Spain rejected an offer of talks from the Catalan regional government over the region’s bid for independence as Madrid lays the ground to impose direct rule following an informal referendum in which 90 per cent voted to breakaway.
Instead Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, the Spanish deputy prime minister, said the Catalan authorities had failed to give a definite response to its demand to clarify the independence question by a deadline on Monday. The national government will outline its stance if no clear cut statement is delivered by Thursday. “Mr Puigdemont still has the opportunity to start resolving this situation, he must answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the declaration,” Mrs Saenz de Santamaria said. "It was not difficult to say yes or no to whether he had declared independence."
In a letter to Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy on Monday, Carlos Puigdemont made a “sincere and honest” offer for dialogue between the two men over the next two months.
______________________________
Read more:
Catalan leader calls for calm ahead of Madrid deadline
Spanish PM gives Catalonia 8 days to drop independence bid
______________________________
Mr Rajoy has held out the threat of using Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to take direct control of the Catalan administration and sideline Mr Puigdemont and his team. As the impasse persists, the Spanish leader appears increasingly prepared to trigger the powers of the centre. “The notice that I sent you is the prior step to the procedure set out in Article 155 of the Constitution,” Mr Rajoy wrote in a formal response, also published on Monday.
Mr Puigdemont’s reference to two months of dialogue in his letter was the first time the Barcelona leader has placed a time limit on his call for negotiations with Madrid. If the Catalan deadline expires with no movement from Rajoy, the Catalan government will declare independence unilaterally, Joaquim Forn, head of the regional interior department, said in an interview with Catalunya Radio.
“This is enough for Rajoy to justify applying Article 155,” said Antonio Barroso, a political-risk analyst at Teneo Intelligence, a consulting firm. “When he does we can expect a high degree of mobilisation on the streets as the independence movement tries to claim that the central government is moving ahead in a repressive way and resisting dialogue.”
Spanish observers believe the step is becoming inevitable. “It seems inevitable that we’re headed for Article 155,” said Ignacio Gomá Lanzón, a lawyer and chairman of Hay Derecho, a legal advocacy foundation in Madrid. “The range of measures they could take under 155 is quite wide: They could kick out the current government and name new leaders, control Catalonia’s police, and eventually even call for new elections.”
Hardliners within the separatist campaign have drawn up plans to picket major economic infrastructure like the main airport and the port if Madrid moves to take control. They have also considered targeting foreign companies operating in the region in a bid to force other EU leaders such as Germany’s Angela Merkel to step in and help break the impasse.
If Rajoy does take direct control of Catalonia, he will eventually have to call regional elections to facilitate a return to normality. That raises the prospect of an unending cycle of confrontation between competing administrations.
“More than two million Catalans gave the regional parliament a democratic mandate to declare independence,” Mr Puigdemont said in his letter. “Our proposal for dialogue is sincere, despite all that has happened, but logically it is incompatible with the actual climate of growing repression and threat.”
The referendum, which was banned by Spain’s supreme court, saw participants back independence by 9:1 but turnout was reported at just 43 per cent of the provincial electorate.
The outcome has already resulted in immense division in Spanish instructions. The Spanish Civil Guard has been applauded by Spanish backers but criticised by Catalans after operations to disrupt the vote turned violent. Meanwhile leaders of a local police force face prosecution for intervening on the other side.
Catalan police chief Josep Lluis Trapero faces interrogation before Spain’s high court over whether his force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, deliberately failed to enforce the court ban on the independence referendum.
Mr Trapero has been put under formal investigation for sedition after failing to order to rescue Civil Guard police who were trapped inside a Catalan government building in Barcelona by tens of thousands of pro-independence protesters.
The forceful tactics used by the Spanish police before the October 1 vote strained ties between Mr Rajoy and his fellow European leaders. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, who faces his own separatist movement in the richer, northern region of Flanders, said the EU may have to consider stepping in to mediate if talks between Madrid and Barcelona fail.
“Only if dialogue has been definitively shown to fail should we consider international or European mediation,” Mr Michel said.
Such a development would be anathema to Mr Rajoy, who is due to travel to Brussels shortly after the Thursday deadline expires to meet his EU colleagues including Mr Michel at a summit
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Brief scoreline:
Liverpool 2
Mane 51', Salah 53'
Chelsea 0
Man of the Match: Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)
Race card
5pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m
5.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m
6pm: Arabian Triple Crown Round-1 Listed (PA) Dh230,000 (T) 1,600m
6.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,400m
7pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,200m
7.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh100,000 (T) 2,400m
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
- Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Indika
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDeveloper%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2011%20Bit%20Studios%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPublisher%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Odd%20Meter%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EConsole%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20PlayStation%205%2C%20PC%20and%20Xbox%20series%20X%2FS%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Vidaamuyarchi
Director: Magizh Thirumeni
Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra
Rating: 4/5
Joker: Folie a Deux
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin
Director: Shawn Levy
Rating: 3/5
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Nag%20Ashwin%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EPrabhas%2C%20Saswata%20Chatterjee%2C%20Deepika%20Padukone%2C%20Amitabh%20Bachchan%2C%20Shobhana%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E%E2%98%85%E2%98%85%E2%98%85%E2%98%85%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The Facility’s Versatility
Between the start of the 2020 IPL on September 20, and the end of the Pakistan Super League this coming Thursday, the Zayed Cricket Stadium has had an unprecedented amount of traffic.
Never before has a ground in this country – or perhaps anywhere in the world – had such a volume of major-match cricket.
And yet scoring has remained high, and Abu Dhabi has seen some classic encounters in every format of the game.
October 18, IPL, Kolkata Knight Riders tied with Sunrisers Hyderabad
The two playoff-chasing sides put on 163 apiece, before Kolkata went on to win the Super Over
January 8, ODI, UAE beat Ireland by six wickets
A century by CP Rizwan underpinned one of UAE’s greatest ever wins, as they chased 270 to win with an over to spare
February 6, T10, Northern Warriors beat Delhi Bulls by eight wickets
The final of the T10 was chiefly memorable for a ferocious over of fast bowling from Fidel Edwards to Nicholas Pooran
March 14, Test, Afghanistan beat Zimbabwe by six wickets
Eleven wickets for Rashid Khan, 1,305 runs scored in five days, and a last session finish
June 17, PSL, Islamabad United beat Peshawar Zalmi by 15 runs
Usman Khawaja scored a hundred as Islamabad posted the highest score ever by a Pakistan team in T20 cricket
