately" approve the creation of a Constitutional Reform committee at the Spanish Parliament and set expert hearings to debate ideas. However, they do not want "to rush" to solve Catalonia's "urgent problem", as explained by the President of Andalusia and PSOE's Chairperson, Susana Díaz. Meanwhile, the alternative left party Podemos, which could win the next Spanish elections, has elected Pablo Iglesias as its Secretary General, who has promised a broad Constitutional Reform. Iglesias recognises Catalonia's right to self-determination but considers that the Catalan Government cannot approve a unilateral declaration of independence.

The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, which is one of Australia’s main universities, will offer Master and PhD programmes in Barcelona. The RMIT University, which has three campuses in Melbourne and two in Vietnam, is now coming to Europe and will coordinate its activities in the continent from Barcelona. The Australian education institution will also cooperate with several Catalan universities, in particular the UPC, the UPF and ELISAVA. The Catalan Minister for Economy and Knowledge, Andreu Mas-Colell, attended the opening ceremony. He underlined that Australia’s higher education system is “the most internationalised in the world”. He also stated that the RMIT campus in Barcelona “is a bridge towards Europe, the Mediterranean Area and Latin America”.

54% of Catalonia’s external sales go to the international market while the remaining 46% go to the rest of Spain. The number of Catalan companies which sold their products outside of Spain in 2012 was 45,000 enterprises, representing a 6.3% increase in relation to the 2011 figures and 11,554 more companies than at the start of the economic crisis. The export sector represented €58.28 billion, which was 28% of Catalonia’s GDP in 2012. The figure represented a 5% increase compared to 2011 and a 15% growth on data from before the economic crisis. Sales outside the European Union increased by 16% last year, especially in Oceania (61%), Africa (24%) and Latin America (21%).

The Catalan theatre company, famous for its idiosyncratic style, will unveil its own particular vision of the opera classic ‘Un ballo in maschera’ by Giuseppe Verdi in Australia, which will be performed from the 16th of January to the 12th of February. Then the troupe will move its show to Brussels, Oslo and Buenos Aires. The Catalan group, started in the late 1970s, is famous for other opera adaptations including Wagner’s ‘The Ring of the Nibelung’, Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’, George Enescu’s ‘Oedipe’ and György Ligeti’s ‘Le Grand Macabre’, all of them having toured worldwide. In fact, with the latest two titles and now ‘Un ballo in maschera’, La Fura dels Baus will be returning to Brussels’ La Monnaie Theatre for their third time in four years.