Pro-secession parties pushing for Spain’s northeastern Catalonia region to break away and form a new Mediterranean nation won a landmark vote Sunday by capturing a regional parliamentary majority
Amidst news of the prolonged worldwide recession, new air strikes, secession attempts, and climate change, international trade — which in 2008 went through its largest crisis in history — has been mostly out of the public eye.
Vladimir Putin has called for the postponement of the planned referendum in eastern Ukraine just four days before the vastly pro-Russian provinces were due to vote on secession. The Russian president also said he was pulling Russian troops back from the Ukrainian border and called for the Ukrainian authorities to cease all military actions against pro-Russian separatists.