Now that we will have the new Statute, it is worth recalling Enric Prat de la Riba. This public figure seems to have been forgotten, as if he had never existed. In fact, Catalonia today would not be what it is without his intellectual, political and institutional contribution, and his way of doing things.

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The growth of the secularization in our societies is not only a tendency consolidated since years ago. If we keep in mind, for example, the Young report 2005 of the Santa María Foundation, published recently as a result of a sociological investigation carried out for more than 4.000 interviews to youths among 15 and 24 years from Spain, it reveals how the phenomenon is increasing and unstoppable.

The first edition that launcehd to the street the daily The Stampa after the elections published an editorial with the title “Noi” (“We”) and only this text: “We have earned, but just as we are writing these lines we do not yet know who we are”.

Catalonia, as other many nations of Europe, has its own symbols. Some symbols that identify it. And they are not of a party neither of another: they are everybody’s symbols. Nobody can appropriate them. Therefore, we have always cosidered them as national symbols. And this is how the present Statute recognizes them.

It is certain, just as underlines Jordi Pujol in the editorial "Fear" that we are full of fears, of concrete fears and also of other mopre undefined. I have the impression that Europe is full of doubts and that we have to find urgently a response for the most important fear. The immigration. It seems countries are very lost. Citizens have lost the confidence in the political establishment. There have been shooted constantly reproaches and, even, insults, that reveal a lack of moral values. It seems that politicians live in a world of utopias, they do not know to put themselves in the same people’s level, they think only on getting votes in the polls, and the citizens end up feeling tired of everything, falling in the total discouragement. The most important fact of these bad attitudes is the negative influence toward the youths. which, seeing this tired environment they prefer to not to care for politics. This is serious because, if our youths dismiss from their responsibilities, what will happen with our future?

I want to express my total agreement with the editorial "Fear". We are machinery-makers and we see how the world, witha a market that was already previously conoslidated, acts with this fear against the investments and by extension in the acquisition of new machines. This is the main reason by wich in the last two years the most important volume of sales has gone toward Asian countries and the United States; the old world also breaths this fear among the businessmen and we, catalanonina manufacturers, fell it all so close. Of course that Catalonia should face with strongness and decision the present day cross. Therefore, our future generations will not get advantage from the excessive elation or the endemic pessimism. And is in this sense, with the recently approves Statute, what makes specially intense this editorial. Is this the Statute that will I permit us to face the future with a positive Stimmung ? Without pretending to fall in excessive pessimism, let me tell you with sincerity that i do not think so. What we really need is to forget the fear immediately. Otherwise, will be excluded of the European universe described in the article.

On april 24th, at 19:30 p.m., it will be held, in the "Cotxeres" of the Palau Robert, in Barcelona, the presentation of the first number of the CEJP magazine, VIA (Values, Ideas and Attitudes) in wich have collaborated Amitai Etzioni, Gilles Lipovetsky, Montserrat Guibernau, Andreu Claret, Agustí Colomines, Àlex Mitrani and Alfons Cornella, among others.

From the last week news, we have selected the next ones:

The retired doctors return

The department of Health of the Generalitat retired obligatorily all the professionals of the Public Health that were 65 years old. Few months afterwards it has requested the re-incorporation from some of these professionals to attend to the essential needs for a moderately civilized country.


The AIMC (Association for the Research of the Media) expels the COPE

This association is responsible for the General Mass Media Survey and has expelled COPE for its infiltratation of  insincere pollsters with the aim of falsifying the results. Unfortunately, the broadcasting station of the Episcopal Conference is not ideal almost in any of its performances.

The Spanish High Court has reaffirmed that the Catalan and the Valencian are the same language.

The sentence establishes that the linguistic unit|unity is recognized academically as well as scientifically. This sentence nullifies an order to the department of Culture Valencian that suppressed the validation among the certificates of Catalan and of Valencian.

Educating in the values

Mrs. Mercè García, president of the Catalan Federation of Recreational Centers, insists on her offering to the boys and girls of between 16 and 18 years offering them an alternative life that allows them to be implied in a contrary social project to the dominant values, the hiperconsumism and the hiperindividualism. Values as the solidarity, the public spirit, the social appointment|commitment, the respect to the environment and the friendship, are worked. In Catalonia there are 108 centers associated to the Federation and more than 3.000 people between youngsters and volunteers who are part of the group.

In Spain half of the mortgages surpass the value of the price of the housings

The excessive increase of the price of the houses  provokes an indebtedness every time greater of the citizens to be able to have an own home. In this sense Jordi Gual, director of the Service of Studies of La Caixa, asked for prudence to the buyers who want to hire a mortgage, warning of the high indebtedness of the families in some very delicate moments of the economy and with the forecast of new rises of the interest rate.

The genes will guide the diet

The recent advances in the genetic studies explained to the feeding (the Nutrigenómica, the science that studies the interactions among the foods and the ADN) will provoke in the future a modification of the nutritional habits and it will allow the people to be able to answer for the dietetic choices relating them to health. Like this the doctor Palau, head of department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the University of the Balearics Islands and member of the Organization Nutrigenómica Europea, explains it.  To choose a menu in a restaurant will be read the nutrigenético chip and an intelligent system will inform about the foods most recommended so that a person decreases the risk of cardiovascular illnesses, of cancers or so that he increases his life expectancy.

Naouri is a well knowed french pediatrician from the classical schoolof , opposed to the premissiveness teaching, imported from the United States during the decade of the sixty and extensively accepted in Europe, which considers that has contributed to convert the children in some spoiled creatures, then in some troubled adolescents and, finally, in frustrated and confused adults, incapable to face life responsibilities and only able to demand their rights. The author supports his diagnosis in the theories of Freud, especially of the publication Totem and taboo, as well as in own experiments and in the analysis of numerous clinical cases of his pediatric office. With provocative, amusing and very mild style, he exposes the different roles from the mother and the father in the education of the children, defending thatit should begin already since the birth, in the cradle. According to the author, if the satisfaction of a need is delayed, the baby will perceive the lack, and this will help him to configure his own perception. For example, the discipline in the diet is fundamental: eating should be done in concrete hours and with concrete quantities. It is necessary to forget the extended all the practice by wich children eat according to what they demand. A useful book, full of good sense, serious and interesting for future parents.

Policy Network is an international think-tank with headquarter in London launched in December 2000 with the support of Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder, Giuliano Amato and Göran Persson. It’s aim is to promote and cross fertilisate progressive policy ideas among centre-left modernizers by facilitating the dialogue between politicians and policy makers from Europe and democratic countries around the world. It strengthens the hand of modernizers and the case for permanent renewal. Progressive governments and parties in Europe are facing similar problems and looking for modern social democratic responses: fears for security - economic, political and social – combined with the contradictions of combining the traditional welfare state with employment policies, rapid change in science and technology, and pressing global issues. All of which should be tackled in common, as part of the need for fundamental democratic renewal. Today, there is a growing consensus that we must engage with progressives from other countries, and to situate European with national responses within a broader international framework of progressive thinking, rooted in our social democratic values. The think tank also organizes meetings around Europe and publishes three annual issues of Policy Network’s journal.

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