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Private enterprise drives growth, reduces poverty, and creates jobs and prosperity for people around the world. Governments have a special responsibility to make proper rules and promote good governance. Fair taxes, increased transparency and open trade are vital drivers of this. We will make a real difference by doing the following:
Panorama tries to find new ways to cut the number of traffic tickets issued each year.
When a CCTV camera snaps your car and you get a ticket in the post, how annoyed do you get? More motorists face this frustration as councils are now fining drivers in ever-greater numbers after capturing them on CCTV. They claim they do it to keep the traffic flowing smoother. But private emails obtained by Panorama reveal a different story, with officials congratulating each other on the number of tickets issued: 'Another record month, guys. Well done,' says one.
Families of soldiers killed in Iraq can sue the government for negligence and bring damages claims under the Human Rights Act, the Supreme Court rules.
El sociòleg polonès, premi Príncep d'Astúries d'humanitats el 2010, destaca que els catalans "no volen un trencament amb Europa, sinó que s'hi volen quedar"
El sociòleg polonès Zygmunt Bauman –premi Príncep d'Astúries d'humanitats el 2010– imparteix aquesta setmana un seminari a Girona i aquest dimecres ha aprofitat per reflexionar sobre el procés sobiranista català. Segons ha assegurat, Catalunya pot aspirar "igual que Espanya" a ser membre de la Unió Europea...
The President of Spain's Catalonia region Artur Mas has thanked UK Prime Minister David Cameron for "understanding" Catalonia's desire to hold a referendum on independence. Mas also held up the Scottish consultation process on independence as an example to follow...
Barcelona (ACN).- Artur Mas, President of the Catalan Executive, presented the Government Plan for 2013-2016 on Tuesday, which sets 77 objectives and contains 355 specific measures in a wide range of areas. The plan aims to boost political action and show that the Catalan Government is working on several fronts, beyond the self-determination process and the control of public deficit. However, Mas also sent several political messages during the presentation of the plan at the Generalitat Palace in Barcelona. The main one being that he is aiming to complete the four-year office term regardless of whether Catalonia’s self-determination vote is finally held in 2014, as the governing Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) planned with the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC)...
An interview with the bookkeeper for the organisation which ran a secret blacklist.
For years some of the biggest names in British business subscribed to a secret blacklist containing thousands of names with the power to deny work and destroy livelihoods. From the Millennium Dome to the iconic Olympic Park, some construction firms paid for information on workers they feared could delay work and cost them money.
Barcelona (ACN).- An exhibition in Barcelona, with documents dating from between the 10th century and 1493, shows the oldest preserved copy of the ‘Capitulations of Santa Fe’. This agreement was signed by the Catholic Monarchs – who ruled Castile and Aragon – in April 1492 and it accepts Christopher Columbus’ terms to undertake the trip after which Europeans would become aware of America’s existence. The document granted Columbus the titles of Admiral, Viceroy and Governor-General of all the lands he would discover and it also set that he would keep a tenth of all future profits. In fact, the document played a major role in the mid-16th century, when Columbus’s descendants sued the Crown for not respecting the original agreement...
Brussels (ACN).- The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), which is the most influential think-tank based in Brussels and specialised in European Affairs, proposed that Catalonia and Spain should agree to name “an external mediator or conciliator” to solve their dispute. In an interview with ACN, the CEPS Head of the EU Foreign Policy Unit, Steven Blockmans argued that “the European Union or the United Nations could play this role”. However, he warned that “both parties, including Madrid, should voluntarily accept it” prior to choosing. In addition, the CEPS expert also stated that if Madrid agrees, “a summit would be enough” to take “the political decision” to allow an independent Catalonia to become an EU Member State...
Sid Lowe: From Messi's miracles to the player who lived his dream as a fan it is time for the annual end-of-season Spanish football awards
In the end it was Tito Vilanova's season and Eric Abidal's too. They became the symbol of the suffering and the success of Barcelona's fourth league title in five years, the feeling in their celebrations. And yet there was something strange about the 2012-2013 campaign, Barcelona's greatest ever season greeted like a disappointment. The league was won so early that there was something anticlimactic about it and they finished without the injured Leo Messi, without the Champions League, destroyed 7-0 over two legs by Bayern Munich...
Proposal is found in Whitehall-commissioned study examining how coalition could privatise entire stock of student loans
A confidential report commissioned by the government has proposed redrawing the terms of student loans taken out over the past 15 years, that would make them more expensive to pay back for 3.6 million borrowers in England alone...
