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The Catalan club’s Board have approved the motion to extend the alliance with the UN body until the end of their term in office, which lasts until 2016. FC Barcelona has agreed, as it has done in recent years, to donate €1.5 million euros a year to joint projects with Unicef, which involve the promotion of education and sport among vulnerable children. Barça and the United Nations first joined forces in September 2006. The current deal was due to end in 2014. “We are very satisfied with this alliance”, stated the  Board Spokesman and Secretary, Toni Freixa.

Car manufacturer SEAT, based in Martorell (Greater Barcelona), has set up 53,000 solar panels on the roof of its main factory and on top of parking spaces. The company has just completed the third stage of a €35 million project, which started in 2010, and occupies 10% of the 3 million square metres of its Martorell facilities. The solar panels occupy an extension equivalent to 40 soccer fields and can generate 15 million kWh of clean energy per year. This is equivalent to 25% of the energy needed to produce the Seat Leon or to the “annual consumption of 3,500 households”, said President Jürgen Stackmann. With this eco-friendly project Martorell is now the automation factory with the largest solar plant in the world. Furthermore, the panels were installed over existing facilities and do not occupy additional space.

The Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), which is federated to the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), has decided to harden its strategy towards Catalonia’s right to self-determination. In the PSOE’s extraordinary Political Conference, which took place last weekend, the PSC and the PSOE agreed not to break their union and to offer a more coordinated message. The PSC supports the Catalan people’s right to self-determination, but the PSOE totally rejects it. The compromise solution will be that the Catalan Socialists will stop making explicit contributions for an agreed self-determination vote in Catalonia and will focus on opposing any initiative in favour of Catalonia’s self-determination that has not been previously agreed with the Spanish institutions.

Three exhibitions convey the splendour of the city of Girona (in north-eastern Catalonia) during the Middle Ages. The curators of all three exhibitions wished to break away from the notion of “darkness” which is often associated with such times, when these several centuries actually shaped the city’s glorious past. Visitors can get acquainted with 13^th century Jewish doctors or intellectuals, walk down the streets of Medieval Girona, and contemplate masterpieces such as the portrait of Catalan King Peter III. The City Museum, the Museum of Jewish History and the Monastery of Sant Daniel are hosting exhibitions on medieval Girona until the 30^th of March 2014.

The Catalan pharmaceutical company Grífols, based in Greater Barcelona, has bought part of the diagnostics unit of Swiss multinational Novartis for $1,675 million. Grífols has acquired products and ‘in vitro’ technology applied to diagnoses in the fields of blood transfusion and immunology, along with a production plant in California and offices in the US, Switzerland and Hong Kong. With the acquisition, the Grífols Diagnostic Division will represent $1 billion, 20% of the Catalan group’s total revenues. Grífols is the world’s third largest company in the production of blood-plasma derivatives. In the first half of 2013, Grífols registered a profit of €182.2 million, an increase of 36.9% on the same period of 2012.

Leo Messi, FC Barcelona’s Argentinean star, has a muscle tear in his left hamstring. The Catalan club’s medical services confirmed after tests this Monday morning that Messi has a torn hamstring muscle in his left thigh and is expected to miss the next 6 to 8 weeks.  The first phase of Messi’s recovery will be covered in Barcelona and he will then travel to Buenos Aires. The Argentinean was substituted on 19 minutes of the Betis- Barça game on Sunday for a muscle pain. This is Messi’s third injury this season. In late August he was out for 1 week and in late September he got injured again and was out for 3 weeks.

Neymar, Pedro and Cesc (2) score to put Barça three points ahead of Atletico Madrid at the top of the Spanish League table with a 1-4 win at Betis’ Benito Villamarín on Sunday evening. This wasn’t as straightforward a win for Barça as the score might suggest though, with a brave Betis side never giving up and the worrying sight of Leo Messi limping off in the first half. It was Betis who created the chances early on, with the excellent Victor Valdés saving the day with two great stops from Jorge Molina and Juan Carlos, as FC Barcelona struggled to deal with the loss of Messi  - replaced by Iniesta on 20 minutes.

