Madrid — As the Catalonia conflict enters uncharted territory, both sides are upping the ante. Officials in Madrid are finalising plans for taking control of the rebel region. They will be rubber-stamped at an extraordinary cabinet meeting on Saturday when Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy returns from a summit in Brussels, where he’s looking to shore up his support among European leaders. The Catalans meanwhile urged supporters to pull money from banks including CaixaBank and Banco Sabadell as discussions advance on how they might stage a unilateral declaration of independence. "We should take a decision in the next days," Jordi Xucla, a Catalan deputy for the PDeCAT party in the Spanish Parliament in Madrid, said in a Bloomberg Television interview Thursday. "The decision could be obviously the declaration of independence maybe in one week or in two weeks." Both sides edged closer to the cliff edge Thursday on an historic day of threat and counter-threat, with Rajoy ordering his advise...

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