Spain

Hundreds of thousands of people - 750,000 according to Barcelona police - backing Catalonia's bid to secede from Spain clogged the streets in downtown Barcelona Saturday to demand the release of jailed separatist leaders.

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Close to a million people filled the length of the Avenue Marina that runs from the beach to Barcelona's iconic Sagrada Familia church, while the jailed leaders' families made speeches.

Here's what this looks like on the ground pic.twitter.com/7uZP1EUbk0

The global risk levitation continues, sending Asian stocks just shy of records, to the highest since November 2007 and Japan's Nikkei topped 22,750 - a level last seen in 1992 - while European shares and US equity futures were mixed, and the dollar rose across the board, gains accelerating through the European session with EURUSD sumping below 1.16 shortly German industrial output shrank more than forecast, eventually dropping to the lowest point since last month’s ECB meeting.

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

If there is one thing the Spain vs Catalonia conflict reminds us of, it has got to be Turkey. And that is a much bigger problem for the EU than it realizes.

First of all, Brussels can no longer insist that this is an internal, domestic, Spanish issue, since Catalan president Puidgemont is in... Brussels. So are 4 members of his government.

Ousted Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and four ex-ministers on Sunday turned themselves in to Belgian authorities to start the process of their possible extradition to Spain. Puigdemont was accompanied by four other former Catalan officials who are also wanted by Spanish authorities after they fled to Belgium last week after their removed from power by Spanish authorities as part of an extraordinary crackdown to impede the region’s illegal declaration of independence.

The Spanish public prosecutor on Thursday ordered the country's High Court that the Catalonian secessionist leaders be jailed. An arrest warrant be issued for ousted Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and eight members of his former government.