Reducing emissions, generating energy, and obtaining fertilizers, and above all, continuing to research. These are the three functions of the new biogas plant that the Director General of Agriculture and Livestock, Rosa Altisent, presented this Monday at the facilities of the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA) in Constantí (Tarragonès), Mas Bové. It is the first biogas plant in the entire State at a public research center, and this characteristic should foster knowledge about this energy generation system, which, although it has been used for a long time, has gained more interest in recent years, partly due to the price hikes caused by the war in the Middle East, one of the areas where the most fertilizers in the whole world are produced.

If it is true that he who has most needs least, Montserrat Domingo surpasses us all. One could say that with prayer, she has enough. She lives in an old stable of about 40 square meters, distributed over two floors. The dining table is full of cardstock and small pots of paint that she uses to reproduce the flowers and plants that surround her. She makes bookmarks with them and gives them away to visitors. The walls are covered with calendars from past years and books, especially on religion and icons, but also on artificial intelligence and nature. In one of them, dedicated to foxes, she even appears, where the authors explain that a lame fox used to approach the hermitage of Sant Joan del Codolar so that the hermit woman would give it food. "It was coming for a long time and it would stretch out right here. It was lame, but when someone came, it would run away. It's dead now," she recalls. She also has dozens of copies of Serra d'Or, the magazine published by the Abbey of Montserrat. The animals of the forest, the plants, the ancient trees, and prayer, especially prayer, are her life. "Prayer is what sustains me," she says.

With a modest budget – that of a mountain village of only 644 inhabitants – organizing the arrival of thousands of visitors to see the eclipse was not easy at all. But Prades (Baix Camp) managed it. The Generalitat had committed to helping only those municipalities chosen as observation points that, among other requirements, had to have more than 3,000 inhabitants and more than 55 seconds of total eclipse. Prades, which enjoys the accreditation of one of the best skies in Catalonia, was left out. Not a single euro. "Nobody has helped us," lamented the mayoress, Lídia Bargas, this Thursday.

"Wow". Almost in unison. Never before had a galactic orgasm of this magnitude been experienced in Prades. About 4,000 people looked at the sky with super-approved glasses until the Moon completely covered the Sun. "Woooow". And many shouts. Some cries. Lots of applause and a lot of emotion. In Prades, which has one of the best skies in Catalonia, the eclipse could be seen perfectly, both from the esplanades set up by the City Council and from those prepared by the Prades Mountains Astronomical Park. People came from all over Catalonia, from the rest of Spain, from Japan, from the United States, and many French people.

The Catalan municipalities from which the eclipse can be well observed have organized to offer safe and controlled spaces from which to enjoy the meteorological spectacle. The objective is threefold: on the one hand, it is a way for the town councils to help citizens enjoy the eclipse and it is also a new opportunity to promote each city, in full tourist season. But there is also a safety reason, and that is that the emergency teams, on a day that will mobilize tens of thousands of people, prefer to have citizens in a municipal sports center rather than wandering around the mountains looking for a good observation point. "Anything that is orderly, the better," explain sources from Civil Protection.

Would you like to become a novicus, an apprentice gladiator in the amphitheater of Tarraco 2,000 years ago, for a few minutes? You will do so guided by Marcus Valerius Mesala, editor muneris of Tarraco, who will explain the secrets of this space, you will be able to witness a gladiator fight and experience a fight against exotic animals from the arena itself.

A fishmonger, a delicatessen, a butcher shop, a bakery, a salted fish stall, a poultry shop, and a greengrocer's. That was all that remained of Valls' Central Market in the winter of 2009. Five traders kept open the last seven stalls of a facility that had been dying for a long time.

Since the beginning of summer, there have already been more than 150 fires in Catalonia, a frightening figure. We hear a lot about climate change and, while I won't be the one to deny this reality, it must also be said that many of the fires that have occurred have had human hands behind them, whether directly or indirectly: a grinder, the use of pyrotechnic material, a machine that catches fire...Climate change exacerbates the risk, but it cannot be an excuse to stop talking about human responsibility, lack of prevention, and land management. I am not a firefighter, and I admire them greatly, but if there's one thing I've learned by listening to experts, it's that fire prevention is done during the winter. Now we are already late.There is too much fuel in the forests, and this causes fires to spread more quickly and with more virulence. Therefore, when summer arrives, it is not enough to react.Perhaps we should listen more to ranchers, farmers, and growers, and facilitate their participation in the solution. Fewer obstacles, more support for the territory, and more real prevention throughout the year.Gentlemen of the Government, applauding the firefighters is great. But it would be even better to make it easier for them. Because, as that television program used to say, "it is better to prevent than to cure".

When speaking of the origins of the Catalan pharmaceutical industry, the narrative usually focuses almost exclusively on Barcelona. This is a logical association. Companies like Uriach, Viñas, or Esteve, along with the establishment of the first German pharmaceutical multinationals, eventually turned the Catalan capital into the main drug production center in Spain. However, this view often sidelines a little-known but highly significant phenomenon: the role played by the Tarragona region, and particularly Reus, in the early stages of this industrial activity.

