The Prima Foundation (Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area), based in Barcelona, ​​leads the largest scientific cooperation program in the Mediterranean. This program, which promotes scientific collaboration between northern and southern countries, now faces an uncertain future due to discussions surrounding the European Union's new budget framework for the 2027-2034 period. In the previous budget, this program received €700 million in funding, but new EU priorities, such as rearmament, raise concerns about the loss of these resources. "Without this money, the program cannot continue," explains Octavi Quintana, director of the foundation. The creation of Prima was an EU initiative to support science and local talent following the surge of migration from south to north in 2015. The program is based on what is known as science diplomacy, that is, collaboration between the south and the north to find solutions to problems affecting both sides of the Atlantic, such as food security. In this struggle to secure EU resources, Prima is calling on the northern European countries, including Spain, but also France, Italy, and Greece, to express their "firm commitment" to moving the project forward. "Without EU support, it is very difficult for the southern European countries to participate" in the various ongoing projects, explains Quintana, because for these countries, the investments made "represent a very significant effort." In this regard, he emphasizes that the overall difference in per capita income between the south and the north is sevenfold.

When the book was first published in Catalan a few months ago The struggle for control of the Mediterranean. The great Catalan expansion from 1200 to 1500 (Sails and Winds), the British historian David Abulafia explained that he was writing a great deal. He wanted to publish a new book and delve deeper into the history of the Kingdom of Majorca. He was passionate about the history of the medieval Mediterranean. In a interview on the ARAHe recalled that his interest had begun in primary school. "I was captivated by the Crusades, but my teacher refused to discuss them. At Cambridge, I was able to delve deeper and realized that what attracted me was the Mediterranean. I spent a long time in Italy. Historiography didn't pay much attention to the south and Sicily, but I wanted to study from south to south, inevitably leading me to the Catalan world, through the Catalan-Aragonese conquest of Sicily and Sardinia," explained the historian, who died suddenly yesterday, Sunday, at his home in Oxford at the age of 76. Professor Emeritus of Mediterranean History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society, Abulafía dedicated his career to exploring the complex political, economic, and cultural interaction between Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the medieval Mediterranean. He never lost his curiosity or his eagerness to understand the history of this region and that period. He delved deeply into the history of the Catalan-Aragonese Crown, was a great admirer of the work of Ramon Llull, and had a thorough knowledge of the four great chronicles (the collection of texts formed by the Book of the deeds of James I the Conqueror, he Book of the king in Pere by Bernat Desclot, the Chronicle of Ramon Muntaner and the Chronicle of Peter the Ceremonious"The development of a vernacular culture represented in those four great chronicles is remarkable; they are like the Bible of Catalan history. Ferran Soldevila produced a beautiful edition, with a leather binding, very fine paper, and two columns, just like a Bible. It's not the edition most used today, but it was especially prevalent during the Franco regime." Abulafía.

The NGO Caminando Fronteras has released its annual tally of deaths occurring while attempting to reach Spanish shores and has confirmed a significant increase in shipwrecks of boats trying to reach the Balearic Islands from Algeria. Of the 3,090 deaths recorded, a third (1,037) occurred on this route, which departs from North Africa towards Formentera or Ibiza, islands known for their tourist appeal. The contrast of migrants arriving on beaches packed with tourists, in what for them represents their dream destination, is one of the images that best encapsulates the contradictions of the modern world. The majority of fatalities (1,906) continue to occur on the route from Africa to the Canary Islands, although this year there has been a significant decrease compared to last year. It should be noted that 2014 was a record year, when more than 10,000 people drowned trying to reach Spanish shores. According to the latest figures from the Ministry of the Interior, irregular migrant arrivals to Spain fell by 40.4% compared to 2014, with an even steeper decline in the Canary Islands, where it reached 59.9%. However, we cannot ignore such a painful reality, even though Europe has often believed that the best way to avoid encouraging these journeys is to abandon these people to their fate. We recall that high-seas rescue initiatives like the one carried out by the Catalan NGO Open Arms are condemned by the far right, from Salvini to Vox. Throughout its history, the ARA has documented some of these rescue operations with journalist Cristina Mas and photographer Xavier Bertral, and the conclusion is always the same: it's naive to think that people won't risk their lives to reach Europe by putting themselves in the hands of criminal gangs when they see no future, no opportunities, in their homeland.

A hush hung over the Pedralbes Palace in Barcelona this Friday before the meeting of foreign ministers of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM). Since In mid-October, the peace plan sponsored by Donald Trump in Gaza was finalized., Europe has abandoned the forceful stance with which it condemned the genocide in Gaza last summer. And it buries its head in the sand while Israel violates the ceasefire in the enclave. But the ministerial meeting of the organization's 10th Regional Forum has held a mirror up to European foreign ministers and their counterparts in the southern Mediterranean basin, who have denounced Israel's impunity and called for a lasting political solution in the Gaza Strip.

The Mediterranean is a corner of the world experiencing many simultaneous crises: the genocide in GazaClimate change, migration and inequality, and the drift towards authoritarianism. Cities are the battleground where all these crises converge. And they are also spaces where, faced with the incapacity of states, solutions are sought. We spoke with four mayors from cities in the region who are participating in the annual assembly of the MedCities network in Barcelona. Up to 91 city representatives have sealed their commitment to cooperate in a declaration in which they pledge to act at the municipal level on issues such as peace, climate, economic development, and human rights.

