world

The Israeli airline Arkia will offer a total of 20 flights during the summer and 20 more during the winter between Tel Aviv and the Lleida-Alguaire Airport. The new connection will start on the 27^th of June and will have a capacity of 110 passengers per flight. Israeli tourists will be better connected to Western Catalonia and the Pyrenees, which host a large range of ski resorts, adventure sports opportunities, impressive mountain landscapes and unique Romanesque art. In addition, the Israeli Ambassador recently unveiled a route following the mountain paths used by thousands of Jews who crossed the Pyrenees to escape Nazi persecution. Lleida's Pyrenean landscape consists of high peaks, lakes and mountain forests, including the National Park of Aigüestortes.

The $6-billion BCN World has added another top international investor to those developing Europe's premier holiday resort, to be located next to the PortAventura theme park in Catalonia's Costa Daurada. Chinese casino company Melco, Spanish hotel network Melià and UK shopping centre developer Value Retail will build the first resort of the total 6. PortAventura, which will host Ferrari's theme park in Europe, will also build 3,000 additional hotel rooms. However, the company promoting BCN World, Veremonte, was waiting for the legal framework to be adapted in order to close deals with further investors. Last weekend, the Catalan Government and the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) signed an agreement to adapt the rules and this Wednesday, Veremonte announced the Hard Rock deal.  

The Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) – which runs the Catalan Government – and the opposition Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) - which does not support the self-determination vote – have reached an agreement on the new legal framework to develop the macro-resort BCN World. This project, promoted by Veremonte and located in Salou (Costa Daurada), has already announced some of its international partners, but in order to attract the rest of the investors needed and start construction, the legal framework on gambling and the area’s town planning had to be upgraded. After months of talks, the CiU has finally closed a deal with the PSC, instead of doing it with the Left Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC), with whom it is promoting the self-determination agenda. The $6-billion BCN World will create some 17,000 jobs and will have mega-casinos, hotels, luxury shops, conference centres and beach clubs, among other things.

Catalonia’s PortAventura and Ferrari have reached an agreement to build a new area dedicated to the illustrious sports cars, expanding the current amusement park. Thanks to an over €100 million investment, ‘Ferrari Land’ will open in 2016 with 75,000 m² at its disposal. Visitors will discover several attractions designed for fans of the Italian brand, including a vertical accelerator announced as the highest and fastest in Europe. ‘Ferrari Land’ will also host the first Ferrari themed hotel, which will offer 5-star accommodation in 250 rooms. The Italian company had already opened a dedicated theme park in Abu Dhabi named ‘Ferrari World’, which was met with much success among fans of the prancing horse. The new amusement facilities will be built next to 'BCN World', a $6 billion resort that will open next to PortAventura, with hotels, conference centres, casinos, theatres and golf courses.

Some 250 people have joined hands around the old Cathedral of Lleida (Western Catalonia) for the third consecutive year, urging the monument and its surroundings to be declared UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the heart of the Catalan city, the tremendous ‘Turó de la Seu Vella’, literally the Hill of the Old See, is formed of several buildings, with the most significant being the 13^th century cathedral, known as ‘La Seu Vella’. The hill also hosts the remains of La Suda or King's Castle (Castell del Rei o La Suda), well preserved military fortifications built from the 14^th to the 18^th century and other archaeological gems. An official nomination bid was eventually presented this January, setting up the first stage of a lengthy procedure.

During the 2014 Innovation Convention, organised by the European Commission on Tuesday, Barcelona was named the first European Capital of Innovation. The Catalan capital has prevailed over finalists Grenoble (France) and Groningen (the Netherlands) in a contest which also involved Paris, Espoo (Finland) and Malaga (Spain). The winning project highlights the predominant role of the city in promoting new technologies and bringing together government bodies and citizens, in order to enhance sustainable economic growth and improve the people’s welfare. The award is endowed with € 500,000 to promote innovation. Barcelona's Mayor, Xavier Trias, stated that new technologies in an urban environment have to "work towards improving people's everyday lives[…] or they will fail".

The MediaTic building in the 22@ Innovation District of the Catalan capital will now be known as the Barcelona Growth Centre, also becoming a meeting place for entrepreneurs and businesses. Such an announcement was made by Mayor Xavier Trias to the fifty attendees of the Barcelona Growth Board meeting, which took place at the City Council on Thursday. Currently, the 8-floor building hosts initiatives such as the Mobile World Capital Foundation, the Agency for Barcelona Brand, the Open University of Catalonia and the Barcelona Mobile Startup, among others. To convert the building into a platform for businesses, the City Council and the Chamber of Commerce will set up an office of assistance to entrepreneurs on the ground floor, which will act as a “facilitator” to create new companies.