The wine made by Eva Vega and her father, José Antonio Vega, from Vilanova de Prades (Conca de Barberà) has already received different gold medals at the Brussels World Competition, but this year their Viern 2015 has even obtained the Revelation Wine of Spain Award, which the same jury only grants to 14 wines out of the 6,700 presented. This wine, which is one of the many produced by the Vega Aixalà winery, fed by a 10.5-hectare vineyard, will go on sale in the coming days.

This June, the People's Party of Catalonia has experienced a calm regional congress that has re-elected Tarragona's Alejandro Fernández as president for another four years. The history of the Catalan popular party has been a Dragon Khan since its foundation in the late eighties, and the president's chair burns out tenant after tenant. Fernández has been in office for eight years now, surpassing the average tenure of the long list of predecessors – the most recent being Daniel Sirera, Alicia Sánchez Camacho, and Xavier García Albiol – and if he completes his term, twelve years will become almost an eternity in the temporal parameters of the Catalan conservatives.

“Art, architecture, and agriculture have many common enthusiasts and nourish each other. That's why we want to be a world-class cultural destination”. Christian Bourdais and Eva Albarrán are owners of contemporary art galleries in Madrid and Maó, but they have added a third one outdoors in Queretes, in Matarranya. “The only solution to the crisis facing the wine world is to integrate interests,” warns Bourdais. That's why they are betting on Venta d’Aubert, an enological project that celebrates forty years today and which, in its beginnings, was driven by Álvaro Palacios and Josep Lluís Pérez, references in Priorat. The first owners were Swiss. Upon reaching their eighties, they are looking for a successor. Preserving the spirit of the place was non-negotiable, and so four years ago they handed over the management to the gallerists Bourdais and Albarrán. From the beginning, there has been the idea that the winery should be a collective and living project, dialoguing with the natural heritage of Matarranya and the Ports of Tortosa-Beseit, “without the arrogance of ownership,” insists Christian Bourdais. And he adds: “I don't understand why this landscape is not more recognized. If they had it two hours from London or Paris, it would be the most expensive place in the world. Here, on the other hand, it is part of the depopulated Spain, but the most relevant thing is that it is authentic”.

Rocafort de Queralt is a small village in Conca de Barberà, or it only has 247 inhabitants, but it boasts a first-class modernist gem: the first wine cathedral built by architect Cèsar Martinell, a disciple of Antoni Gaudí. In fact, the people of Rocafort can boast of having the first and the last of Martinell's 21 wine cathedrals in Catalonia, because the first nave was erected in 1918, but the winery was expanded with a new nave in 1932 and yet another in 1948. This was Martinell's last wine cathedral. This heritage allows them to present themselves as the kilometer zero of wine cathedrals. Observing the three naves from the outside allows one to appreciate the evolution of the architect from Valls, but to sneak inside, one will have to wait a little over a year. The works to restore this modernist gem began six months ago and, if nothing goes wrong, will be completed in July 2027, as explained this Tuesday by Lluís Roig, managing director of Cellers Domenys.

The plot where the Central Market of Tarragona was built was not always the heart of the city. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was little more than a vacant lot on the outskirts of the Eixample, where Tarragona residents used to play football and cycle. The first football match in the city's history was played right there, in the velodrome that was then called Plaça del Progrés. Today, the square is named Corsini, in honor of the chief public works engineer of the city at the beginning of the century.

A spicy wine made in California awakened her mind and made her dive into her culinary memory linked to the garden since childhood. Back then she lived between Terrassa and Bagà. “It was very chemical, it had spicy sensations, but without a trace of pepper. We planted four varieties of chili pepper and dared to make one.” Isa Serra is the director of Vall Llach, but her connection with Priorat has been forged through l’Horta Colomer, a space for biodynamic crops in the heart of Porrera, where white carignan vines coexist with vegetables, spices, fruit trees, and geese.

The Tarragona-based filmmaker Anna M. Bofarull premiered on June 11 at the International Catalan Film Festival (FIC-CAT) in Roda de Berà her latest film, Rebel, a documentary with the 1-O referendum as a backdrop and starring Marta Torrecillas. Torrecillas was one of those attacked by the Spanish police, and images of her being dragged by officers down the stairs of the Pau Claris institute in Barcelona went viral, along with her claim that her fingers on one hand had been broken one by one.

I don't know if it happens to you too, but I have the feeling that, lately, there is a worrying lack of empathy. It's as if we see the people around us, but we don't really look at them. We go so fast that, too often, we forget that everyone carries their own baggage.

When things get complicated, many companies react in the same way: they look for ways to reduce costs. Suppliers are renegotiated, hours are reduced, cheaper materials are sought, or promotions are run to remain competitive. It's an understandable reaction. But for some time now, I've been wondering if we're not asking the wrong question.

The Tarragona-based journalist Enric Garcia Jardí (1992) wrote a report a couple of years ago in Ara Diumenge about the maquis fighter Joan Busquets Verges, born in Barcelona in 1928. Busquets was arrested by the Civil Guard and spent twenty years in prison after his death sentence was commuted. After weeks of living with the former guerrilla fighter in his Normandy home, the Tarragona-based journalist has published the book El maqui que encara lluita, in which he reviews the long life of this anarchist fighter who still visits Catalonia from time to time.