If the current growth trends hold steady, Catalonia's prison
population will exceed 10,000 by the end of 2008.
Currently, Catalonia's prisons are holding 9,845 inmates, according to
a study by the Departament de Justícia, up 4.78% since the end of
2007. The population of Catalonia increased 1.06% in that same period.
Of the total, 22.7% are in preventative custody awaiting trail, the
highest proportion in a decade. (Full story in printed edition).
Despite an endless stream of worrying news about the economy,
Barcelona's tourism industry is still having its cake and eating it
too.
While in the first five months of 2008 the Catalan capital saw the
first decrease in tourists seen in a long, long time, the tourists who
are coming are spending more money. At last, the elusive hunt for the
"quality tourist" seems to have born fruit, although it is at least
partly due to the global economic slump that keeps some tourists at
home. (Full story in printed edition).
The human statues on Les Rambles are a longtime fixture of the city's
premier tourist thoroughfare. Residents often stride by without giving
a second look, but they are out there everyday, plying their curious
trade. What is it like to embody Julius Caesar or Che Guevara, a
Japanese World War II infantryman or an enormously fat lady? How do
they prepare, what do they think about and do they get bored? These
are some of the questions we asked the four human statues below. (Full
story in printed edition).
Some €99 million from the Generalitat and a further €99 million from
municipal authorities around Catalonia have been earmarked for
renovation projects in 22 local areas for 2008, in line with the Llei
de barris, passed in 2004. (Full story in printed edition).
There is no doubt that Catalonia has always acted as a hothouse for
domestic basketball talent. In recent years, however, the number of
home-grown players produced has been phenomenal. Even a glance at the
make-up of Spain's national squads reveals the dominance of Catalan
basketball players, with eight of the 15 players called up for
national duty in Beijing coming from Catalonia and a further eight
currently in the national reserve team. (Full story in printed
edition).
Now that all the fuss over Spain's victory in Euro 2008 has died down,
I would like to talk about football. To be specific, about football
and Nelson Mandela. At the end of June, while Vienna was hosting the
Euro 2008 final, a concert was held in tribute to the South African
leader in London. Specifically, it was a concert to celebrate
Mandela's upcoming 90th birthday on July 18. I don't know if Mandela
asked for a television in order not to miss the Euro 2008 final, but
it is well-known that he is a keen football fan who defends the game
as a way of positively changing the lives of millions of people, many
of whom to be found in his long-suffering country. (Full story in
printed edition).
Local art associations are not about to accept the sudden change in
direction of Barcelona's Centre d'Art de Santa Mònica without a fight.
The various groups issued a statement demanding that "the project put
foward by [Generalitat culture minister] Joan Tresserras be stopped"
until a ruling on the decision is released by the future Arts Council
that has been proposed as a new culture authority independent of
political interference. The statement called for establishing the Arts
Council as soon as possible and holding an international selection
process to select a new director. (Full story in printed edition)
– What brought you here?
In 1998 some friends introduced me to Cesc Sans and Pere Pau Gimènez,
a tabor piper and an accordion player – the two of them specialised in
Catalan folk music. We set up a folk band named Clau de Lluna, which
was the job that convinced me to come over and make a living in
Catalonia. I first collaborated with Pep Sala for the song La Taverna
d'Old John and it came out so well that he asked me to join his Banda
del Bar. I also played with Sau, Gerard Quintana, Lluís Llach, Toni
Xuclà, Electrica Dharma... (Full story in printed edition)
Catalonia's renowned maker of IMAX films, Jordi Llompart, is shooting
in Barcelona this month, putting the finishing touches to Spain's
first IMAX 3D feature film, The Magic Tale.
Largely shot in Namibia, the film is based on Llompart's own novel, El
corr damunt la sorra, and tells the story of a young girl who uses her
imagination to travel through the African wilderness with a young
African boy as her guide, encountering talking animals and a number of
other magical characters. (Full story in printed edition).
Shanty towns are impoverished urban settlements where individuals and
families are forced to improvise their own dwellings, constructing
them out of materials such as plywood, corrugated metal and sheets of
plastic.
Grey, dirty zones without proper sanitation or public services, these
are often areas in which crime, suicide, drug use, and disease are
common. We tend to associate such illegal settlements with developing
nations, but the proximity of them to our own lives is brought home to
us in a fascinating and sobering photography exhibition at Museu
d'Història de la Ciutat in Barcelona. (Full story in printed edition)
While many, if not most, of Barcelona's residents will hand over their
city to the tourists over the next few weeks, for those who stay the
Catalan capital will have a healthy serving of summer cultural events
on offer. Whether it is music on the rooftop of Gaudí's Pedrera or
cinema in Montjuïc castle's moat, some of Barcelona's most emblematic
sights will provide ample compensation for the city-bound. Below is a
selection of events on offer over the summer months. (Full story in
printed edition)
Eating out in restaurants may be convenient or a good way to do
business or to celebrate a special occasion, but it is widely accepted
that doing it too often cannot be good for you.
This theory is now to be put to the test by Amed, an initiative from
the Catalan health department. Involving local authorities,
restaurateurs' guilds and the Fundació Dieta Mediterrània, Amed is a
network of eateries that will be allowed to bear a sign on their front
doors letting customers know that healthy food is served inside. The
scheme is based on a successful pilot project carried out in
Granollers and will now be extended to Barcelona. (Full story in
printed edition)
Once upon a time women had to be paid (in cash, and mainly in small
bills) to swing around a pole dressed in high heels and progressively
very little else. Oh, how the times have changed. El Periódico reports
that the latest fitness fad to arrive from US gym culture to these
shores is the estriptís class. So now we have women handing over money
to dance instructors or work-out leaders to learn the lusty arts of
erotic dancing. According to Barcelona's resident expert on the art of
striptease, Chiqui Martí, this form of exercise "is a compendium of
technics designed for a woman to carry out an activity which, besides
allowing her to keep physically, as well as mentally fit, permits her
to develop a feminine means of expression unknown to her until now".
