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According to polls, Catalonia might be essential to ensure the absolute majority to the People’s Party (PP) or to save the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) from getting its worst results ever. The Socialists risk loosing more than a third of its seats in Catalonia while the PP, far from winning in Catalonia, could get its best results. Catalan nationalists ‘Convergència i Unió’, who are the third largest group in the Spanish Parliament, could win the elections in Catalonia, ending the ten Socialist Party victories in a row in these elections.

Perajaume is one of the main Catalan artists of our time, part of a generation that is already gaining a lot of international recognition, with artist’s such as Jaume Plensa. Perajaume is known for his landscape visual poetry, expressing the excess of the current times and exhorting the return to natural roots. The exhibition is not a conventional retrospective, but instead a “programmatic proclamation”, an element of reflection on the function, the limits and the fate of art when opposed to excess.

With this label, foreign house buyers can be 100% sure that the new bought property fulfils all the quality and town planning regulations. The Catalan Minister for Territory and Sustainability, in charge of Housing, Lluís Recoder, announced the creation of an official label recognising the “quality of real estate”, in order to offer more legal safety and guarantees to consumers. Recoder hopes this certificate will help the sector, as consumers will be in a safe framework, from a juridical point of view.

For the first time in the world, a foetus having the spina bifida congenital disorder went through a new intra-uterus surgery technique. A medical team from Barcelona’s Vall d’Hebron Hospital operated on the foetus in its 24th week by placing a biological fabric on the spinal cord, in order to protect it from amniotic liquid and to ease the gap’s closing. The baby is now five months old and doctors are confident she may walk without any problems.

FC Barcelona have beaten Viktoria Plzen thanks to a Messi hat-trick and another goal from Cesc Fàbregas. Barça also made the 500th goal in the Guardiola era and qualified for the second round of the Champions League.

‘Tots Sants’ or All Saints Day is celebrated in Catalonia with the traditional panellets, a small sweet made of marzipan pastry and coated with different ingredients available at every bakery in every Catalan town. Together with grilled chestnuts and sweet potatoes, the elaboration of the panallets points out the definitive arrival of autumn.

FC Barcelona’s Chilean striker is back in the 21-man squad for Tuesday’s Champions League match against Viktoria Plzen. Forward Isaac Cuenca and goalkeeper Oier Olazabal are also included for the trip to the Czech Republic.

FC Barcelona player, Leo Messi, destroyed Mallorca with a first half hat trick to set up a comfortable win, rounded off after the break with two cracking goals from Cuenca and Alves.

Steven Spielberg has bought the rights to adapt a series produced and broadcast by Catalonia’s public TV station. The American name will be ‘The Red Band Society’ and Marta Kauffman, creator of ‘Friends’, might be in charge of the script. The main characters in the series are a group of teenagers with cancer, who develop a friendship and explore their imagination in hospital. ‘Polseres vermelles’ was a huge success on Catalan television and the second season is in production.

The Catalan Government considered the figures “worrying” but puts them to a “complicated” financial situation that has provoked an economic uncertainty. On Tuesday, the Government announced an action plan to reduce unemployment in the short term. In Spain, there are almost 5 million unemployed people, which represents an unemployment rate of 21.52%. Lleida has Spain’s lowest unemployment rate, set at 13.02%.

Both the Barça centre backs will be able to play against Mallorca after being declared fit at the end of today’s training session. That means Guardiola has 19 players to pick from including the reserve team’s Isaac Cuenca.

The Spanish stock exchange celebrated the European Summit’s results by increasing 4.96% in a one day of trading. The main managers of the Spanish banks are convinced they will get the requested core capital with their own resources. In addition, they believe they will need 13.5 billion euros, and not 26.1 once the detailed calculations are made. Spanish financial circles consider the new rules, adopted to counteract French and German banks’ exposition to Greek sovereign debt, do not particularly benefit Spanish banks, which almost do not hold any Greek debt. In addition, as was the case with the stress tests, the criteria to analyse the bank situation ignores Spain’s proposals and imposes those benefiting German banks.

The Catalan multinational company Abertis announced its results for the first three first quarters of 2011. Abertis’ net profit increased by 5.9% compared to the same period in 2010. The Barcelona-based company also announced that the segregation of Saba Infrastructures is complete.

Catalonia has a different political landscape than the rest of Spain, and it is where the People’s Party (PP) always gets its worst results. Polls indicate that in the next Spanish elections, the People’s Party will be very far from winning in Catalonia but it could get its best results winning between 12 and 14 seats. Looking to ensure an absolute majority in Spain, the PP’s leader Mariano Rajoy plans to better the party’s results in Catalonia and therefore decided to start the official campaign in a town from Barcelona Metropolitan Area.

The beach at El Prat de Llobregat, next to Barcelona Airport, witnessed the return of a group of loggerhead turtles to the Mediterranean Sea. The release took place after their full recovering at CRAM's facilities, a Catalan foundation treating wounded marine animals. The release served as an example of a public awareness campaign on the turtle’s fragile ecosystem.