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UPF's Tomàs Marquès-Bonet contributes to sequencing of 233 species which could help human diseases research

Listeners from around the world on how and why they learned Catalan and their favorite words

A group of scientists from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) at the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology have identified a population of oral tumour cells which may feast on fats to spread throughout the body — a process called metastasis. According to the study, published this Wednesday in the prestigious scientific magazine ‘Nature’, some of these cells expressed high levels of a molecule called CD36, which helps cells to take up lipids from their environment. The research shows that applying antibodies that block CD36 and eliminate its interaction with fatty acids resulted in a reduced number of metastatic focus and also reduced their size by around 80% to 90%. “If we cut the lipids supply to those cells which generate metastasis they are practically unable to spread”, the leader of the IRB ‘Cancer and Stem cells’ team, Salvador Aznar Benitah, explained. 

Catalonia’s Supreme Court (TSJC) has admitted the complaint for charges of perversion of justice and disobedience filed by Catalonia’s Public Prosecutor, José María Romero de Tejada, against the President of the Catalan Parliament, Carme Forcadell. In the lawsuit presented last Wednesday, de Tejada stated that Forcadell “despised and opposed the Spanish Constitution” by allowing the pro-independence roadmap to be put to vote last July and that she “openly disobeyed the authority” by ignoring the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) warnings. An official has delivered this Tuesday the notification to Forcadell. The President of the Catalan Parliament has now three days to appeal.

Catalonia’s Public Prosecutor accused Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, of “wrecking” the Spanish State’s territorial model established in the Spanish Constitution by allowing the pro-independence roadmap to be put to vote. In the lawsuit presented this Wednesday before Catalonia’s Supreme Court (TSJC) in accordance with Spain’s Public Prosecutor’s demands, Prosecutor José María Romero de Tejada also stated that Forcadell deliberately ignored the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) warnings and “despised the Spanish Constitution” with her “extravagant” action. De Tejada’s complaint accuses Forcadell of “deliberately modifying the electoral mandate” that emerged from the 27-S elections, which led to a pro-independence majority in the Catalan Chamber. 

Spain’s Public Prosecutor, Consuelo Madrigal, urged Catalonia’s Supreme Prosecutor, José María Romero de Tejada, to file a complaint against Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell. Madrigal accused Forcadell of alleged perversion of justice and disobedience for allowing the pro-independence roadmap to be put to vote in July. However, she dismissed the misappropriation of public funds, which dispels the possibility of applying criminal charges. Thus, the Catalan Supreme Court (TSJC) will be in charge of these proceedings, together with those for the 9-N symbolic vote on independence in 2014, which have to resolve whether former Catalan President, Artur Mas and former ministers Joana Ortega and Irene Rigau are liable for ignoring the TC’s resolutions and allowing the 9-N to take place.

The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont and the Parliament’s, Carme Forcadell, received this Tuesday the notice issued by the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) which suspends the conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process. Four deputy clerks delivered the documents which warn that if the Parliament and the members of the Parliament’s Bureau ignore the resolution they “will be liable for responsibility, including criminal charges”. The TC also urges the Public Prosecutor to proceed with the corresponding actions against Forcadell. Last August, the TC suspended Catalonia’s pro-independence roadmap, ratified by the majority of the Parliament, claiming that the conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process, the group responsible for designing Catalonia’s strategy towards independence, violated the Spanish Constitution. 

The Catalan Government Spokeswoman, Neus Munté warned this Tuesday that the “Spanish Constitution can’t be understood as a Criminal Code” and insisted on the Government’s commitment to “obey the democratic mandate of the 27-S Elections” and launch the pro-independence roadmap. She made these statements one day after the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) decided to suspend Catalonia’s plan to disconnect from Spain and opened the door to applying criminal charges to the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, for allowing the approval of the conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process. According to Munté, the TC should be “a referee” in charge of settling “the constitutionality of the laws” rather than “an executor court”.

The Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) decision to suspend Catalonia’s roadmap towards independence, which was ratified last week by the Catalan Chamber, won’t stop the launching of the Constitutive Process of the Catalan Republic. This is what radical left pro-independence CUP stated this Monday. Moreover, Regarding the possibility that the TC may suspend the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell as well, CUP MP Anna Gabriel warned that this would represent “a point of no return”for the Spanish state and that this would require “a countrywide response”. “We will remain faithful to the Parliament and if we have to disobey we will do so”, stated pro-independence left wing ERC’s spokesman in the Spanish Parliament Joan Tardàand lamented the “authoritarian way”and the “judicial violence”used by the Spanish state.

The magistrates of the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) held this Monday an emergency meeting and unanimously agreed to accept the appeal presented by Spain’s executive, which urged to suspend Catalonia’s pro-independence roadmap, the next steps of which were approved last week by the Parliament. By the end of August the TC will decide if it will apply prison charges to the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell. The 72 pro-independence MPs in the Catalan Chamber and the Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, have expressed their solidarity with Forcadell and insisted that the decision to pass the conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process was not hers but the democratic and majoritarian will of Catalans. 

Catalan Government Spokeswoman, Neus Munté responded this Friday to Spain’s decision to take the Parliament’s approval of the pro-independence roadmap before the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). Munté considered it “unacceptable” that the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, could be suspended and insisted that the Catalan executive “won’t move” from its “deeply democratic way”. She insisted that Catalonia’s roadmap towards independence “remains intact” and stated that “no court could be higher than the democratic will democratically expressed” in the 27-S Catalan elections. “It would be unprecedented that the president of Parliament could be suspended from office by a court decision”, she stated.

The Spanish Government will urge the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) to allow it to claim criminal liability against the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, for having disobeyed the TC’s rulings. The current Spanish Cabinet, which met this Friday, also agreed to impede Forcadell from launching the pro-independence roadmap approved on Wednesday by the Parliament. In particular, the Spanish executive calls for the TC to “proceed to consider the witness of particulars in order to claim criminal liability against the Parliament’s President for disobeying the rulings of the TC, which all public servants are compelled to obey”. The petition also aims to expressly ban the Parliament’s President, the Parliament Bureau and the Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, from promoting any initiative in relation to the pro-independence process. 

The Spanish Government has again turned to the court, this time to respond to this Wednesday’s approval of the pro-independence roadmap by the Catalan Chamber. Current Spanish President, Mariano Rajoy, has already ordered the State Attorney to write a document which will be approved this Friday by the Spanish Cabinet. The Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) repeatedly insisted that any declaration or action towards the constitution of the Catalan Republic will be invalidated, since this would have emerged from the pro-independence proposal agreed by the Parliament on the 9^th of November and which is considered unconstitutional by the TC. Rajoy also called the other main leaders in the Spanish Parliament to communicate to them his decision.