International News

Madrid, Oct 21 (AFP/APP):Spain will on Saturday take unprecedented steps to seize powers from Catalonia’s separatist government after Madrid won powerful backing from the king and the EU in its battle to keep the country together.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will meet with his cabinet at 10.00 am (0800 GMT) to set out specific powers it plans to take away from the wealthy northeast region, which currently enjoys wide autonomy including control over its own policing, education and healthcare.
The measures — which take the country into uncharted legal waters — come after Spain’s King Felipe VI on Friday blasted what he said was an “unacceptable secession attempt” and said the crisis sparked by the region’s banned October 1 independence referendum must be resolved “through legitimate democratic institutions”.
“We do not want to give up that which we have built together,” he pleaded.
Madrid enjoys constitutional powers to wrest back control of rebellious regions in one of the Western world’s most decentralised nations, but it has never used them.
Autonomy is a hugely sensitive issue in semi-autonomous Catalonia, which saw its powers taken away under Spain’s military dictatorship. Home to 7.5 million people, the region fiercely defends its own language and culture.