Madrid

Spanish police arrested top-ranking Catalan officials including the region’s junior economy minister Josep Maria Jove, as Madrid launched a crackdown on Catalonia over the upcoming Independence referendum Reuters reported. Jove, who is a senior member of the Republican Left of Catalonia political party, was detained following a Wednesday morning raid carried out by Spain’s Civil Guard, which has the authority of both the Interior and the Defence ministries.

The former chairman of one of Spain's largest banks has been found dead with a shotgun blast to the chest in a private hunting estate in southern Spain, the country's Civil Guard said Wednesday.

Authored by Don Quijones via WolfStreet.com, 

Catalonia’s independence would set off Spain’s debt time-bomb.

On Monday El Pais published leaked excerpts from what it claims to be the Catalonian regional government’s road map to independence. The secret document includes a plan for the region to unilaterally break away from Spain should its citizens be prevented from holding a referendum on independence in the fall.

Spanish politics is a mess.

Everyone knew, going into last fall and winter, that the waters were about to get decidedly choppy. At the national level, Podemos was ascendant as Pablo Iglesias rode a wave of anti-austerity sentiment straight to the front of disaffected voters’ collective consciousness.

A nation beset by sky high unemployment had grown tired of the PP and PSOE duopoly that had dominated Spanish politics since at least the late 80s. Between Podemos and Ciudadanos, a shakeup was virtually assured.

When last we checked in on Catalonia, Spain’s black swan was splashing around in a desperate attempt to avoid snap elections just three months after the region’s parliament approved a “democratic disconnection” resolution and just four months after Catalans voted in what amounted to a referendum on secession from Spain.