Society

The Federation of Blood Donors in Catalonia wants to reach the young population and to raise the number of donations. Besides, the Catalan pharmaceutical company Grifols asked for a change in the law in order to pay for giving blood. This measure would be an incentive to increase the stock of plasma.

Barcelona City Council is concerned about being able to maintain the current public kindergarten model taking into account the budget cuts announced by the Catalan Government to reduce public spending. While in 2011 the Government contributed €1,600 per child, next year the quantity might be reduced to €1,000.

After a year of trials, Barcelona’s court of first instance number 37 will work only with computer files, eliminating the use of paper. The Catalan Government, in charge of managing the court’s offices in Catalonia, has developed an IT system that will enable court staff but also citizens to carry out every process in a faster and more efficient manner. The plan to develop the system began in 2006 and its development has had a cost of €5 million. The Government’s plan is that by 2019 every court in Catalonia will be fully digital.

Despite initial fears of violent incidents the European Central Bank’s Governing Council meeting has been held peacefully. 8,000 police officers guarded the event by literally occupying the city. Besides, the ‘indignados’ movement demobilized their forces, and no anti-system protests took place.

Thousands of students protested in Barcelona against the reduction in the university budget and the increase in tuition fees. The demonstration was peaceful and was observed by the police, in order to prevent any possible incidents, since it coincided with the European Central Bank Governing Council, being held in the Catalan capital.

The Spanish boss of public prosecutors, Eduardo Torres-Dulce, says it is crucial to analyse if current procedural tools are enough to guarantee fundamental rights and public order. Therefore, he asked not to make legal changes in the heat of the moment.

Tanja Niederstein and Maja Grigat have come to Barcelona with the European Voluntary Service and spend most of their time doing voluntary activities such as helping handicapped students, teaching English or playing with sick children.

This world important discovery should open new paths to develop new drugs and to ultimately find a vaccine against HIV/AIDS. The finding has been published in the international journal PLoS Biology. The study has been funded by the Spanish Government, the Catalan Government, La Caixa savings bank, Barcelona’s Hospital Clínic and Esteve Labs.

The Spanish Government has taken this measure for the European Central Bank (ECB) Governing Council that will be held in Barcelona from May 2nd to 4th. The cancellation of the Schengen Protocol comes after a request by the Catalan Minister for Home Affairs to prevent the arrival of violent protesters and guarantee security during the meeting. This precautionary measure will come into effect from April 28th to May 4th, both included. It will be combined with 6,500 police deployed on the streets of the capital of Catalonia. All these measures will be taken after an evaluation of the risks of trouble during the event.

Additional funds to be made available from the City Council to tackle elderly vulnerability and homelessness. The organisation’s headquarters will also move from its current location in the outskirts of Barcelona to a building over five times the size in the neighbourhood of Poble Nou.

According to the Catalan Government, the High-Speed Train service linking the Catalan capital with the French border has been delayed one more year, this time until the end of 2013. The reason is that work on two sections of the railway, managed by the Spanish Government, is still pending to be allocated. They are the Barcelona exit and the section through Girona; both total €33 million according to the Catalan Government. The rest is already built and the service between the northern city of Figueres and the French city of Perpignan is already in operation. However, this strategic railway is not fully completed between Figueres and Barcelona due to a long list of delays.

Rasquera, with less than one-thousand residents and located in southern Catalonia, approved on April 10th planting cannabis as part of their local economic reactivation plan through a citizen vote. The day after, Rasquera’s Mayor announced he will resign as his proposal did not reach 75% of the popular support. However, he said the plan will carry on. The Catalan Minister for Home Affairs affirmed that the police will report to the public attorney on any cannabis plantation, since they continue being illegal despite Rasquera’s vote. The Spanish Justice Minister thought that the initiative could have “more negative consequences in the long run” than “positive in the short term”.

The Fundació Arrels (Arrels Foundation) works to assist Barcelona homeless people. Just in the Catalan capital there are more than 2,000 homeless people. The foundation receives 65% of their funds from private citizens and companies.

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.

Research conducted on genetically modified mice opens a new field of study to prevent the progression of Alzheimer’s disease by removing the spread of the Tau protein. This protein is a cause of disease which accumulates in the entorhinal cortex, moving from one region to another.