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FC Barcelona cruised past Zaragoza at the Camp Nou, with four goals from Piqué, Messi, Puyol and Villa to round off another brilliant exhibition of football.

Catalonia and the Basque Country might be the only Autonomous Communities in Spain without a victory for the People’s Party (PP). The Socialists are likely to win once again in Catalonia, but they risk loosing 40% of their seats. If they slump even further then they risk being overtaken by the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) or even the PP. A quiet electoral campaign has come to an end, with three main unknown answers: if the Socialist party will get its worst results over the past few decades, if they will also lose in their stronghold of Catalonia, and how the international financial markets will react in the coming days.

Given the flood of questions asking about a possible rest for the Argentinian star, Pep Guardiol, FC Barcelona’s Manager, insisted that he is in perfect condition to play the full Spanish League game against Zaragoza on Saturday.

Students have protested against the Catalan Government’s measures intended to adjust university budgets. Protesters have criticised “privatisation”, with budget cuts and university tax increases. However, the Catalan Government denied these claims and said it had no intention of laying off 4,000 lecturers and researchers. As with other strikes, the figures presented by both sides are contradictory. Organisers talk about a “success” and stress that in some faculties classes were completely suspended. Nevertheless, official information states the uneven support of students for the strike action, ranging from 25% to 40% depending on the faculty.

The Barcelona-based airline’s operational benefit reached almost €61 million, which represents a 2% increase compared to the same period last year. Despite the oil price increases, the company maintains its benefits thanks to the high occupancy rate of its flights (more than 80%) and the activity at its international bases.

‘Castells’ or the traditional human towers originally from Southern Catalonia and generally built during town festivals were included in the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO last year. An exhibition at the Palau Robert in Barcelona will celebrate this first anniversary. It reflects on the tradition’s cultural and social value, and its role as one of Catalonia’s best known symbols.

The Spanish IT multinational company Intel and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center will create a joint research and development lab to calculate speeds on the exaFLOP scale, which are a thousand times quicker than the current fastest computers in the world. The lab will be created in Barcelona over the coming years, at the BSC facilities. Intel hopes to reach Exascale performance within the next ten years.

The Catalan Government and the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair have put an end to their dispute and have announced an agreement to operate from Girona-Costa Brava and Reus for the next five years starting in April 2012. Ryanair has guaranteed that in the first twelve months more than 3 million passengers will pass through Girona Airport and 500,000 through Reus Airport. However, it has one condition: the Spanish public airport operator AENA cannot increase taxes at neither Girona nor Reus airports. If that happens the agreement will become null and void. Ten days ago, Ryanair had completely abandoned Reus. Flights through Girona had been significantly reduced in the summer and they had cut the number of flights operating in the winter months.

The trade union organising the protest has said that 70% of doctors took part in the strike, while the Catalan Ministry of Health reduced the figure to only 20%. Doctors are protesting at the budget cuts in the Catalan healthcare system in order to decrease the public deficit, which included a 5% salary reduction. The doctor’s union called for a strike on November 15th and 16th, coinciding with the negotiations on the 2012 budget and the Spanish elections. The Catalan Government stated that the strike asks for unrealistic salary increases and considered it has “failed”. 20,000 medical consultations have to be postponed.

China, Japan, Philippines and Malaysia are some of the countries that will host the exhibition ‘The Turn of the Century in Spanish Contemporary Art’, formed by works from the Barcelona Contemporary Art Museum (MACBA) and the foundation of the Catalan savings bank ‘La Caixa’. The collection of both entities consists of 5.500 artworks and is considered one of the most important compilations in Southern Europe. The exhibition touring in Asia will include artworks from Spanish sculptors and painters like Antoni Tàpies, Eduardo Chillida or Miquel Barceló, from the last 50 years.

The French newspaper ‘Le Monde’ published an article in December 2006 that falsely linked FC Barcelona with doping practices. A first trial condemned ‘Le Monde’ to pay 300,000 euros to the Catalan sports club, but the French newspaper and the journalist Stéphane Mandard appealed. A second court reduced the fine to 15,000 euros, but they appealed again. The Spanish Supreme Court has upheld the last sentence and dismissed the French newspaper's appeal.

In Catalonia, the PP would get its best results in history, and could become the second most voted party in the territory, a position disputed with the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU). The Socialist Party, which has won the Spanish elections in Catalonia for the last 32 years, might still win, but it will be a close battle with the CiU and the PP. A major surprise in Catalonia cannot be completely ruled out. In any case, on the contrary to previous elections and as it seemed some weeks ago, votes in Catalonia might not change the final results and the PP’s absolute majority would not depend on its Catalan supports.

The 50th edition of one of Europe’s most important nautical trade fairs came to an end having “exceeded” initial expectations “despite the complex economic situation”, said the show Director. The organisation has highlighted the preservation of trust in the exhibition, as the number of exhibitors only dropped by 5%. This year’s edition focused on boat innovation and engine efficiency to attract a public economically undermined by the crisis.

FC Barcelona and Benfica are the only two leading clubs in Europe who remain unbeaten since the start of the season. Guardiola’s team has indeed remained unbeaten since 30th April, when they went down in the Spanish League against Real Sociedad.

Theatre director Calixto Bieito, who has developed his career in Catalonia, presented a new play in Freiburg based on the masterpiece‘The great theatre of the world’, by Calderón de la Barca, one of Spain’s best theatrical writers from the 17th century. The show is the first spectacle from the Barcelona International Theatre project, promoted by the production company Focus. The show follows the original work from Bieito’s previous production.