“Surging unemployment and financial disarray have stoked a fever of separatism in Catalonia, a comparatively prosperous part of Spain whose leaders say their wealth is being sucked dry by the central government.  Crowds waved red and yellow striped Catalan flags – one of the oldest still in use in Europe – and sang the Catalan anthem on a national day marking the conquest of Catalonia by Spain’s King Philip V in 1714 after a 13 month siege of Barcelona.  A poll by the regional government in July showed for the first time that more than half of Catalonia’s population favours independence.”