Foreign Policy reports that the newly declared "People's Republics" of Donetsk, Luhansk and Odessa in eastern Ukraine have announced the return of "Novorossiya" (New Russia)—and are arguing among themselves as to who shall lead it. In the running is one Valery Kaurov, the Moscow-exiled leader of the Union of Orthodox Citizens of Ukraine—and a former businessman who is wanted in Ukraine for his calls for separatism. The Washington Post adds that Russian President Vladimir Putin has embraced the "Novorossiya" concept, recently saying: "I would like to remind you that what was called Novorossiya back in the tsarist days—Kharkov, Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Nikolayev and Odessa—were [sic] not part of Ukraine back then. The center of that territory was Novorossiysk, so the region is called Novorossiya. Russia lost these territories for various reasons, but the people remained."

Clashes rocked central Istanbul on May 1 as Turkish protesters attempted to defy a government ban on May Day rallies at the city's iconic Taksim Square. Police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to demonstrators, some of whom responded with hurled fire-bombs. Authorities shut parts of the city's public transport system, erected steel barricades and deployed thousands of riot police to block access to the square. Only a handful of trade union leaders were allowed into the area under police guard to lay flowers commemorating the deaths of at least 34 people there during a May Day gathering in 1977.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced April 29 that it would begin a fact-finding mission into allegations of the use of chlorine gas in Syria. Although both rebel forces and the Syrian government acknowledge that the chemical weapon was used on the Syrian town of Kafr Zita, both factions deny responsibility for the attack. Chlorine was not a chemical Syria was required to give up, but the use of chlorine gas is prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which Syria is a signatory. Some western governments believe that Syria has failed to declare all the chemical weapons in its possession, including chlorine gas, and has retained some of its chemical stockpile.

Russia's upper house of parliament on April 29 approved a set of bills that apply new restrictions on the Internet and blogging, a move widely criticized by both pro-democracy activists and Russia's technology sector alike. Critics of the draft laws affecting the Internet, which are expected to be signed by President Vladimir Putin soon and enforced in August, have expressed fear that the legislation is an attempt by Putin to silence opponents on the Internet. The bill causing the most concern leaves bloggers subject to greater regulation and legal liability, equating them to media outlets. This bill, which would require bloggers with 3,000 or more page visits per day to reveal their identities and abide by many of the same requirements as the mass media, is one of three bills in the package that impose control over the dissemination of information on the Internet and online payments and inflicts harsher punishment for terrorism and extremism. The legislation also requires that social networking sites and blog hosts store data on site users for at least six months in case the authorities need access for investigations. Supporters of the bill, including the United Russia party, have stated that the restrictions are needed to fight online extremism.

What are we to make of this? The Czech-based Roma website Romea.cz cites a report on German news agency Die Welt about an April 22 attack on Roma homes in the eastern Ukraine town of Slavyansk by pro-Russian separatists, who reportedly menaced residents at gunpoint, broke windows and fired shots, demanded gold and money, and voiced their intention to "purge" the area of "gypsies." Die Welt's own account only seems to be online (at least in English) at the aggregator WorldCrunch. More mysteriously, the Romea.cz account quotes a local resident named Natasha Cherepovska describing the attack to the New York Times—yet a Google search for the name or the text of the quote brings up no New York Times story. The report is all too plausible, given the attacks on Tatars in the Crimea since the Russian seizure of the peninsula. But we note that there have apparently been attacks on Jews in eastern Ukraine both organized by pro-Russian agents to tar the Ukrainians and by Ukrainian agents to tar the pro-Russians. In other words, a completely murky, paranoid and poisonous atmosphere. We await more information on what happened in Slavyansk, and call upon Romea.cz to provide greater clarity—especially on the source of the cited Times story.

As thousands of protesters blocked a main traffic artery in Taipei and clashed with police sent to clear them, Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang party agreed April 28 to halt work on two nuclear reactors. Work on the Lungmen nuclear plant, which would be Taiwan's fourth, started more than a decade ago in the island's northeast, about 20 miles outside Taipei, but has met growing opposition since the Fukushima disaster in Japan. The No. 1 reactor at Lungmen is to be sealed, while work on the No. 2 reactor will be put on hold, Premier Jiang Yi-huah said. The decision was made following negotiations with opposition parties. Jiang added that the announcement does not represent a major change in the government's energy policy, and refused to say that the Lungmen project has been permanently abandoned. (BBC News, Radio Australia, Taiwan Today, NYT's Sinosphere blog, April 28)

An Egyptian judge on April 28 sentenced 683 alleged supporters of the banned Muslim Brotherhood to death, including the group's supreme guide, Mohamed Badie. The judge also confirmed the death sentence of 37 of 529 Muslim Brotherhood supporters sentenced to death in March. The remaining defendants sentences were commuted to life prison. Under Egyptian law the death sentence recommendations in the case of Badie and the 682 other alleged supporters will be passed to the Grand Mufti of Al Azhar, the country's leading religious official, who will provide his non-binding opinion to the presiding judge. The defendants were all accused of taking part in violence in the southern governate of Minya on Aug. 14. The guilty verdict and death sentences are still subject to appeal.

Heavily armed men employed by the son of a local landowner shot five indigenous Q'eqchi' on April 7 in the community of Nueve de Febrero, Cobán municipality, in the northeastern Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz, according to community residents. The wounded Q'eqchi' were taken by ambulance to the national hospital in Cobán; one died from his injuries on April 20. Residents say the attackers were under the command of Augusto Sandino Ponce, son of landowner David Leonel Ponce Ramírez. The Ponces are said to be linked to a project by Hidroeléctrica Santa Rita SA company to build a dam at Monte Olivo. The Nueve de Febrero community has been active in opposition to the dam for the past two years.