Barcelona

Barcelona Is Turning Subway Trains Into Power Stations

October 8, 2024 Natalie Donback, Next City. Create! Barcelona, Electrification, Energy, Trains, Transportation

Most of the passengers emerging from the station in Bellvitge, a working-class neighborhood outside Barcelona, have no idea just how innovative the city’s subway system is. Using technology not unlike the regenerative braking found in hybrids and electric vehicles, the trains they rode generated some of the power flowing to the EV chargers in the nearby parking lot, the lights illuminating the station, and the escalators taking them to the platforms. Every time a train rumbles to a stop, the energy generated by all that friction is converted to electricity, which is fed through inverters and distributed throughout the subway system.

Dock Workers Refuse To Deal With Weapons Ships Heading To Israel

November 10, 2023 Middle East Monitor, Orinoco Tribune. Resist! Anti-War, Barcelona, Belgium, Gaza, Human Rights, Israel, Palestine, Ports, Spain, Unions, United Nations (UN), weapons, Worker Rights and Jobs

Workers at the Spanish port of Barcelona announced their refusal to allow any ships carrying weapons to operate inside the port, rejecting the violence practiced by Israel in the occupied territories, and accusing the UN of failing to carry out its role. The workers said in a statement to their association that it is their duty to adhere to and defend the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, at a time when the signatory countries have forgotten about it. The statement continued: “We decided within the association not to allow ships containing war materials to operate in our port, for the sole purpose of protecting any civilian population, regardless of their location, as there is no justification for sacrificing civilians.”

What Barcelona Can Teach New York City About Affordable Housing

April 20, 2023 Katelin Penner, Next City. Create! Barcelona, Housing, New York City (NYC), Spain

Earlier this month I visited Barcelona, Spain’s second largest city, where my sister has been studying abroad. We did all of the major tourist hits: we ate tapas, took a cable car to the top of Montjuïc, drank sangria, strolled through Park Güell, one of Antoni Gaudί’s signature works. We were captured by the beauty of the massive, rainbow stained glass windows of the Sagrada Familia church. I babbled to my family about superblocks, Barcelona’s innovative street design model, intended to decrease car use and air pollution while increasing access to public space. Yet the thing I found most striking about Barcelona was its rapidly growing social and public housing stock.

Barcelona City Cuts All Official Ties With Israel

February 10, 2023 People's Dispatch. Resist! Barcelona, BDS, Israel, Palestine, Spain

Barcelona, Spain - Ada Colau, Mayor of Barcelona, announced on Wednesday, February 8, her city’s temporary suspension of all official relations with Israel over its apartheid practices and systematic violations of Palestinian rights in the occupied territories. Colau wrote a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday announcing the decision to suspend relations with Israel. She also announced that the twinning agreement with the Tel Aviv city council, signed in 1998, was suspended “until the Israeli authorities put an end to the system of violations of the Palestinian people and fully comply with the obligations imposed on them by the international law and the various United Nations resolutions.” Colau clarified that the decision was solely related to the institutional relationship between authorities in Barcelona and Israel, and did not affect relationships between the residents of Israel and the city.

Fearless Cities: A Guide To The Global Municipalist Movement

June 18, 2019 By Steve Early, Popular Resistance Educate! Ada-Colau, Barcelona, Municipalism, New Economy

Fearless Cities describes municipal reform campaigns in fifty cities and 19 countries. Its contributors include activists and elected officials in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, England, Chile, Argentina, Serbia, Germany, Kurdish-controlled northern Syria, Canada, and the U.S. It contains a series of “organizing tool-kits,” which offer practical advice about rooting out political corruption, reducing pollution, protecting tenants and immigrants and creating opportunities for citizen engagement like "participatory budgeting."

The Mayors And The Movements

October 21, 2018 By Eoghan Gilmartin, Jacobin Strategize! Barcelona, Municipalization, Spain

In 2015, a wave of social movements lifted left-wing mayors to power in Spain. Their experience in office shows the importance of linking institutional power to bottom-up mobilization.

