sydney

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

The citizen participation process on independence has kicked off at 9am on November 9 despite the temporary suspension of the Constitutional Court. Finally, the 1,317 voting centres hosting 6,695 polling stations have opened their doors without major incidents, as has been confirmed by the Catalan Government. Long queues of voters were waiting to cast their ballot in a festive atmosphere from early morning. The vote is being run by 40,930 volunteers, but the Catalan Executive is actively behind the process. During the day it will offer turnout figures and it should announce the results on Monday. The ballot boxes are located in high-schools run by the Catalan Government or in municipal centres in small towns and villages. A delegation of international observers is monitoring the process. Several Spanish nationalist parties and organisations have filed judicial complaints asking for the vote to be stopped and members of the Catalan Government to be arrested. In addition, the Public Prosecutor Office – obeying the Spanish Government –asked the Catalan Police to identify the volunteers opening the voting centres, but the Catalan Government refused to do so as they had authorised volunteers to access public venues.

938 of the 947 existing municipalities in Catalonia will host polling stations for the alternative consultation vote on independence scheduled for the 9^th of November, which replaces the original non-binding referendum. According to the Catalan Government, this represents 99.9% of Catalans being able to vote in their own neighbourhood, town or village, without having to go to a nearby municipality. The Catalan Government will be using its own venues to host the polling stations (mainly high-schools), but it lacks them in small towns. For this reason it requested that town halls cooperate and make municipal venues available for voting. 4 additional municipalities could be added to the final list. In addition, civil societies and parties will be able to campaign in 305 Catalan Government's venues between the 30^th of October and the 8^th of November.

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.

TEAM Ports&Maritime will build the five passenger boarding bridges for Hong Kong’s new cruise ship terminal, designed by Norman Foster. According to the company, it is the largest contract ever made in the sector. Furthermore, the Catalan company, which is part of the Adelte Group, will supply two more bridges for Sydney’s new White Bay terminal and two more for Cape Canaveral’s new terminal. The company has also just installed three passenger boarding bridges at Singapore’s International Cruise Terminal.