Society

The 27th of August had one of the highest recorded temperatures in history. Locals are welcoming cool autumn weather after the scorching summer heat.

A tiger mosquito has transmitted the dengue fever in Europe for the first time. The insect transmitted the virus in the French city of Nice to a man who had never travelled into a dengue area. Officials claim that this is an “isolated case” and say it poses no threat to public health.

Girona’s Scientific and Technological Park is working to create relationships between businesses and research groups in the water technology field. Eight months ago, the park began an initiative to attract foreign investors to Girona.

The travel website Tripadvisor recently ranked Barcelona as the number 1 city to be pickpocketed for the 2nd year in a row. The Catalan coastal region of the Costa Brava was ranked 7th on the list, although a mistake was made in the report situating Alicante, which is some 600 km. South, in the region

Summer of 2010 will be one of the best in terms of surface burned by fires. Forest fires only burned 351 hectares thanks to great efforts in prevention and extinction. Catalonia has a Mediterranean climate with hot and dry summers. This year’s wet and snowy winter could have been fatal.

The Catalan Government has passed a decree that sets a minimum requirement for the Catalan language when hiring new university teachers. Visiting lecturers and current teachers are excluded. Universities will have flexibility in certifying the level and will be able to set individual exceptions.

233,538 students in 954 programmes throughout Catalonia will begin the 2010/2011 school year in the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The EHEA is an objective of the Bologna Process to create a common and compatible university system throughout Europe.

The Catalan Ministry of Social Care calculates a total of 80,000 diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease patients in Catalonia, a number that is expected to double in the next 10 years. The Ministry is now promoting a new attention model for Alzheimer’s patients based on individualised therapy and family collaboration.

Economic crisis is hitting some families unmercifully. 40,000 families that could not pay back their mortgage have lost their homes, according to a study made by the General Workers’ Union (UGT) and a consumers association presented today. A judicial procedure that permits banks and savings banks to survey homes and put them up for auction for 50% of their value is putting thousands of families in the risk of social exclusion.

Several foundations from Catalan-speaking territories have launched a newsletter that will portray opinion articles published in the Catalan press but translated into English. The newsletter ‘Intransit’ will be thematic and issued every 3 months. The initiative aims to better present Catalan views abroad.

The Welfare Project of the La Caixa’s Foundation aims to foster social cohesion in neighbourhoods with a high concentration of immigrants in Barcelona, Tortosa and Salt. The project has specified 17 zones throughout Spain that it will work with to develop community intervention models for the next 3 years.

Some 1,300 families will soon have access to government pensions in cases of family separation if the pension is not paid by the part with this duty. The Catalan Government approved the funds today that will cover pensions and alimentary compensation for those in this situation.

Catalan students are back to the books, or in some cases, laptops. The 2010-2011 school year began this morning with over 1,200,000 students and 88,467 teachers back in the classroom.

Muslims in Badalona celebrate Ramadan in the old fire station, offered by the City Hall to be used during the entire month. The decision has however carried some controversy by conservative parties.

Data released by the Department of Health shows that 40% of Catalans are overweight and 16.5% are obese. Marina Geli, the Catalan Minister for Health, is optimistic about health in Catalonia, stating that people are “changing their tendencies” and adopting healthier lifestyles.