Catalonia has promoted its language and popular culture since the 1980s, cultivating a sense that it is different from the rest of Spain which has now turned to separatism, analysts said.

Spain's steep economic downturn is often cited as one of the main drivers of separatism in the wealthy northeastern region, which holds a symbolic referendum on independence on Sunday in defiance of legal challenges by Madrid.

Spanish judges on Friday dismissed money-laundering charges against King Felipe VI's sister Cristina, potentially saving the princess from going on trial in a royal scandal.

In a written ruling the court on the island of Mallorca answered the latest appeals in a case that contributed to the abdication this year of Felipe's father, Juan Carlos.

Spanish police arrested 10 people accused of glorifying terrorism and inciting attacks by the Basque group ETA in Twitter and Facebook messages, authorities said Thursday.

The suspects are accused of "using social networks to commit suspected crimes of glorifying terrorism by ETA and of humiliating the victims of terrorism", the interior ministry said in a statement.

A senior Spanish government official on Thursday warned the wealthy region of Catalonia that it is banned from using public money to stage a symbolic independence referendum this weekend.

Spain's Constitutional Court on Tuesday ordered the Catalan government to suspend the planned vote but regional leader Artur Mas has vowed to press ahead with Sunday's ballot, which will be organised by volunteers without an official electoral roll.

Knocking on neighbors' doors in central Barcelona, 46-year-old engineer Jaime Gutierrez and retiree Toni Vinas, 74, are out canvassing their fellow Catalans to vote Yes to independence from Spain.

Going door to door in the neighborhood around the city's Sagrada Familia Cathedral, they are just two in an army of volunteers mobilized for the ballots in the Catalonia region on Sunday in defiance of legal challenges by Madrid.

Catalonia's leader vowed Wednesday that a symbolic independence vote banned by the Spanish government will go ahead on November 9, setting up a constitutional conflict unprecedented in post-Franco Spain.

Defying the latest in a string of legal challenges by Madrid, regional president Artur Mas promised to defend Catalans' "right to decide", despite an order from Spain's Constitutional Court a day earlier to suspend the planned vote.

The government of Spain's wealthy Catalan region put itself on a collision course with Madrid Tuesday by vowing to press ahead with a symbolic independence vote this weekend despite a court-ordered block.

Catalan government spokesman Francesc Homs said "everything is ready" for Sunday's referendum, which will be run by volunteer poll-watchers and involve same-day registration.

An Argentine judge has reopened old wounds from Spain's Franco dictatorship by ordering some of his ex-ministers to face justice for alleged killings.

Groups campaigning for justice for people tortured and killed under Francisco Franco hailed the "historic" move to demand the extradition of 20 Spanish officials including several ex-ministers.

Campaigners demanding a vote on independence for the Catalonia region from Spain said Saturday they had gained the backing of two Nobel Peace Prize winners including Desmond Tutu.

The South African archbishop and the Argentine rights activist Adolfo Perez Esquivel, both Nobel peace laureates, signed a petition calling for Catalans to be allowed "to vote on their political future", campaigners said.

German police arrested one of the most wanted fugitive members of the Basque separatist group ETA, Tomas Elorriaga Kunze, who is wanted for forgery and bomb-making, the Spanish government said.

Elorriaga Kunze, 51 -- known by the alias Teo -- had been on the run for 15 years after a string of convictions in France for belonging to an armed group, the interior ministry said in a statement late on Friday.