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The Chinese community welcomed the 'Year of the Goat' last week. The biggest New Year festivity took place this Saturday, when a parade of a thousand people filled the Barcelona streets with a trail of red dancing dragons and lions. This is the second year that Chinese organisations and Catalan folklore groups, such as Catalonia's traditional human tower builders (‘castellers’) and the traditional giant figures representing kings, knights and princesses called ‘gegants’, joined together to celebrate Chinese New Year. Almost 10,000 spectators lined the parade route through the streets of the Eixample district in the centre of the city. Barcelona has 17,400 Chinese inhabitants, the third largest foreign population, after the Pakistani and the Italian communities; however a great number of Chinese people live in the surrounding towns of Greater Barcelona.  

All it took was one small mistake. A seemingly innocent back-pass from Dani Alves to Claudio Bravo in minute seven ran out of steam and was intercepted by a charging Juanmi, who beat Bravo to the ball and waltzed in all alone for the game’s only goal, stopping Barça’s 11-game winning streak dead in its tracks. The loss means that Barça, playing in front of a raucous home crowd, have missed an opportunity to become the overnight leaders in La Liga and will be a minimum of one point behind leaders Real Madrid come Monday morning.

A day after the President of the Catalan Government and leader of the centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU, Artur Mas, announced his plan to further develop the so-called state structures before the 27 September elections, the leader of the left-wing Catalan independence party ERC, Oriol Junqueras, has once again requested to be part of the Executive and sit in Cabinet. Junqueras justified his request in order “to guarantee the indispensable state structures”, such as Catalonia’s own tax administration and Social Security system. The embryonic frame of such structures should be created before the next Catalan elections, which will be called early and will be transformed into a ‘de facto’ referendum on independence from Spain. On Tuesday, Mas had already ruled out the possibility of the ERC sitting in Government and, on Wednesday, the Catalan President stressed that the current Cabinet will only be in office for the next 6 months.

The 19^thedition of the International Animation Film Festival of Catalonia, Animac, is to be held in Lleida, western Catalonia, from the 19^thto the 22^nd of February. Over 170 films are to be showcased at this year’s event. With the growth of handmade products, this year’s programme focuses on the theme 'The hand of the artist' to recognise the role of artists in the digital animation process.The Director of the event, Carolina López, remarked that "the art of ‘touching’ remains a pleasure for most artists, while the younger generations are rediscovering it". This year focuses on the drawing techniques of the artist in the digital animation process. 80% of the films presented at Animac this year (including from major international schools) have been created through manual techniques.

Exports from Catalonia increased by 3.1% in 2014, reaching €60.2 billion, meaning that more than 30% of the Catalan GDP is sold outside of Spain. Furthermore, Catalan exports grew more than those of Spain as a whole, which increased by 2.5% last year, reaching €240 billion. This means that 25.1% of all Spain’s exports come from Catalonia’s economy, some way ahead of the Madrid region, which produces 11.7% of Spain’s total exports. In addition, the growth rate of Catalan exports was much higher than the Eurozone average (exports from which grew by 1.8%) and also higher than that of EU Member States such as France (-0.2%), UK (-11.1%) and Italy (+2%). The figures posted this Wednesday confirm the good health of Catalonia’s export sector and the high degree of internationalisation of its economy.

Last night, the coastal town of Sitges located about 35 kilometres south of Barcelona, brought to a close its famous carnival. This event, known for its extravagance and huge number of visitors, is especially popular among the gay community. For a full week, the whole city is dedicated to the celebration of Carnival, dressing up and organising activities for both children and adults. Sunday and Tuesday’s parades filled Sitges’ streets with tens of thousands of visitors.No less than 1,000 police officers were mobilised for the event, as were fire fighters and health personnel. 38 extra trains and 45,000 additional seats were provided to help visitors attend the event. The Carnival finishes this Wednesday with the traditional ‘burial of the sardines’.

The regional Government of Aragon, run by the People's Party (PP), has removed the last legal trace of the Catalan and Aragonese languages in the region. This action has provoked a civil and political movement in defence of both languages spoken by thousands of citizens in the Aragonese Pyrenees and in “la Franja” (the Strip), a narrow piece of land in the eastern part of the region, bordering Catalonia. Since 1999, the Aragonese Cultural Heritage Act recognised Catalan and Aragonese as “minority languages from Aragon” and as a “specially protected cultural wealth”. However, the regional Parliament, led by the People’s Party (PP) and the Regionalist Aragonese Party (PAR), passed a law that ends this protection and the denomination of "Catalan" and "Aragonese".  

