New Year's Eve celebrations resulted in 117 arrests, 27 of them for gender-based violence offenses, 46 related to property crimes, 10 for assault, one for sexual offenses, and 33 for other incidents. During last year's festivities, 10 people were arrested for gender-based violence out of a total of 75. Civil Protection, for its part, reported that during New Year's Eve, and up until 9:00 a.m. today, Thursday, January 1st, the emergency hotline received 4,358 incidents related to the New Year's celebrations. This figure represents an 8% increase compared to last year's celebrations. The calls came mainly from the Barcelonès (2,852), Vallès Occidental (578), and Baix Llobregat (415) regions, the most populated areas, and were mostly made between 2:00 and 6:00 AM. In addition, the Catalan Fire Service responded to around 100 incidents, about 10 of them to extinguish fires in homes, with no serious injuries reported.

Barcelona City Council wants to reduce events and concerts in the Ciutat Vella district. During 2024, 1,994 events and 429 demonstrations were managed, which represents an average of more than six activities per day. The aim is to foster neighborhood participation and "achieve a balance" in an "area of great tourist tension."

Thirty-eight years after the media scandal of Felipe's alleged love affair at a carnival in Salvador, history has repeated itself. After a journey of several days, the ship in which Leonor de Borbón sails has arrived this week in the Brazilian town. As usual, the young people from the naval school of Marín have taken a day off and have gone to see the preparations of the city for the carnival. Between drinks, music and people, a paparazzi claims that he saw the heiress getting involved with a boy from her company, a media uproar that Felipe VI already experienced when he was in the same city and at the same age as his daughter.

"Is it easy to get a headline out of this guy?", a member of the Forum Europe organisation in Madrid asks journalists once Oriol Junqueras's intervention is over. Those who still do not know him cannot believe the ERC's digressions during his first public intervention in the State capital since his release from prison. But Junqueras is like that. One needs know how to interpret him. And in his own way he launches the three messages he wants to transmit. One to the ANC, one to Junts and one to Manuel Marchena.

There are only a few days left before Catalonia Day, yet the build-up continues with more statements on Sunday's march. No ERC minister will attend, but JxCat's will, as vice-president Jordi Puigneró and Foreign Affairs minister Victòria Alsina explained yesterday in Brussels, accompanied by former Catalan president and Junts MEP Carles Puigdemont. "As long as there are exiles, reprisals, fiscal plundering, recentralisation and Catalonia is not independent, I will always attend the Catalonia Day march," Puigneró remarked in statements to the media.

This year's Catalonia Day demonstration has become a struggle between the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), with unpredictable results. This Tuesday ERC announced none of its ministers will attend the march organised by the pro-independence organisation, following president Aragonès's footsteps. The decision also deepens the division in government on this issue: ERC's coalition partner Together for Catalonia (JxCat) has announced all its ministers will take part.

After massive Catalonia Days in which it seemed that there was a consensual sovereigntist roadmap and a serious political strategy to implement it, after Days in response to the indignity of the violence of 1 October and the apathy and cowardice of the governments that turned the great Spanish political question into a judicial issue, after Days in which so many Catalans denounced the imprisonment and exile of their leaders, today we have a new scenario. A new stage in which the covid and its economic and vital consequences cannot be overlooked.

At 16.05 two families with ANC t-shirts and with pro-independence flags tied around their necks walk down the Sardenya street in Barcelona. On Marina street there are already several groups with the corporate maroon. And in the metro they are converging to end up in Pau Claris, above Urquinaona square. The feeling is that there are many more people than expected, and this means that the danger of a spectacular disappointment has been averted. It is not like one of the historic Catalonia Days, but it is a very well attended demonstration, which, in the end stretch of the pandemic and with the independence movement divided and bewildered, is no small thing. "It was very important to come this year, so that people don't think we've cooled down", commented Francesca. The Guardia Urbana will speak at sunset of 108,000 demonstrators. The movement is still alive on the streets.

This academic year will mark four years since the events of autumn 2017. In less accelerated times we would be talking about a legislature, but this unit of measurement has long since become obsolete as a result of the electoral advance. Even so, four years have passed. More than a thousand days in which Catalonia, the State and the independence movement itself have had to relocate after the train crash of 1-O shattered the pieces of the chessboard. Now that the epic has disappeared and the harshest phase of the repression has been softened - but not overcome - with the granting of pardons, this soulless Catalonia Day, far removed from the atmosphere that has marked the Days of the last decade, appears as an opportunity to rebuild not only the independence movement but also the country.

The president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), Elisenda Paluzie, has said in an interview with ARA that the goal is for the Catalonia Day demonstration is to become a turning point to reactivate the street mobilisations and vindicate the mandate of the 2017 Independence Referendum. "To avoid the referendum not arriving until 2030 we have to mobilise now," she stated, in reference to President Pere Aragonès's forecast that a second referendum would be held before this date. "We are not in an ideal situation, but we have to mobilise," she said after reiterating that they hope to mobilise around 100,000 people.

This Friday, from 10:30 am live on ARA , Antoni Bassas will talk with the president of the Catalan National Assembly, Elisenda Paluzie. The ANC wants the demonstration of the Festival to be a turning point to reactivate the mobilization to the street and vindicate the mandate of 1-O. In these days previous to the manifestaicó, Paluzie has defended that the message of this Party will not go destined in the State but to the Government because it culminates the independence. Paluzie has also recognized that independence is not at a peak because there is no unitary roadmap

The Catalan National Assembly (ANC) has been claiming for days attendance numbers at the Catalonia Day demonstration it is organising alongside Òmnium is beating the expectations. In fact, this has already led to changes in the route of the protest. Instead of ending in Ciutadella Park, it will do so at Estació de França, to avoid crowds at the entrances to the park. Until now, the entity had not made any data public; today, ANC president Elisenda Paluzie said attendance is expected to reach six digits. That is, at least 100,000 people. This would be significantly higher than last year, when the ANC said 60,000 people took part in different events spread throughout the country. Nevertheless, it would be a far cry from the 600,000 people of 2019 or the one million of 2018, according to the Guardia Urbana. One of the indicators that allow them to be optimistic this year is that buses will leave from over 100 municipalities.

Decision taken. The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, will attend the demonstration organised by the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) on Catalonia Day. It was not an easy decision, taking into account that the president's party, ERC, and the pro-independence entity have long had difficult relations and a different strategy. ERC is in favour of dialogue with the State and, on the other hand, the Assembly defends unilateralism. Be that as it may, the president will attend the protest and will be accompanied by "the bulk of the government". The independence wants a display of unity despite the lack of consensus within the movement on the route to follow.

After the parenthesis of last year by the pandemic with reduced and decentralized concentrations, the ANC returns to summon citizens to a massive demonstration for the Diada. And it does so with a centralized march in Barcelona that will leave from Plaça Urquinaona, epicenter of the protests against the sentence of the Catalan independence bid, and will reach the Parliament with the desire to unite the street front with the institutional front. Under the slogan 'Let's fight and win independence', the Assemblea wants to make clear the need for these two fronts to work in a coordinated way, along with the international one, to make self-determination effective in a journey through symbolism. This demonstration will be the prelude to a new march on 1-O to claim the mandate of the referendum and at the same time activate the street to pressure the Government in a context of demobilization. The ANC has presented this double mobilization in the IES Pau Claris, one of the voting points of 1-O that suffered the most police violence.