barcelona

FC Barcelona's young player Munir El Haddadi made his full debut with the Spanish team in Spain's 5-1 win over Macedonia in their opening Euro 2016 qualifier in Valencia on Monday night. The 19-year-old player came on for Koke on 77 minutes of the game. Sergio Busquets scored his first goal for the international team, getting the third goal in first half injury time. Pedro also scored and Jordi Alba and Marc Bartra both played. Besides, Rafinha played the full 90 minutes in Brazil’s Under 21 team’s 2-2 draw against Lebanon in Doha.

For the second consecutive year, Catalonia's main airport hosted more passengers than its Madrid competitor during the month of August, becoming the busiest airfield in Spain. 4.24 million people travelled through Barcelona El Prat last August, representing an 8.6% increase on the figure from the previous year. Meanwhile, 3.99 million travellers passed through the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport (a +5% growth). In the last few years, the Catalan airport has consistently been gaining passengers, particularly attracted by Barcelona's tourist and business activities as well as by the increase of inter-continental flights, while Madrid's airport was losing passengers for a number of years. However, in the last few months, the Spanish capital has started to gain passengers again, although at a slower pace than Barcelona. The first time the Barcelonan airport overtook Madrid's was in August 2013.

The Instituto Cervantes in Utrecht was obliged to cancel the presentation of 'Victus', a novel by Catalan author Albert Sánchez Piñol on the Spanish Succession War and Barcelona's military siege of 1714, after which Catalonia lost its self-government institutions and political, social and cultural repression started. According to the author, his Dutch editorial house Signatuur and the Communication Director of the Cervantes Institute, the Spanish Embassy in The Netherlands obliged them to cancel the event the day before it was supposed to happen for political reasons. However, the Spanish Government is denying any political veto and states the cancellation was due to "diary problems". The scandal has been covered by Dutch media and Juliette Van Wersh, Publisher at Signatuur, stated they are "shocked" for a decision against "freedom of expression". The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, stated that this veto is "in line with the international boycott" which Spanish authorities are carrying out against self-determination.

On Thursday evening the British author who is responsible for the Jack Reacher series of crime novels, Lee Child, received in Barcelona the VIII RBA Award for Crime Writing for his latest book in the series, 'Personal'. Child could not attend the ceremony for personal reasons so his literary agent, Mary Darby, read out a statement from the British writer instead. "Thank you for this prestigious award, I feel greatly honoured and proud to accept it", he said. The judging panel, which selected Child's novel from 244 submitted manuscripts, highlighted "the original composition of an atypical action hero" in the book, which reveals much about the world of "intelligence services and criminal gangs". 

The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, stated once again that the self-determination consultation vote will take place on the 9^th of November but he also added that "things have to be done in the right way". In front of businesspeople at an event of Barcelona's Chamber of Commerce, Mas stressed that "both things have to come together", meaning voting and doing things right. He underlined that "this means always respecting an existing legal framework". After the controversies on whether the vote should take place if the Constitutional Court bans it, Mas insisted that the call will be based on Catalan legislation and that the Court might not ban it in the end. Besides, he admitted that Catalonia's "freedom" would come with some economic costs, but that those of continuing in the current situation would be much higher. Mas also said that Pujol's scandal "will not affect" him or the Catalan Government.

The French chef Jean Luc Figueras died on Wednesday night in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, in a sudden cardiac arrest. The news was announced as part of a statement from the Mercer Hotel Barcelona, where the chef ran his current restaurant. Jean Luc Figueras had a long career as a chef at the best restaurants in Barcelona and he had held a Michelin star for a past project. One year ago he started work as the head chef at the 5-star Mercer Hotel Barcelona, an establishmed designed by Rafael Moneo within a Gothic Palace and which included the Roman city wall from the 1^st century. Figueras died whilst participating in a team of chefs in Ankara's festival of Mediterranean cuisine called 'Mediterranean Culinary Days'.

Cirque du Soleil and PortAventura theme park have announced that they are pleased with the success of the show 'Kooza', which the Canadian circus company has been performing at the Catalan resort every day this summer, and will consider future collaborations together. PortAventura was the first resort in Europe to host a show from this world-famous entertainment company. From July the 11^th this year up until last Saturday, more than 100,000 people attended the show performed by Cirque du Soleil. As a result of this success, the two companies have agreed to meet again soon to talk about future collaborations. For PortAventura, with nearly 4 million attendees per year, this cooperation is a step towards consolidating its overriding strategy of attracting more international brands and consolidating its position as one of the best family entertainment destinations in Europe.

