Tuesday 16 February 2010

Penedès News in English

Penedès is not only white wine and fabulous cava, but also fourcomarques (Alt Penedès, Anoia, Baix Penedès and Garraf) west ofBarcelona which historically were united in one administrative unit – a vegueria. Here is a summary of local news from this area, for the period February 8-15, 2010, starting with the Penedès as a whole, and then split by comarca.

Penedès

The weather has been unusually cold and even in the coastal areas of Penedès have night temperatures dropped below +/- 0ºC. (3de8)

The Penedès wine farmers suffer since consumers, due to the crisis, switch from geographically branded wines (D.O.;

denominació d’origen) to cheaper box alternatives. (ElPunt)

Garraf

The carnival celebrations of Garraf are as strong as ever, in spite of the crisis and the cold weather. In Sitges on Sunday evening, around 2.000 people paraded in the Rua de la Disbauxa. Earlier, on the same day, 3.000 couples had participated in the candy war between the comparses of Vilanova i la Geltrú. Pascual Maragall (PSC), Ernest Benach (ERC) and Alícia Sánchez-Camacho (PP) were among the guests of honour who from the townhall balcony could overlook how people threw 35 tons of boiled candy on each other. (ElPunt)

In Sitges, during six months from May this year, the companies La Caixa, Telefonica, Visa and Samsung ill make a joint experiment of a payment system based on chips in mobile phones. (LaVanguardia)

The town council of Sant Pere de Ribes will build a bicycle lane between the centre of Ribes and the hospital Sant Camil. (ElPunt)

In Vilanova i la Geltrú, an illegitimate daughter of last year’s Carnival King (el Rei Carnestoltes) turns out to be his rightful heir. (ElPunt) (LaVanguardia)

The Sant Antoni Abat hospital of Vilanova has replaced the traditional X-ray foils with a digital solution. (VD)

Alt Penedès

The council of the comarca Alt Penedès (consell comarcal) demands a third railway track between Martorell and Vilafranca del Penedès in order to speed up connections with Barcelona. (ElPunt)

As a part of its modernization plan, the town council of Vilafranca makes it possible for the inhabitants to solve more and more matters via its web-page. (PD)

Vilafranca will use money received from state funds for job creation (FEOSL) to make the surroundings of the cemetery more beautiful and renovate the changing rooms at the football stadion. (ElPunt)

Body parts of a murdered Belorussian woman could be found along 70 kilometers of the motorway AP-7, some near Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, after her ex-partner – a 40-year-old Spanish national – had been interrogated. (3de8) (ElPunt)

With a twelve year contract, the town council of Olèrdola puts 9.000 square metres of land at free disposal of research related to wine growing. (Avui)

Baix Penedès

The court of el Vendrell has issued restraining order on the iman of Cunit and three more people to stop them from approaching Fàtima Ghailan, on whom they stand accused of having put pressure, for her decision not to wear a veil at work. (3de8) (Avui)

The education centre Garbí of el Vendrell adds a classroom with multi-sensory stimulation to its services for people with handicaps. (ElPunt)

Yesenia Rock – the artist name for a girl of Columbian origin but living in el Vendrell – has been selected the best Spanish porn star of 2009. (3de8)

The company Topcolonies of Calafell will be the first to offer a summer camps (colonies) aimed for future businessmen. (ElPunt)

The works to prepare the ground for the new primary care unit (CAP) in Segur de Calafell have started. (PD)

A student gravely ill with meningitis at a the school CEIP UIl de Vent in Bisbal del Penedès has stirred up anger among the local authorities since the Generalitat does not share information about the case. (Avui)

Anoia

The team behind the digital tourist information platform La Teva Alta Anoia offers its support to develop a similar promotion tool for the whole of Anoia. (AD)

Difficulties to establish an urban zoning plan (POUM) in Igualada, has caused such tension – above all with the PP opposition - that the responsible PSC town councilor has offered to resign. (AD) (AD)

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My objective with these summaries is to, in English, present news which might be of interest to expats living in anyone of the municipalities covered, but I do not claim that local news from, for example, Vilanova, automatically are of interest to the inhabitants of the other towns of Penedès.

The idea behind the format is to present all items as extended headlines, with a focus on what, who and where. Readers who want more facts, like the hows and whys, will have to follow the link to the source articles. The answers to when will be the time period stated in the opening paragraph.

The main sources are
AnoiaDiari·cat, Avui, Penedès Digital, El Punt, El 3 de Vuit, LaVanguardia and Vilanova Digital.

L’Extra - the only news service which treats the Penedès as a united entity – and our local newspaper Diari de Vilanova, serve as inspiration, but are usually not presented as sources since their digital formats either are incomplete or do not allow you to link to individual articles.

The signature EW signals that I am personally the source of information. Any opinions expressed are my own. Earlier editions can be found under the blog label
Penedès News.

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Technorati tags:
Anoia, Catalonia, Garraf, Igualada, Penedès,Sitges, el Vendrell, Vilafranca, Vilanova,

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