Bloomberg Longtime Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek is resisting pressure to resign, fashioning himself into an unlikely rebel as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan turns a sweeping purge of Turkish society against his own party. Gokcek, who’s been elected to the post in five consecutive elections since 1994, has been under pressure to step down since early this month, when Turkish media ...

Bloomberg Catalan separatists are mobilizing a human shield to block efforts by the Spanish authorities to take control of the breakaway region as both sides prepare to escalate the political conflict. Groups will concentrate their activists around the regional government’s headquarters in Barcelona’s Gothic quarter and the nearby parliament building, according to two people familiar with the plans, asking not ...

Bloomberg Twenty-eight years after Poland led eastern Europe’s break with communism and its embrace of western-style democracy, the country’s human rights commissioner is sounding the alarm with a warning that the European Union’s largest eastern nation is on a road that leads back to authoritarian rule. The latest plan by President Andrzej Duda and the ruling party to revamp the ...