A late goal from B team youngster Sandro gave Barça the three points at El Madrigal in a hard fought game that Luis Enrique’s side dominated, though they found it tough going at times against a determined Villarreal defence. Sandro ensured Barça go into the international break with two Spanish League wins out of two, leading the domestic championship.From the off, Leo Messi, wearing the captain’s armband in Iniesta’s absence, again looked sharp as he combined well down the right with Dani Alves and the Argentinean and Pedro had the best of the early chances, as Villarreal were forced into some desperate defending.

This Saturday the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), the most world's most important heart specialist conference, will begin in Barcelona. Up until the 3^rd of September the Catalan capital will host 30,000 cardiology specialist participants in a summit where 4,500 new studies will be presented about the latest discoveries in vascular diseases, which cause 47% of deaths in Europe. The Catalan Minister for Health, Boi Ruiz, said that efforts should be concentrated on reducing the "inequality" between different areas of the world which register mortality rates that are "unreasonably different".

On Friday early morning the 10km metro tunnel of Barcelona that links Universitat and Gorg stations became the track of the second edition of Discovery Underground. This is the only urban underground race in the world going through the centre of big cities and it is an original idea of the Spanish television channel Discovery MAX. 300 men and women with background stories that assimilate the channel's premise "ordinary people living extraordinary experiences" ran for about 1.45h, with the first two people arriving at the minute 39. 2014 Discovery Underground Barcelona marks the beginning of the celebrations of the 90th anniversary of the Metro of Barcelona.

FC Barcelona learned on Thursday evening that their 2014/15 Champions League bid will commence in Group F, which they’ll share with Paris Saint Germain, Ajax Amsterdam and Apoel Nicosia, the respective league champions of France, Holland and Cyprus. The winners of the last two editions of French Ligue 1 last faced FC Barcelona in the Champions League quarter finals two years ago. Barça and Ajax had never met each other in a competitive match until they were paired together in the group stages of last season’s Champions League. Finally, this will be the first ever meeting between Barça and the most successful side in Cypriot football history, APOEL, who famously made it all the way to the Champions League quarter finals two years ago.

Barcelona has become one of the main European tourist destinations and, probably, the hottest low-cost tourism hub. It attracts millions of foreigners each year, many of whom show up in the city mainly for the beach and partying. The Barceloneta neighbourhood is one of several hotspots affected most severly by the tourism boom. It is near the beach and has become the preferred housing spot for holidaymakers. However, some visitors' unruly attitudes on the street – such as urinating, getting fully naked or singing loudly – have become a problem. Several neighbourhood protests against the so-called "drunken tourism" and illegal holiday apartments have been held in the past two weeks in the Barceloneta area. As a response, the Mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias, declared ''war'' on the illegal tourist accommodation and promised to bring an end to the disturbances caused by wild tourism. As a start, the City Council has begun to shut down tourist flats without license.

Pere Pubill i Calaf, better known as Peret, died at noon on Wednesday in a Barcelonan hospital, aged 79. The singer, guitar player and composer Peret was considered to be the 'father' of the so-called Catalan rumba, a fusion music style mixing Afro-Cuban mambo with flamenco and rock and roll. This rhythm was born in the 1950s within Barcelona's Gipsy community and became increasingly popular in the 1960s thanks to some of Peret's hits. Soon it became part of Catalonia's culture and common heritage, being extremely popular and receiving institutional recognition. Peret started his musical career extremely young in the 1940s. He published a total of 27 albums, and he was about to release his first disc entirely in Catalan. In his last years, he became particularly active in social and political movements, criticising poverty and supporting Catalan self-determination. A few weeks ago, he issued a press release announcing he was undergoing anti-cancer treatment.

FC Barcelona and São Paulo FC have reached an initial agreement for the transfer of defender Douglas Pereira. The deal will cost Barça €4 million with performance variables of another €1.5 million based on number of games played. Douglas will sign a 5 year deal. The Brazilian player will travel to Barcelona for a medical at the end of this week, when he will also put pen to paper on the contract. He will be officially presented as the Catalan club’s latest summer signing. The 24-year-old Douglas is a pacey right wing back who after three seasons, 75 appearances and 5 goals for his home town club of Goiás signed for Sao Paolo in 2012. Over the last three seasons, Douglas has played 95 matches for Sao Paolo and scored 4 goals.

The Argentine international has committed himself for another four years with the Catalan club, which will take him through to 30 June 2018.There’s an option on a further year plus a buy-out clause of 100 million euros.  The deal was negotiated and agreed before the World Cup. Mascherano told reporters, "I’m committed to this Club until the final day of the contract.  I hope I can live up to expectations of the Club". "I’m really happy to be in this great club and be part of a squad with such great players.  Let’s hope things go really well for us this season.  We’re looking forward to this season after some difficult times last campaign", he added.