bolivia

Three children and parent of one of them stay because of family links in Catalonia, 65 other passengers to return to their home country

Two Catalan drivers made history this weekend at the end of the Dakar Rally 2015. Motorbike rider Marc Coma won his fifth Dakar, equalling the five titles of French drivers Cyril Neveu and Cyril Despres. Coma has become the second driver with the most triumphs in the category, just one victory less than Frenchman Stéphane Peterhansel. Rider Laia Sanz finished ninth, the best position for a woman of all time. In addition, Catalonia had a large representation in this edition, with racers in all four categories, especially in motorbikes. Of the 25 Catalan racers that started the Rally on the 4^th of January, almost half made it to Buenos Aires last Saturday, after covering 9,000 kilometres in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. 

The final declaration of the 2014 São Paulo Forum, which brings together around 100 left-wing parties from Central and South America each year, has demonstrated explicit support for Catalonia's self-determination vote, which is foreseen for the 9^th of November. The XX Encuentro del Foro de São Paulo, which took place in La Paz (Bolivia) between the 25^th and the 29^th of August, gathered together most of the parties that are now running the governments of Spain and Portugal's former colonies in Latin America. The support statement was proposed to be included by 3 Catalan parties: the left-wing independence party ERC, the Catalan green socialist party ICV and the radical left and independence party CUP.

The highway, airport and telecommunication services management company earned a net profit of €1,024 million in 2012, 42% more than in the previous year, mainly thanks to the sales of Eutelsat and Brisa. The net profit without the surplus value reached €613 million, 2% more than in 2011. The Barcelona-based group presented better results in all of its main financials: revenues increased by 3%, recurrent earning before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by 2%. Abertis emphasised that these results have been reached in a context of economic recession in some of its main markets. However, the traffic increase in the Americas (+4.5%) and Abertis’ efficiency plans compensated for the traffic decrease in southern Europe.

The Catalan company Abertis, which owns 90% of Sabsa, denies the accusation stated by the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, that they made a poor investment. Abertis emphasised that between 2005 and 2012, Sabsa invested $12.6 million, and paid $38.6 million to hold the airports and $9.4 million in taxes. However, Abertis accepts the nationalisation of its subsidiary company, which manages the international airports of La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. Two other Spanish companies have been nationalised by Morales in the last 10 months. The Barcelona-based multinational believes that the nationalisation process will be “based on international law” and therefore it will receive fair compensation. On Monday, Morales announced the immediate nationalisation of Sabsa. The Spanish Government will review its relations with Bolivia.