The Catalans have risen. No, not the “independentistas.” They are standing fast with the asylum invaders. But everyone else is against them. After a series of robberies and sexual assaults committed by “underage” asylum seekers (so-called MENAs), an angry mob gathered around the “refugee” center for unaccompanied “minors” in El Masnou, near Barcelona, where about 50 of them are housed.... 

Exit polls show that separatist parties are winning a majority of the votes in Catalonia’s regional elections. The local elections are described as a quasi-referendum on separation from Spain. The potential victory for the pro-independence parties in the regional parliament will be setting the region on a collision course with Spain’s central government over independence. The main secessionist... 

Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria. Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria says the Catalan region cannot be granted the right to self-determination. The Spanish official made the remarks in parliament on Tuesday, a day after more than two million people took part in an independence vote in Catalonia. “The right to self-determination that you demand... 

Polls have closed in Catalonia where people have held a symbolic independence vote despite the Spanish government’s opposition. According to the regional Catalan government, almost two million people took part in the independence polls, which opened at 9 a.m. local time (0800 GMT) and closed at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Sunday. The regional government had earlier said that 5.4 million Catalans and resident... 

Catalans are holding a massive, symbolic regional independence vote this weekend, in defiance of the Spanish government’s ban. The polls look set to draw upward of 1.5 million people, to whom the vote is now about freedom of expression. Artur Mas, the Catalan president, has remained defiant in the face of the exceedingly draconian bans by Madrid on any show of support for secession. The Catalan... 

The Spanish Council of State has ruled that a new planned symbolic referendum on independence in the Catalonia region is illegal, saying it backs a veto of the vote. A spokeswoman for the council said Thursday that the consultative body decided that the government should ask the Constitutional Court to declare the November 9 referendum as unlawful. The council made the ruling after receiving a request... 

Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Barcelona, vowing to disobey Spain’s blocking of Catalonia’s independence referendum. Some 5,000 angry Catalans gathered in one of the city’s main squares on Tuesday, waving Catalan independence flags and chanting ‘We will vote”. “Not rain nor snow nor any court will stop us,” said Carme Forcadell, leader of the Catalan National... 

Spain’s Constitutional Court decided Monday that Catalonia has no right to vote for its independence. The independence referendum planned by Catalonia’s President for this November was unanimously suspended by 12 judges. Speaking in a televised address after an emergency cabinet meeting Monday, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he regretted Catalonia’s president Artur Mas’s decision... 

The Scots have lost their stab at independence by a tiny 10-percent margin. Analysts predicted that only a ‘yes’ vote would send waves throughout Europe, but the dire economic situation of other independence-seeking regions can’t be eclipsed so easily. In a historic referendum on Thursday, Scotland voted 55 to 45 percent to stay in the four-nation United Kingdom. This ‘yes’ vote,... 

The Catalan regional parliament has set November next year for a referendum on the Spanish province’s independence. The government in Madrid blandly said the vote won’t happen, but activists wonder how it might be stopped. Catalonia’s four pro-independence parties, which hold a majority in the regional parliament, announced Thursday that the rich industrial Spanish province will hold a referendum...