Colorful Clash Of Protestors And Police In Barcelona

October 4, 2018 Staff, Roarmag.org Resist! Barcelona, Police, Protests, Spain

Protestors opposing a march by police association JUSAPOL in Barcelona, Spain doused police lines with paint and powder before being violently dispersed. Pro-independence protestors and antifa activists clashed with Catalan police at a rally to oppose a manifestation organized by JUSTAPOL (Spanish National Police and Guardia Civil Union) in support of the operation against last year’s referendum on Catalonian independence.

Tens Of Thousands Attend Pro-Independence March In Barcelona

March 13, 2018 Staff, Rte.ie Resist! Barcelona, Catalonia, March, Nationalism, Spain

Thousands of people have marched in Barcelona to demand the formation of a new government in Spain's Catalonia region leading to its independence from Madrid despite formidable legal obstacles. Some 45,000 people joined the 'Republic Now' march called by the influential pro-independence citizens' group ANC, city police said. "There are more than two million of us citizens of Catalonia who want to go forward now, clearly, towards the Catalan republic," ANC vice president Agusti Alcoberro told reporters. Separatist parties won an absolute majority of seats in the 135-seat Catalan parliament in a snap election on 21 December but have so far failed to form a new government. Catalonia's two main separatist parties last week proposed a new referendum on a constitution of the "Catalan republic".

Barcelona Kicks Microsoft Out In Favor Of Open Source

January 19, 2018 By Derick Sullivan M. Lobga, Itsfoss.com Create! Barcelona, New Economy, Open Source, Technology

A Spanish newspaper, El País, has reported that the City of Barcelona is in the process of migrating its computer system to Open Source technologies. According to the news report, the city plans to first replace all its user applications with alternative open source applications. This will go on until the only remaining proprietary software will be Windows where it will finally be replaced with a Linux distribution. The City has plans for 70% of its software budget to be invested in open source software in the coming year. The transition period, according to Francesca Bria (Commissioner of Technology and Digital Innovation at the City Council) will be completed before the mandate of the present administrators come to an end in Spring 2019.

‘Freedom For The Political Prisoners’: March In Barcelona

November 13, 2017 Staff, commondreams.org Resist! Barcelona, Catalonia, Nationalism, Political Prisoner, Spain

By Staff of Common Dreams - "Wearing yellow ribbons on their lapels to signify support, they filled the length of the Avenue Marina that runs from the beach to Barcelona's iconic Sagrada Familia church, while the jailed leaders' families made speeches," The Independent reports. "Catalonia's two main grassroots independence groups called the march, under the slogan 'Freedom for the political prisoners,' after their leaders were remanded in custody on charges of sedition last month." The march on Saturday followed a series of related demonstrations in recent weeks. On October 16, "around 200,000 people (according to calculations by the municipal police) came out to protest the jailing of the heads of the pro-independence ANC and Òmnium associations, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart," the Spanish newspaper El Pais reports. "On October 21, another protest calling for their release saw 450,000 people take to the streets of the Catalan capital." In early October, the Spanish government mobilized a violent police force in hopes of quashing a regional independence referendum, but the movement for Catalan independence and subsequent actions by the Spanish central government in Madrid have left the wealthy region deeply divided. Those who were able to cast ballots last month overwhelmingly supported independence. Since regional leaders defied Madrid and declared independence in late October, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has imposed direct rule on the region."Wearing yellow ribbons on their lapels to signify support, they filled the length of the Avenue Marina that runs from the beach to Barcelona's iconic Sagrada Familia church, while the jailed leaders' families made speeches," The Independent reports. "Catalonia's two main grassroots independence groups called the march, under the slogan 'Freedom for the political prisoners,' after their leaders were remanded in custody on charges of sedition last month." The march on Saturday followed a series of related demonstrations in recent weeks. On October 16, "around 200,000 people (according to calculations by the municipal police) came out to protest the jailing of the heads of the pro-independence ANC and Òmnium associations, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart," the Spanish newspaper El Pais reports. "On October 21, another protest calling for their release saw 450,000 people take to the streets of the Catalan capital." In early October, the Spanish government mobilized a violent police force in hopes of quashing a regional independence referendum, but the movement for Catalan independence and subsequent actions by the Spanish central government in Madrid have left the wealthy region deeply divided. Those who were able to cast ballots last month overwhelmingly supported independence. Since regional leaders defied Madrid and declared independence in late October, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has imposed direct rule on the region.