On Monday, the National Executive Commission of the centre-right pro-Catalan State Coalition CiU, which is its leading committee, has explicitly referred to last week's crisis. Last Tuesday, the CiU MPs in the Spanish Parliament voted differently, showing a split within the coalition, coinciding with the two integrated parties: the Liberal and pro-independence force CDC (the largest one) on one side and the Christian-Democrat and pro-Spanish unity party UDC on the other. The CiU's Spokesperson in the Spanish Parliament and leader of the UDC, Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida, believed the CDC MPs had not obeyed his voting instructions to support the Penal Code's reform, while the Liberal MPs were insisting that the CiU group had previously agreed on abstaining. Now, the CiU leadership considers the crisis to be over and highlighted their "full support" for Duran i Lleida.

The Catalan company announced on Monday that it will start working in Japan, the world's second-largest market for travel agencies. The Barcelona-based firm highlighted "the importance and potential" of Japan, hoping to gain a high market share within the country. Starting business activities in Japan represents "a gigantic step" for eDreams' internationalisation strategy, stated the company. The land of the rising sun is considered to be the largest travel market in the Asia-Pacific region. eDreams' total amount of online bookings is some $30.8 billion. The company expects this type of booking to represent 40% of total bookings by the end of the current year. Including Japan, eDreams operates in 44 different countries, on 5 different continents.

Barça stay just one point adrift of top spot in La Liga after beating Levante to the tune of five goals to no reply in Sunday’s game before 74,963 spectators at the Camp Nou. FC Barcelona make it eleven wins in a row with goals from Neymar, Suárez and a Messi hat trick.Luis Enrique made eight changes to the team that started midweek against Villarreal, with Suárez, Jordi Alba and Piqué among those on the bench. The manager had said in his pre-match press conference that this would not be as simple a game as some suspected, and for much of the first half that did indeed prove to be the case.

An additional 38 artists have been announced to perform at the 2015 Sónar Festival, held each year in Barcelona in June. This includes the likes of Eighties pop band, Duran Duran, pop diva Róisín Murphy, British quintet Hot Chip and FKA Twigs, considered as one of the most prominent vocalist at the moment. South African duo Die Antwoord, Arca, Flying Lotus and Skrillex, are also confirmed.  With these additions, Sonar’s lineup is shaping up to be its best yet, with the already confirmed performances of Autechre, Kiasmos, Kindness, Sophie, Daniel, Ten Walls, Holly Herndon, Kate Tempest, Jamie XX and The Chemical Brothers, who will present their new album ‘Hanna’.

Every day in every hospital in the world blood is needed. The only way to get it is from donations, since blood cannot be created artificially. Each altruist action may serve to help three different patients. In Catalonia, for the system to work optimally 1,000 donations a day would be needed but the average donation figure is lower. Everyone can donate if they weigh over 50kg, since a donation is 450ml of blood and a minimum weight is required. Men can do it four times a year and women three times. There are now various mobile units that travel throughout Catalonia to make donating more accessible to donors.

Hunters and park rangers are currently working together to try to contain the outbreak of Scabies in the wild population of Iberian ibex in the mountainous area of Terra Alta, in the south of Catalonia. This is the last surviving population of this local species throughout Catalonia, after it became extinct from the Pyrenees. Negotiations between the two parties began late last month after the Catalan Government's Department of Agriculture granted permission to hunt and kill the infected specimen before the disease spreads. A previous case in 1987, which eliminated 97% of the goat population, has meant that the Department of Agriculture is not taking this news lightly and want a swift yet controlled extermination of the diseased animals in order to prevent the extinction of the species in Catalonia.

‘The Bewitched Love’, a well-known musical piece composed by Manuel de Falla celebrates a century on stage this year. Catalan theatrical company La Fura dels Baus, world-reknown for their innovative, provocative and technological creations, is commemorating the anniversary by preparing a musical performance which includes flamenco dance, fire and water as part of the play. The show is going to be called ‘El amor brujo: el fuego y la palabra’ [The Bewitched Love: the fire and the word], and will premiere on 10 July in Granada before travelling to the Castell de Peralada International Festival in Girona. 

For the first time in seven years, the number of houses and flats being built in Catalonia has increased. The figures for 2014 show that between 4,300 and 4,500 new properties have appeared on the market after seven years of decline. According to Lluís Marsà, President of the Promoters Association of Barcelona, the housing market is recovering due to the improving economy. Marsà says there is still one big obstacle remaining to consolidate the recovery of the sector: “The lack of bank financing which keeps people from purchasing new housing.” While this is a positive development, the housing market has still a long way to go. According to Marsà, “it will probably take 3 or 4 years to fully recover.”