(Full story in printed edition)
Historic battlegrounds can become symbols of peace and often they are
turned into tourist attractions. That's the case in Catalonia, too,
which is transforming its Civil War legacy into a form of cultural
tourism with a major project to revive the heritage of the Battle of
the Ebre, one of the bloodiest and most decisive periods of the
Spanish Civil War, which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.
The Generalitat is organising a network of routes and areas of
historical memory that will allow visitors to learn, or in some cases
remember, some of the most bitter scenes of the Spanish Civil War.
(Full story in printed edition)
Third time lucky. Or so Convergència's (CDC) Artus Mas hopes as he has
been chosen to lead his party into the 2010 elections for the Catalan
government after being reelected as general secretary at the CDC's
15th party congress which concluded on July 13. (Full story in printed
edition)
For Spain's immigration minister, Celestino Corbacho, economic
migrants bringing family members to join them is a privilege that
should be restricted as much as possible, while for Catalonia's
Secretari per a la Immigració, Oriol Amorós, the system known as
reagrupament familiar is a right that should be supported for the sake
of community relations. Into this rift has stepped the Generalitat's
minister for Acció Social i Ciutadania, Carme Capdevila, who has sided
with Corbacho. (Full story in printed edition)
Demolition work on one of Barcelona's most unpopular structures –the
donut-shaped, concrete square in Glòries– began on July 10, offering
hope that the local area can be redeemed and live up to its name.
(Full story in printed edition)
Catalonia's fiscal deficit with the Spanish government – the
difference between what Catalan taxpayers send to Madrid and what they
get back in the form of federal expenditures and investments – is
widening, according to a study commissioned by the Generalitat's
finance minister, Antoni Castells. (Full story in printed edition)
Those in favour of a one-size-fits-all approach to the debate on the
funding of Spain's autonomous communities say that "asymmetric
solutions" – those that are not the same for everyone – are neither
viable nor fair. Yet, Spain, because of its history, geography and
politics, is by nature "asymmetric."
A clear example of this is the Basque Country. As Lehendakari
Ibarretxe proudly declared after legislation on the economic bilateral
cooperation with Spain was passed in 2002: "Whether in the European
Union, or among federal states or those with the greatest degree of
decentralisation, there is no case like that of the autonomous
community of the Basque Country – and the neighbouring community of
Navarra – in which bodies not belonging to the state have the capacity
to regulate their entire tax system." (Full story in printed edition)
Thanks to the municipal charter approved by the Spanish parliament in
December 2005, the culture and finance ministries have signed an
annual agreement with the Barcelona City Council on how to dole out
the yearly budget of €20 million to the city's cultural institutions.
In an appearance before the Comissió de Política Cultural on July 9,
Joan Manuel Tresserras, the Catalan culture minister, reported to
Parlament the extent of the deal that had been reached with the
Spanish government. (Full story in printed edition)
What brought you to Catalonia?
A longstanding wish to travel, a grant possibility and marketing! It
was 1992 and in Holland you suddenly heard a lot about Catalonia with
the Olympic Games, about Seville's World Expo and Madrid as cultural
capital. El Greco, Velasquez, Goya and Picasso already were
references. So Spain basically attracted me, but I wanted to stay near
the sea and so I landed up in Catalonia.
How has living here influenced your work?
Being a foreigner made me see everything with more distance. The
harder light made me change from acrylic to egg tempera and use
shadows and silhouettes in photographs of drawings and paintings. I've
become more conscious about language in my text works. (Full story in
printed edition)
With so many music festivals in Spain, this had to happen sooner or
later. The Summercase Festival organizers announced in December that
they would move their 2008 dates to July 18 and 19, so as to avoid
overlapping with the UK's T in the Park and Oxegen, which would have
prevented artists from coming to Summercase. Now, however, it will
unavoidably coincide with the FIB at Benicàssim. This was seen as a
declaration of war, and FIB countered with a "mini-FIB festival" in
Madrid on July 19 – featuring Morrissey, My Bloody Valentine, and
Siouxsie and Babyshambles – the same day as the Summercase in Madrid
and Barcelona. (Full story in printed edition).
Some of the most famous pieces of clothing in cinematic history are on
display this summer at Girona's Museu del Cinema. From Tarzan's loin
cloth to Batman's mask and lots of glitzy glamour in between, some 16
suites and gowns as well as other objects from the Hollywood wardrobe
make up the museum's Vestits pel Cinema on display until September 14.
(Full story in printed edition)
Bleak House constitutes one of Charles Dicken's most mature novels.
Fans of the great author agree that among all his works (including
such timeless classics as Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and A Tale
of Two Cities) this novel is Dicken's true masterpiece. Now, thanks to
the publishing house Destino and a wonderous translation by Xavier
Pàmies, readers can enjoy it in Catalan for the first time ever as El
Casalot. (Full story in printed edition)
From winner of Wimbledon to bearer of Armageddon, Rafael Nadal has
without a doubt reached the peak of tennis fame and, rather
unexpectedly, now gone far beyond its wordly reaches. While any soul
who has opened a paper or turned on a television this week knows that
the Mallorcan master of the racket recently won the globe's most
famous tennis event, I imagine very few of you happen to also be aware
that an asteroid was named after Nadal in honour of his achievement
and spectacular, albeit very young, career. (Full story in printed
edition)