Thousands Rally In Barcelona Against Catalonia Secession

October 9, 2017 Joseph Wilson, www.AP.org Resist! Autonomy, Barcelona, Catalonia, Nationalism

By Joseph Wilson for AP - BARCELONA, Spain — Thousands of people were rallying Sunday in downtown Barcelona to protest the Catalan government’s push for secession from the rest of Spain. Many in the crowd gathered in a central square carried Spanish and Catalan flags. Some chanted “Don’t be fooled, Catalonia is Spain” and called for Catalan president Carles Puigdemont to go to prison. Sunday’s rally comes a week after Puigdemont and other separatist leaders of the Catalan government held a referendum on secession that Spain’s top court had suspended and the Spanish government said was illegal. The “Yes” side won the referendum with 90 percent of the vote, though less than half of the region’s electorate voted. Puigdemont has pledged to push ahead for independence anyway and is set to address the regional parliament on Tuesday “to report on the current political situation.” Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy vows that his government will not allow Catalonia to break away from the rest of the country. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais published Sunday, Rajoy said that he will consider employing any measure “allowed by the law” to stop the region’s separatists. Rajoy said that includes the application of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, which would allow the central government to take control of the governance of a region “if the regional government does not comply with the obligations of the Constitution.”

Catalonia: One Million Demonstrate For Self-Determination Vote

September 23, 2017 Esquerra Revolucionària, www.socialistalternative.org Resist! Barcelona, Nationalism, Self-Determination, Spain

By Esquerra Revolucionària for Socialist Alternative - On the 11th September one million people spilled onto the streets of Barcelona shouting loud and clear their intention to vote during the 1st October referendum, making it clear that they were not going to let the ruling Partido Popular (People’s Party/PP) deny them this right. Yet again, as has happened on each Diada [‘National Day of Catalonia’] since 2012, the Catalan people have demanded their right to democratically decide what links they wish to maintain with the rest of the Spanish state, including their legitimate right to independence. Against this protest in support of the right to decide, which the Catalan people are overwhelmingly in favour of (as confirmed by all the polls) backed up by increasing support from the those who live in the Spanish state, as a whole, the PP government and the Spanish bourgeois are using repressive measures not seen since the Francoist dictatorship; police raids and continual harassment against the press; judicial intervention to prevent a political event from taking place in Madrid concerning the right of self-determination; news censorship preventing the Catalan TV channel 3 from showing content on the referendum. The offensive has taken unprecedented steps and not just against freedom of expression and association.

We Want To Welcome! Barcelona Demands Open Borders For Refugees

February 25, 2017 Carlos Delclós, www.roarmag.org Create! Barcelona, Border, Border-free, Refugees

By Carlos Delclós for ROAR Magazine - On February 18, over 160.000 people took to the streets of Barcelona to demand that the Spanish government and the European Union accept more refugees. The build-up to the protests was spectacular, with the city and Catalan regional governments working together with broad citizen platforms to put the phrase “We want to welcome” (Volem acollir) on everybody’s lips. For several weeks, leading politicians including Barcelona mayor Ada Colau and Catalan president Carles Puigdemont lambasted Spain’s current policies towards refugees. One week prior to the protest, a special concert was organized by a campaign called Casa nostra, Casa vostra (“Our house, your house”), not in a civic center or public square but in an Olympic stadium. The event was aired on Catalan public television and featured major Catalan artists and cultural figures.

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