international

Catalan universities are present at the Annual Conference and Expo of the Association of International Educators (NAFSA), which is the world’s largest event of its kind. The conference is organised in the United States and this year’s edition is being held in Houston (Texas) until Friday June 1st. The website www.studyincatalonia.com has been presented and aims to promote the studies offered by Catalan public and private universities worldwide. The presence of foreign students in postgraduate and master courses at Catalan universities increased by 34% in the last school year (2010-2011).

CNA interviewed Ángel Corella, perhaps the best known face of ballet in Spain. Corella’s company is now established in the Catalan capital with a new name: ‘Barcelona Ballet’. Furthermore, Corella will manage a new international dancing school and residence in Figueres, a town in northern Catalonia. The school will train young talents aged between 11 and 18, aiming to feed the ‘Barcelona Ballet’ company. In an exclusive interview, Corella explains the reasons behind his recent moves and gives us the low-down on the situation of the dance industry in our country.

The former President of Brazil has been awarded this prestigious International prize that recognises individuals who have decisively contributed with their work to the development of cultural, scientific and human values around the world. Last year’s winner was the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Other winners are Jimmy Carter, Aung San Suu Kyi, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Harold Bloom, Jacques Yves Cousteau, Karl Popper, Amartya Sen, Václav Havel, or Jacques Delors. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been honoured with the prize for “his policies at the service of fair economic growth”, significantly reducing poverty in Brazil.

The European Liberals in the European Parliament have organised an international summit in Barcelona to discuss the Arab Spring within the framework of the Union for the Mediterranean, which has its headquarters in the Catalan capital. At the meeting, the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, who is also the leader of the Catalan Liberal Party (CDC), asked the EU “not to turn its back on emerging democracies in the southern Mediterranean”. Furthermore, Mas emphasised the need to create jobs in the region. The European Liberals also urged the international community to take immediate action in Syria.

The 58th edition of the prestigious international piano competition awarded the jury’s first prize to Soo Jung Ann, who is 25 years old. The Japanese interpreter Nozomi Nakagiri and Ukraine’s pianist Vadym Kholodenko won the second and third prizes. Nakagiri also received audience’s prize. The competition ran from March 9th to March 21st, and the final was held at Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana. 89 artists of 23 different nationalities participated in this year’s edition. More than 100 Catalan families offered their grand pianos for the occasion.

Around 4,000 Catalan families are waiting to complete an adoption process. International child adoptions in Catalonia have fallen by 30% over the last five years in Catalonia whereas local adoption rates have risen.

Fathallah Sijilmassi is the substitute of Youssef Amrani, who quit after less than one year in office to become Morocco’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister. Sijilmassi was Director General of the Moroccan Agency for Investments, and previously served as the Moroccan Ambassador to Paris and earlier to the European Communities. The Union for the Mediterranean has its permanent Secretariat based in Barcelona. The UfM brings together the 27 European Union Member States and 16 countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.

Samuel Aranda’s photograph of a fully-veiled woman holding a wounded relative in her arms in Yemen has been awarded the World Press Photo of the Year. Aranda was working in the Arabian country for the ‘New York Times’. During his career he has collaborated with several Catalan and Spanish newspapers.

The Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, whose headquarters are based in Barcelona, has resigned to become Morocco’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. King Mohamed VI appointed Youssef Amrani to counterweight the actual Foreign Affairs Minister, from the moderate Islamists. Amrani’s resignation means that the UfM has once again been left without a figure head in the past year, after Massadeh’s resignation in early 2011.

2011 has been a year marked by the austerity measures undertaken by the new Catalan Government, who took office just one year ago; budget cuts to reduce the public deficit and fight the financial crisis, which sparked protests. Socially, 2011 has been a tense year, with the highest unemployment figures in a decade, strikes, and the ‘indignados’. It has also been a year of political changes: the Catalan Nationalists (CiU) have consolidated their position as Catalonia’s hegemonic party and the PP won in the whole of Spain except in Catalonia and the Basque Country. International opportunities have arrived: the Mediterranean Railway Corridor has been declared a European Union priority, Barcelona has been confirmed the Mobile World Capital and ‘Pa Negre’ will represent Spain at the Oscars. And FC Barcelona is the best team in the world!

Theatre director Calixto Bieito, who has developed his career in Catalonia, presented a new play in Freiburg based on the masterpiece‘The great theatre of the world’, by Calderón de la Barca, one of Spain’s best theatrical writers from the 17th century. The show is the first spectacle from the Barcelona International Theatre project, promoted by the production company Focus. The show follows the original work from Bieito’s previous production.

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.

Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) has stated it does not have “any truthful information” about the two Spanish aid workers kidnappers and their objectives. Therefore, MSF has dissociated itself from any “statement or presumption of responsibility related with this case”. After the latest armed actions in Southern Somalia, MSF wanted to clarify that they are not at all involved and that they fear these attacks may put the life of the two MSF workers kidnapped in Dadaab (Kenya) in danger. One of the two women kidnapped is Catalan and the other is from Madrid.

The Catalan capital is considered the best city for quality of life. However, it does not reach the top 5 regarding telecommunications, international transport, and market access.

Despite exceptional increases for concrete development projects, external relations and international cooperation services and funds were reduced by almost 50% within the plan to reduce public spending in 2011. The Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation decided to increase financial aid to the Horn of Africa to help with the humanitarian crisis that is affecting 13.5 million people.