News in Brief
World Youth Choir
The World Youth Choir begins a summer tour of concerts in Spain with three in Tenerife.
The World Youth Choir, Artist for Peace by UNESCO, starts its summer tour with three concerts in Tenerife, which the latter will be at the Auditorio de Tenerife. The WYC is one of the most significant choral projects on a global scale, not only for its unique training and high quality of its original artistic talent, but as a project that promotes intercultural dialogue, building bridges between young singers from very diverse cultures. The first concert will take place Saturday, July 17, at 20.30 in the Symphony Hall.
Each year, the World Youth Choir meets in two working seasons, summer and winter. In each summer session the choir chooses a different country and during this time the group consisting of about 90 young singers between 17 and 26 years and over 40 nationalities, are preparing a repertoire of a high level of difficulty for two weeks of intensive training.
This year, the choral ensemble trained in Puerto de la Cruz, and then they will perform a concert tour of Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Basque Country, Castilla Leon, Balearic Islands and Catalonia.
The World Youth Choir is currently under the direction of the Norwegian, Ragnar Rasmussen and Josep Vila i Casañas.
The choir released, in addition, the work Després, a piece specially commissioned for the tour by Feliu Gasull from the Spanish World Youth Choir with lyrics by Enric Casasses.
Tickets are on sale through the usual channels: telephone 902 317 327 (10 to 19 hours, Monday to Saturday) at the Auditorium box office (10 to 15 hours, Monday through Friday , and 10 to 14 hours on Saturday), in multiservice terminals or Internet CajaCanarias or www.auditoriodetenerife.com .
BA merger agreed by Europe
BRITISH Airways and Iberia have been given the green light to join forces, creating the newly-branded flight company Oneworld.
This will make the joint venture between the UK and Spanish state airlines the third-largest in Europe, after Lufthansa and Air France-KLM, and one of the fifth-largest in the world.
As a result of today's authorisation of the merger, from the European Commission, BA shares went up 0.48 per cent to 208p this lunchtime.
It is thought Oneworld will be up and running as a brand by the end of this year.
Iberia's CEO, Antonio Vázquez, says the move will 'benefit all passengers' since they will have 'more choice of destinations'.
The names British Airways and Iberia will remain both on letterheads and on airlines and publicity material, with Oneworld simply being the holding company.
It will have more than 420 airlines and cover over 100 countries.
By the time they have been running as a joint concern for five years, Iberia and BA expect to save around 400 million euros a year by merging.
It has taken around two years for the merger to be authorised, since anti-monopoly rules had to be examined to ensure they were adhered to.
Fire ban lifted
The fire ban in mountainous areas which was put in place last week has now been lifted as temperatures begin to cool, so you can now enjoy the outside activity areas of the island.
Agricultural fires are allowed and the use of the kitchens of the recreational areas.
The seals have be removed from the BBQ areas located in the recreational areas of the Anaga and Teno. Also, agricultural burning may be conducted after approval of the area by the Environment Dept.
Obviously it is still wise to exercise caution when using these areas as we are in the hottest months of the year. Temperatures last week soared above 35 degrees Celsius.
Inflation down ‒ but only for now
AFTER three months of rises in Spain, inflation fell in June. But economists believe the increase in IVA, introduced on 1st July, will quickly drive the prices index up again.
The Consumer Prices Index (IPC) increased by 0.2%, but the year-on-year figures fell by 0.3 per cent, which has cut fuel prices and led to cheaper transport, heating and electricity.
What forced up the IPC mainly last month were non-essentials, such as alcohol and cigarettes (increasing by 5%) and leisure activities, including package holidays.
But this month’s IVA increase is expected to see the current inflation rate
go up from 1.5% to 1.9%.
Companies have been asked by the unions to absorb the IVA increase in a bid to avoid laying-off employees through lack of business when their goods and services become too expensive. Sea rescue
Sea Rescue reported in the summer months of last year a total of 1,103 call outs in Spain for pleasure craft emergencies of this figure
5.5 percent were in the Canary Islands.
The region registered with the most emergencies was Catalonia (26.8 percent), followed by the Balearic Islands (21.6), according to data from the Ministry of Development of the central government.
The causes of these emergencies on pleasure craft are motivated mainly by ship adrift (764 performances), or grounding or stranding (77) leak (28) and no radio (45). "There are still emergencies that can have fatal consequences causes as simple as running out of fuel at sea, resulting in a lack of power and left to drift," the ministry said in a statement.
Many of these emergencies could be prevented with proper maintenance of equipment and the anticipation of making security checks before departure and analyze in detail the contents of the Safety Campaign.
This Plan is to enhance maritime safety and security, consistent with the objectives of the Maritime Policy of the European Union. Among its objectives are to strengthen prevention, strengthening inspections and awareness of professionals and users of the sea, and to promote the dissemination of safety culture.
Spanish stars Cruz and Bardem get married
Hollywood stars Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have got married, it has been confirmed. The Spanish couple wed at a friend's house in the Bahamas at the beginning of July, according to Cruz's spokeswoman. Only a small group of family members attended the ceremony. Cruz, 36, wore a dress designed by long-time friend John Galliano. The Hollywood stars began dating in 2007 as they filmed Woody Allen's film Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Cruz won a supporting Oscar for her role in the film. Bardem, 41, is also an Oscar winner. He received an Academy Award for his portrayal of a serial killer in No Country For Old Men in 2007. The couple have tried to keep their romance out of the spotlight. But, at this year's Cannes Film Festival, Bardem made a public declaration of his love for Cruz. As he collected the Best Actor award, he said: "I share this joy with my friend, my companion, my love. "Penelope, I owe you a lot and I love you so much." The couple first acted together in the Spanish comedy Jamon Jamon when Cruz was just 19. Tenerife social networks
Turismo de Tenerife is taking full advantage of social networks to promote the island and to this end, seeks the involvement of industry, local people and tourists themselves in order that they contribute in building the image of the destination. Precisely one of the actions carried out recently has been organizing a conference aimed at tourist guides with the aim not only to train this group on the management of the major social networks but also to promote a common way to use these tools.
The island Tourism director and head of Turismo de Tenerife, José Manuel Bermúdez, stresses the importance that they have acquired social networks, whose use has increased exponentially in recent years. 'It is a task for all to collaborate on the image to be projected on the island in them is precisely what we want and that is the positioning of the island as a tourist destination, i.e. a place which enjoys a unique climate, innovative, modern, with a variety of activities, genuine and true. "
At the workshops Tenerife Tourism developed with the tourist guides, a way of working, trying to strengthen the position, because, in short, you have the image that permeates to the consumer. The idea is that when this group upload content to social networks or answer questions from users they do in the same direction and in so doing promote the selling points of our island.
Scheduled training activities included practical sessions on handling the most relevant social networks (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Panoramio) and tools to make blogs or upload maps, among other issues.
Turismo de Tenerife, Tenerife through Stream project, has conducted various activities with the aim of increasing the presence of Tenerife on social networks such as promotional channels on YouTube, Twitter account, a space on the Google blog platform Blogger.com , Facebook and a promotional agreement on Tripadvisor as well as the Tenerife tourist site, www.webtenerife.com , where through information sharing formulas multiplies the effect through social networks and forums such as Digg, Google Bookmarks, Twitter , LinkedIn, Delicious, Google Buzz or Digg, among others.
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