Society

Numerous talented Catalan researchers are pioneering new research in a prestigious British university but they still cannot find a job in Catalonia.

"Although there is a very high standard in Barcelona, the clients are not the same”, this is the opinion of a Catalan web developer who is currently based in Manhattan. This is his story.

In Paris, back in 2005, the death of young boys fleeing from police, spread violence and unrest across the outer suburbs. Now, in Catalonia, the accident of a 16 year-old who fell from a building while escaping police, has sent a wave of violence and vandalism across the town of Salt, forcing the deployment of more security officers in the area.

Two Catalans opened a guided tour business in Berlin making the most of the economic crisis and the fact that the city was ‘fashionable’. They set up ‘Cultourberlin’, a project that would offer Spanish and Catalan tourists guided tours of Berlin

A young Catalan architect with no employment opportunities at home opens an office in Paris to work on buildings in Asia.

A Barcelona Commercial Court cancels the clause that penalises Ryanair passengers without printed boarding passes. Judge says the €40 fine is ‘abusive’ and obliges Ryanair to pay 285.55 euros to the passenger who filed the complaint. The reason: a boarding pass is an essential document to travel and paying an extra cost violates the Montreal Convention.

Catalan researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona claim the new substance could be used to treat stress, phobias or depression. The drug development was done in cooperation with the Emory University in the US. The new drug still has to go through a long testing process.

They decided to abandon the protest after health authorities implemented a financial penalty.

During the last few winters, snow and ice have paralysed Central Europe for days and sometimes weeks. Lorries from all over Europe transport up to 60,000 tons of salt a month from Súria (Bages County) to spread on roads throughout the continent. The mines have tripled production in the last 2 years and are the largest of Southern Europe.

Two bar owners have publically declared their resistance to the new smoking ban after having lost many clients, they said. So they have decided to let customers smoke again and hope that other bars will do the same.

After the Pope’s visit last November, the Sagrada Família will be open 4 Saturdays in a row along January. The measure seems to be a success among Barcelonans. The figure is four times the number of visits recorded on a normal Saturday.

Smoking is banned in all restaurants and clubs in Spain from the 2nd January 2011. The new law aims to put the state on the same level as other European countries such as the UK

Spain’s Highest Court sentences on a case about 3 parents who wanted their children to be taught in Spanish at Catalan public schools. The decision breaks the principle of using Catalan as the language of instruction in Catalan schools. This model has been in place for the last 30 years and guarantees knowledge of both the Catalan and Spanish languages by all pupils, as exam records have been proving. Now, Spain’s Supreme Court is interpreting the Spanish Constitutional Court’s sentence from last June, which stated that Catalan was a teaching language but that Spanish should also be. The fear in Catalonia is that the country will split into 2 separated language communities and social groups will not understand Catalan.

The puntCAT Foundation attended the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN) meeting in Cartagena, Colombia last week. Proposals for similar domains such as ‘.scot’ and .quebec’ were put aside for future discussion.

A team at the University of Girona and the firm Easy Innova design a new application that helps people find car rides quickly and easily.