The Spanish League leaders are going to Seville without Piqué or Busquets for the final match before the international break. The former is out as a precautionary measure and the latter is being rested, and their absences will make what is already a difficult fixture even harder still. Bur despite Martino’s rotation system, Barça are still unbeaten this season, and will hoping things stay that way. However, Barça have only won two of their last eleven games at the Villamarín Stadium against Betis, a ground at which they have struggled to get results since 2000.

The National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) has opened two terraces to its visitors who will enjoy never-seen-before panoramic views over Barcelona city and Montjuïc Mountain. This intervention was part of the investment policy of the museum to increase its revenues. Visitors will pay an entrance fee to access the roof of the ‘Palau Nacional’ while the new available space will also be rented out for concerts and other events. Director of the MNAC Pep Serra explained this initiative would help diversify the uses of the museum and give people a new “reason” to go up to Montjuïc for a visit.

On Thursday morning most of Catalonia’s chemists’ were closed and their owners and employees were demonstrating on the street. They were protesting because neither the Catalan nor the Spanish Government is paying them on time for the prescribed drugs, which they have to buy in advance with their own money. It is the second time since October 2012 that they have been protesting for the same reason. The situation improved slightly a few months ago, but delays in the Spanish Government’s transfers of money to Catalonia have made the Catalan Executive unable to pay on time and a significant debt has accumulated. According to the chemists, they are owed €416 million, corresponding to the last 4 months.

The University of Lleida (Western Catalonia) will be leading the INNOSTORAGE Project regarding efficient thermal storage. They will focus their study on improving energy-storing by using Phase Change Materials and their temperature changes. The project, which is financed by the European Commission, aims at reducing CO2 emissions and saving energy by finding new efficient energy-storing systems. Thanks to the Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES), INNOSTORAGE brings together searchers from Catalonia, France, Israel, the United-States, Australia, and New-Zealand.

The Parliament of Catalonia rejected a proposal to call for a “unilateral” self-determination referendum in the event that the Spanish State “blocked” the possibility of organising a vote by agreement. The motion was rejected with the votes of the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) – which runs the Catalan Government – and the three parties defending the unity of Spain: the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), the People’s Party (PP) – which runs the Spanish Government, and the anti-Catalan nationalism and populist party Ciutadans (C’s). The motion supporting the idea of calling for a self-determination referendum in “a unilateral way” had been presented by the radical left-wing and independence party CUP, which has only 3 MPs in the 135-seat chamber. However it was also backed by the second-largest group, the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC) and some of the MPs from the Catalan Green Socialist and Communist Coalition (ICV-EUiA).

The 143 pictures that won the last World Press Photo contest – the main photojournalism event at international level, which is held each September in Perpignan – will be on show at the Barcelona Centre of Contemporary Culture (CCCB). Among such photographs are many scenes taken at Gaza and Syria along with pictures of sports, nature, social issues and current affairs. Director of the Photographic Social Vision foundation Sylvia Omedes stated the exhibition “was the best opportunity to see the state of the world through the best photos taken in 2012”.  

Two goals from Messi and another from Busquets send Barça through to the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League. with the opening and final goals against Milan at the Camp Nou on Wednesday evening. The first was a penalty and the second from a lovely move with Cesc. With Busquets grabbing one more in between the Argentinean’s brace,  Milan could only reply with a Piqué own goal just before the break.

Barcelona City Council and the Catalan Government’s programme ‘Invest in Catalonia’ are among the winners of the 2013 Financial Times’ Foreign Direct Investment (fDi) Innovation Awards, which “recognise the world’s most creative investment promotion agencies”. Barcelona City Council has received an award in the town-planning category thanks to its pioneering role in the development of smart cities: the Catalan capital has prioritised smart-city applications and projects, trying to become one of the world leaders in this category. In addition, ‘Invest in Catalonia’, a programme of the Catalan Government’s agency for business competitiveness ACCIÓ, received the award in the business matchmaking category.