GSMA, the organisers of the Mobile World Congress, have announced on Thursday that more than 85,000 visitors from over 200 countries participated in this year’s event. The figure sets a new impressive attendance record with an overall increase of 18% on last year’s edition. Around 80,000 attendees participated at the Mobile World Congress at Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via venues and more than 5,000 visitors attended mPowered industries programme at Fira’s Montjuïc venues. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and IBM CEO Virginia Rometty delivered highly anticipated keynote speeches, while close to 1,800 international market leading companies presented their latest innovative products and services. In the Global Mobile Awards, the HTC One scooped top award of the Best Smartphone of the year, while Apple iPad was announced the Best Mobile Tablet. Wearable devices were also an exciting highlight of the 2014 MWC.

The Mobile World Congress (MWC) has been held in Barcelona from the 24^th to the 27^th of February. All the halls have been filled with excitement as international competitive exhibitors showed their latest products and growing trends in the mobile phone industry. This year, ‘wearable devices’ received world-wide attention. Samsung showcased the newest smartwatches called ‘Gear 2’ and ‘Gear 2 Neo’, and also its cutting-edge smartband called ‘Gear Fit’. Sony also released its latest smartband, called ‘Core’. Other companies such as Motorola, which announced at the MWC it was going to launch a new smartwatch, are about to join this emergent part of the industry.

The App Planet at the Mobile World Congress is one of the biggest app events in the world, and the Catalan App companies have taken full advantage of the opportunity to showcase their latest products. Not only this, several Catalan App companies have come together to form the group ‘Catalunya Apps’, in which big and small companies alike have joined in order to survive and compete on the global stage. ‘InQBarna’ had extraordinary success since last year with their Music based app; they have had 700,000 downloads and Apple named the best music app in 2013. Inqbarna isn’t the only large company to commit to ‘Catalunya Apps’; Sixtemia, founded 5 years ago, is on board as well.

Coinciding with the Mobile World Congress, the Catalan Ministry of Culture has organised the conference ‘Digital 4C’, which aims at “providing answers” to questions about digital contents and “bring closer” the world of technology and culture. The EBook, music, the audiovisual sector and video games will be the main topics of discussion among professionals through seminars, roundtables, conferences and meeting points to exchange about past experiences and new initiatives. Barcelona holds such an event as part of the Mobile World Capital project, a title the city was awarded until at least 2018 in order to act as the main international platform for the mobile-related industry. ‘Digital 4C’will be held at the Arts Santa Mònica Centre on the 27^th and 28^th of February, overlapping with the Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest fair in the sector which ends this Thursday.

The winners of the 19^th Global Mobile Awards were announced on Tuesday afternoon, in a ceremony held at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The prizes recognize the most innovative mobile products, apps, services and initiatives from all over the world. More than 175 international industry experts, analysts, journalists and academics were involved in the judging process.In the category of the Best Mobile Handsets and Devices, the HTC One scooped top award of the Best Smartphone, defeating other nominees such as Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Apple iPhone 5S.The Apple iPad Air was announced as Best Mobile Tablet. Nokia was a runaway winner having received awards in two different categories. The Catalan Government was also honoured for the educational mSchools project. The award ceremony was hosted by British comedian James Corden.

A total of 53 companies are present at the ‘Catalonia’ stand that the Catalan Government has set up at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), for “established companies with international sales to newly-created start-ups”. Larger Catalan companies already dispose of their own stand at the MWC, the world’s largest fair in the mobile phone industry, which was launched on Monday in Barcelona for the 9^th consecutive year. Joan Tarradellas, CEO of the public business innovation agency ACCIÓ, highlighted the heterogeneity of the companies present at the ‘Catalonia’ stand, which work on different fields, from developing applications for the biomedical sector to dealing with social networks, urban mobility or ‘smart cities’.

Within a year, Pope Francis’ Twitter account, @Pontifex, has reached 12 million followers while his tweets are 4 times more re-tweeted than the ones of U.S. President Barack Obama. Indeed, each of Pope Francis’ messages generates an average of 6,637 re-tweets, while Obama’s messages are re-tweeted 2,309 times on average. Such data was unveiled on Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which is the main international event of cell phone related technologies. After analyzing the Pope’s impact on the digital environment, the study ‘The Internet loves Pope Francis’ concludes that Pope Francis is the world leader with the greatest influence in social networks, above the Dalai Lama or Cristina Kirchner.

Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world’s biggest congress in the mobile phone industry, takes place from today until Thursday in Barcelona. The Catalan capital is hosting this event for the 9th consecutive year. More than 1,800 companies from all over the world showcase their latest products at the event and more than 77,000 visitors are anticipated at the conference centre at Fira Gran Via. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and new owner of Whatsapp, will follow today’s earlier speech by Whatsapp founder Jan Koum with his highly anticipated keynote talk. Virginia Rometty, IBM´s CEO and recently pronounced most powerful woman in Business, will also appear as a keynote speaker on Wednesday. Leading mobile phone companies such as Samsung, Sony, Nokia, Huawei, HTC and others are expected to launch their new devices at the exhibition.