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(Nanowerk News) The scientific cooperation between chemists, biotechnologists and physicists from various Catalan institutes, headed by Pau Gorostiza, from the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), and Ernest Giralt, from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), has led to a breakthrough that will favor the development of light-regulated therapeutic molecules. The breakthrough published online today in the German journal of reference in chemistry Angewandte Chemie ("Light-Regulated Stapled Peptides to Inhibit Protein–Protein Interactions Involved in Clathrin-Mediated Endocytosis") has received recognition as a “Very Important Paper”, a distinction that only 5% of the articles accepted achieve. Moreover, the paper will feature on the cover of the July issue.
In few places can faith in the European dream be as glistening as it is in Catalonia. Because of old European ties and faith in Northern efficiency? Partly. But many Catalans also see the EU as a safety net into which to tumble free of three hundred years of exposure to one of Europe’s most oppressive National systems, Spain. As Catalan former president Jordi Pujol (1980-2003) has insisted in recent times, “independence is the only way out” now that Spain’s politicians have predictably opted for clamping down on Catalonia’s claims, almost exactly as they did on Cuba’s and the Philipinnes’in the 1890s...
Un informe aprovat per la comissió de cultura ha incorporat una esmena presentada per l'eurodiputat Ramon Tremosa.
La comissió de cultura del Parlament Europeu ha aprovat que es fomenti des dels primers nivells educatius l'aprenentatge de les llengües minoritàries amenaçades de desaparició, entre les quals el català. La petició forma part d'un informe sobre diversitat lingüística a la UE elaborat per l'eurodiputat cors Francois Alfonsi i aprovat per unanimitat amb esmenes dels diferents grups polítics...
The head of the Catalan Government expressed his desire that “these kind of reflections would begin to take hold in the rest of the State”
The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, expressed his appreciation to the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, for his statement in favor of the right to decide. Artur Mas agreed that “the best way to find a solution to this kind of problem, these conflicts of expectations, is to listen to the voice of the people, to let the people vote, and to build a future based on those opinions, as long as they are widely held by the people.”...
Gavà (ACN).- On Wednesday the Spanish Public Prosecution Office accused the football player Lionel Messi and his father Jorge Horacio Messi of not having paid €4 million to the Spanish Tax Agency in 2007, 2008 and 2009. The Prosecution Office believes the FC Barcelona player and his father hid “important revenue” deriving from image rights...
London (ACN).- The British Prime Minister David Cameron answered a question referring to Scotland’s self-determination process on Wednesday and he indirectly compared it to Catalonia’s situation. In a meeting with international journalists Cameron stated that he “doesn’t believe” that trying “to ignore these questions of nationality, independence, identity” is the right way. The British PM said “it’s right to make your arguments, take them on and then you let the people decide”. However, without being asked about it, he linked it to the Catalan case by immediately adding he “would never presume to tell people in Spain how to meet these challenges themselves”. Cameron concluded his answer by saying “it’s a matter for the Spanish Government and the Spanish Prime Minister” to decide how to handle the situation...
Also:
Cameron lectures Rajoy on the right to self-determination for Catalonia (HC) http://ves.cat/gN4i
És doctor i catedràtic en Ciències Físiques per la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. És el director de l'Institut de Ciències Fotòniques , l'ICFO, i presideix l'Associació Catalana d'Entitats de Recerca. Lluís Torner ens explica que "recerca de frontera" vol dir investigar en temes que busquin tenir impacte global, que siguin nous arreu del món, i que puguin generar productes que arribin al mercat mundial.
Spain's heavily indebted region of Catalonia, which is facing a resurgent separatist movement, demanded on Tuesday that the central government lift its budget deficit target for this year to protect social services.
Madrid wants the country's 17 regions, which are responsible for providing healthcare and education services, to lower their budget deficit to 1.2 percent of gross domestic product this year from an average of 1.7 percent last year...
A new poll from the Spanish newspaper El Periódico shows that a clear majority of Catalans support independence from Spain, and an even greater number demand that the Spanish government recognises the right of Catalonia to decide its own future.
57.8% of those polled said they would vote in favour of Catalonia becoming an independent state, 36% were against and 6.2% didn't know or had no opinion, when don't knows are removed, this would give a referendum result of 61.6% Yes, 38.4% No...
The 2 weeks residential package also includes full board with other international students, 24 hour monitor supervision, 50+ multiactivity daily program, two cultural trips to London and Canterbury, one visit to a Premiership football stadium.
David Gardner: "The example of Scotland is clear: more debate and less drama”
The journalist David Gardner was the man who put the independence of Catalonia on the front page of his newspaper, the Financial Times. It was this past September, with the Catalan sovereignty debate in full swing, when his moderate articles circled the globe. A correspondent in Spain during the Transition and now based in Lebanon where he writes about the Middle East, he returned to Catalonia last fall to explain what was happening here...
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