Oscar Camps (Barcelona, ​​1963) was shocked in September 2015 when he saw the image of Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian refugee child who drowned on a beach in Turkey as his parents tried to bring him to Europe. He owned a lifeguard business and decided to go to the Greek island of Lesbos to do what he knew how to do: save lives in danger at sea. Ten years later, the NGO Open Arms is one of the leading humanitarian rescue organizations in Europe, having saved more than 72,000 lives. These times have been full of life experiences and have contributed to shedding light on the Central Mediterranean, bringing journalists from all over the world aboard the ship, including those from the ARA. He reviews this decade in an interview aboard the ship Astral, in the port of Barcelona.

Twelve grams. That's the weight of a baby loggerhead sea turtle at birth. These chelonian reptiles normally breed on the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean, where both the sea and the coasts where they nest are rising. And this species is highly sensitive to these changes, which result in fewer males being born, which could have a disastrous outcome for the species. To avoid this fate, the loggerhead sea turtle has begun to colonize the west, in search of cooler temperatures for reproduction.

From Greek amphorae to industrial containers, from Zheng He to James Cook, from sirens to the kraken... Everything you want to know about the sea, the fables and truths of what humanity has been able to know, has been explained in an entertaining and informative way by the Italian historian and writer Ales History of the Sea: Myth, Culture, and Science (Ático de los Libros, 2024). Although it has 665 pages, it is an addictive book, which can be read in chronological order—from the first single-celled organisms that seem to have managed to live in the first sulfurous ocean 4 billion years ago to the yellow rubber duckies that have ended up on the great plastic "continent" that chapters depending on the reader's interest in pirates, explorers, the relationship between walrus hunting and the discovery of Greenland, or, for example, the great naval battles in history.

Rising temperatures, human pressure, overfishing and pollution are leading to Mother Nostrum at a point of no return. There are many scientific voices warning.

"You can't write the history of Italy between 1200 and 1500 without looking at the Catalans and their ambitions," explains British historian David Abulafia (Twickenham, 1949). Emeritus professor of Mediterranean history at Cambridge University, he is the author of essays translated into Spanish as The discovery of humanity, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean andA sea without limits. A human history of the oceans. Now, for the first time, it can be read in Catalan, with The struggle for dominance of the Mediterranean. The great Catalan expansion from 1200 to 1500 (Sails and Winds). In the book, translated by Oriol Ràfols, the historian addresses the conflicts that occurred in the Mediterranean between 1200 and 1500 for political and naval supremacy and for control of its center, Sicily, and southern Italy.

Patrici Bultó, a marine biologist, has retired in 2025 after 30 years at the Aquarium, where he worked as technical director and director of biology. "I love sharks," he says. And it shows in the passion with which he speaks not only about sharks, but about the entire seabed. Although he is concerned about the impact of climate change, he remains hopeful about humanity. "Good things have been done, like banning the killing and eating of sharks. If this has been done, it means other things can be done."

Ocean Viking, the rescue ship of the French NGO SOS Mediterranée, began to disembark 572 people, including 183 minors, survivors of the daily drama in the Mediterranean, now far from the media spotlight, at midday in Sicily. They were rescued in six boats in the waters separating Libya from Malta, most of them in the rescue zone under the responsibility of the European island, and after a week at sea they will be able to disembark in Italy. The largest was a fishing boat carrying 369 people. Last Saturday another dinghy boat sank off Tunisia, leaving at least 43 dead and 83 survivors. On Spain's southern border, more than 2,000 people have died this semester, as announced this week by the NGO Caminando Fronteras. They are only the first steps of a summer that will again fill the waters of the Mediterranean, the most unequal border on the planet, with deaths.

At least 43 people have disappeared in Mediterranean waters after sinking off the coast of Tunisia. They were on board a precarious boat that had been rented by a people-smuggling mafia and had left the Libyan coast a few hours before heading towards the Italian island of Lampedusa. Strong winds, overweight, waves and currents, however, caused the boat to capsize and drift to the Tunisian coast, a country bordering Libya. A Red Crescent representative told Efe that 84 more people were on board, mostly from Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Bangladesh, who were rescued and transported to the mainland, where they received first aid before being handed over to local authorities for processing.

At least 130 people died on Thursday in a shipwreck on the route between Libya and Italy, in the central Mediterranean, when the inflatable boat in which they were trying to reach Europe sank. For 48 hours, and in the middle of a storm with waves up to six meters high, an NGO had followed the boat and reported its position to the European authorities, but no official maritime rescue service went to their rescue. The humanitarian ship Ocean Viking of French organisation SOS Mediterranée, immediately rushed to the rescue along with three merchant ships, but it was too late and they were only able to recover 13 bodies. There is no news of another skiff with 42 people on board that issued its last message yesterday at noon.

The Suez Canal has temporarily suspended all traffic while it still tries to free the ship Ever Given which has been stranded in the middle of the canal for three days after losing power in the middle of a storm on Tuesday morning. Although the canal authorities were confident on Wednesday that they would be able to remove the ship and open the passage that same day, the ship remains aground and small tugboats are trying unsuccessfully to move it.