Pro-Russian protests broke out in Ukraine's east April 6, climaxing in the seizure of government buildings in the cities of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Luhansk. (See map.) Protesters in Donetsk declared their own "constituent assembly," and proclaimed the Donbas region to be a "people's republic." After clashing with riot police and breaking through their lines to enter the regional parliament chamber, the protesters raised the Russian flag from the building. Supporters outside cheered and chanted: "Russia, Russia!" A report by Russia's Interfax agency said the Donetsk protesters will push for a regional referendum by May 11 on unification with Russia. Protest camps have been established outside the government buildings in all three cities, with banners bearing messages such as "Putin, help!"

The Majilis of Crimean Tatars on March 29 voted to seek "a national autonomous territory." The assembly of 200 Tatar delegates in the Crimean Tatars' historic capital of Bakhchisaray voted in favor of the proposal put to them by assembly leader Refat Chubarov. "I ask you to approve...the start of political and legal procedures aimed at creating ethnic and territorial autonomy of the Crimean Tatars of their historic territory of Crimea," Chubarov said. "In the life of every nation there comes a time when it must make decisions that will determine its future." The session was started with the anthem of Crimean Tatars, after which Crimean Muslim Mufti Haji Emirali Ablayev blessed the congress' work, saying: "Crimean Tatars returned to their homeland after years of deportation. Despite the fact that Crimea is having hard times today, we should not leave Crimea."  (DW, Interfax, March 29)

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) officially ended four decades of armed struggle in the Philippines on March 27, when it formally signed a pact with the government on regional autonomy that had been agreed on in 2012. Under the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, the MILF drops its claims for a separate state in the southern region of Mindanao and agrees to parliamentary self-rule in the new Bangsamoro autonomous region, to be established by 2016. A local police force will assume law enforcement functions from the Philippine police and military. The region will not be under an officially secular government. Sharia law will apply only to Muslims and only for civil cases, not for criminal offences. The MILF, with some 10,000 armed followers, will "gradually" decommission its forces and put the weapons "beyond use." The Bangsamoro, or Moro Nation, will replace another autonomous government that was brokered in the 1990s with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). (AFP, March 27; Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 26)

Russia's annexation of Crimea has sent hundreds of the region's ethnic Tatars fleeing the peninsula for western Ukraine. Mustafa Dzhemilev, former chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, said that nearly 1,000 have fled the peninsula since Russian forces took over there some three weeks ago. Dzhemilev decried the exodus, saying, "We did not spend 50 years in exile to be able to now escape under the first threat." Most of the displaced Tatars have made for Ukraine's Kherson Oblast, where there have been reports of Russian military incursions, with a natural gas plant said to be under the control of Moscow's forces. 

The Crimean parliament on March 17 formally declared the region independent and asked to join the Russian Federation following a popular vote to secede from Ukraine. The US and EU have called the vote illegal, and the EU stated that the vote's outcome would not be recognized. The US on March 17 announced sanctions against seven Russian officials while the EU's foreign ministers imposed travel bans and asset freezes against 21 officials from Russia and Ukraine. Though the government in Kiev refuses to recognize the results of the vote, Moscow considers the vote legitimate. The Crimea region, which has been under the control of pro-Russia forces since late February, has appealed to other countries as well as the UN to recognize Crimean independence. As a result of the vote, Crimean officials claim Ukrainian laws no longer apply in the region, and Ukrainian state property there will be nationalized and made part of the property of the Crimean Republic.

Crimean Tatars held protests in the peninsula on March 14 ahead of a referendum to join Russia. Around 500 demonstrators took to the streets calling for "Russian soldiers to return home." Tatar leaders have dismissed this weekend's poll as illegal and called for a boycott. (Euronews) Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pledged to support Crimea's Tatars. "Turkey has never left Crimean Tatars alone and will never do so," he said, after a phone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month. Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu vowed to protect the "rights of our kinsmen" after meeting with Ukrainian officials and representatives of the Tatar community during a visit to Kiev. (AFP, March 13) In a move to reassure the Tatars, Crimea's parliament has passed a resolution guaranteeing the ethnic minority proportional representation in the body,  and granting their language official status. (RT, March 11) Meanwhile, street clashes are reported from the eatsern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, with one young man killed in fighting between pro- and anti-Russian demonstrators. (The Guardian, March 14)

Libyan prime minister Ali Zeidan fled to Europe in a private jet March 12, in defiance of a travel ban, after the General National Congress (GNC) ousted him in a vote that many members said did not follow legal procedures. The Islamist-led GNC took the move over Zeidan's failure to prevent a North Korean tanker loading oil from a port controlled by rebels in the eastern region of Cyrenaica. Zeidan had threatened to bomb the tanker at al-Sidra port, demanding that "All parties must respect Libyan sovereignty." Replied Rabbo al-Barassi, who heads the Cyrenaica executive bureau formed in August by "federalist" rebels: "We announce to Libyans and to the whole world that we have begun exporting oil. We are not defying the government or the Congress. But we are insisting on our rights." There were reports of a fire-fight at the port as the vessel departed March 12, but it succeeded in slipping through a Libyan naval bloakcde and getting away. Tripoli has asked other countries to try intercept the ship. 

Greenpeace Chile announced on March 5 that it had established a new country in the glacial regions of southern Chile, the "Glacier Republic." The group said the country will remain independent until the Chilean government passes laws to protect Chile's glaciers. Greenpeace based its claim to the territory on a loophole in Chile's laws, which include no claim to sovereignty over the glaciers. In the past the loophole has made the glacial regions vulnerable to environmental damage by mining companies, but Greenpeace now hopes to use it as a way of bringing attention to projects such as the mammoth Pascua Lama mine that the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation has been building high the mountains on both sides of the border with Argentina. Greenpeace is also targeting what it calls "an even greater danger"—the Andina 244 project of the state-owned copper company Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile (Codelco), which Greenpeace says "provides for the destruction of 5,000 hectares of glaciers, directly affecting water reserves for Chile's entire central zone."