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Amritpal Singh, who has revived calls for the state of Punjab to secede, had been on the run since last month after capturing national attention in February. Indian police on Sunday arrested a separatist leader who has revived calls for an independent Sikh homeland and the secession of India’s northern Punjab state, which has a history of violent insurgency. Amritpal Singh had been on the run since last month after capturing national attention in February, when hundreds of his supporters stormed a police station in Ajnala, a town in Punjab state, with wooden batons, swords and guns to demand the...

This map shows how Europe would look if every separatist movement was granted its dream of independence. With the Scottish referendum just days away, the issue of regions breaking away from their traditional rulers is looming large over the continent. The map features well-known separatist movements, such as the powerful and vocal Basque Nationalist movement in northern Spain and southwestern France, as well as the more obscure, such as the Savoyan League, which supports the independence of the Savoy region of France, which has a population of around 405,500.

The leader of a Detroit mosque was killed Wednesday in a shootout with the FBI, which had charged him and 11 of his followers with arms violations and conspiracy to commit federal crimes. The shootout followed a raid by the FBI on a Dearborn warehouse in which the imam refused to surrender and opened fire on agents.

SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain (AFP) – Police in Spain's northern Basque Country arrested an ex-leader of Batasuna, the banned political wing of the armed separatist group ETA, and eight other militants accused of seeking to rebuild the party, judicial and police sources said. Former Batasuna spokesman Arnaldo Otegi was held in the city of San Sebastian along with a top union leader and three other Basque militants suspected of having tried to "reform the leadership of Batasuna on the instructions of ETA," a judicial source said. The interior ministry said later that four other "leaders of the independentist left" had been...

They have been creating a little bit of a buzz, to be sure. But are they for real? Can they break away from the long-standing shackles that have held the pro-independence movement back? After lots of consideration, it appears the answer is no.

Simply put, Canadians rejected Stephane Dion for P.M. - the Liberal Party itself has rejected Stephane Dion - and now we hear that he will be thrust upon us - unelected, of course, as in any real banana republic - to be our new federal leader.

He's a Muslim. He was sworn into office on the Koran. He doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance. His pastor is an anti-Semite. He's a tool of Louis Farrakhan. He's anti-Israel. His advisers are anti-Israel. He's friends with terrorists. The terrorists want him to win. He's the Antichrist. By now you've probably seen at least some of these e-mails and articles about Barack Obama bouncing around the Internet. They distort Obama's religious faith, question his support for Israel, warp the identity and positions of his campaign advisers and defame his friends and allies from Chicago. The purpose of the smear...

Does your church have a congregational government? If local members make its decisions rather than an outside bishop or presbytery, then your form of church government is congregational. It is one of the most common ways that Protestants govern their churches throughout the world today. When did congregationalism begin? There are several suggestions. Some writers say the earliest churches planted by the apostles were run by local congregations. However, most historians look at it as arising within a tide of democratic ideals in the sixteenth century which it fed and to which it contributed. They often point to this day,...

China has sentenced a Muslim activist to life in prison for taking part in "terrorist activities and plotting to split the country". The Chinese court ruled on Thursday that Huseyin Celil was a member of the East Turkestan Liberation Organisation and said that he was guilty of helping Chinese Muslims to travel to Pakistan for military training.China's security services regularly crack down on activists in Xinjiang province [GALLO/GETTY]

None of the three parties is likely to be able to govern on its own Canadians in the mainly French-speaking Quebec province are electing a new government in a tight three-way race. The poll has again raised the prospect of independence from Canada, with the nationalist Parti Quebecois (PQ) vowing to hold a vote on the issue if elected. It is seeking to regain power from the federalist Liberal Party and Premier Jean Charest who is seeking a new term. But both parties are facing a strong challenge from a new conservative group, the Action Democratique (ADQ). The ADQ...

Don't know if anybody caught Obama's "pastor" on H&C last night, but it was a real eye opener! If it is through membership in this congregation by which he claims mainstream Christianity, I think many people will have second thoughts as the truth about this church is unveiled. It is afrocentric and anti-white. excerpt from church website: "We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of...

Whither the Scots? John O' Sullivan National Post Monday, January 08, 2007 Scotland's New Year -- known as Hogmanay -- is traditionally celebrated more uproariously than any other day of the year. But New Year, 2007, includes two events in the Scottish calendar that could create an enormous hangover for the full year. Compared to Canada's own secessionist murmurings -- which have been quelled (for the moment) by Stephen Harper's clever resolution designating Quebec as a nation "within a united Canada" -- the U.K. may be in for a rough ride. The first event on the horizon is the...

BRUSSELS, October 25, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- At a European Parliament debate on South Ossetia and Transdniester today, EU officials had two distinct messages. First, that the bloc’s involvement in Moldova will remain strong. Second, that Georgia's requests for greater EU involvement are "unrealistic." From the EU’s point of view, not all frozen conflicts are alike. It continues to acknowledge Russia’s key role in attempts at resolution. But when it comes to its own involvement, Brussels is clearly more enthusiastic about Moldova than it is about Georgia. Moldova will share a border with the EU as of January 1, 2006, when...

PRAGUE, July 28, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has ordered the Abkhaz government in exile to move from Tbilisi to the Kodori Gorge. The move is a bold step toward restoring central control over the breakaway province. The Kodori Gorge, a remote mountain valley in the northeast of Abkhazia, is the only part of the province still controlled by the Georgian authorities. Most of Abkhazia has been ruled independently of Tbilisi since achieving de facto independence in 1993.

July 25, 2006 -- Tensions are rising on the Georgian border amid claims that Georgia is deploying soldiers in a bid to disarm a militia leader. Georgia's Imedi television channel says 500 Georgian troops headed to the Kodori Gorge early on July 25, lending credence to claims by authorities in the breakaway republic of Abkhazia that Georgia is building up its military presence near its border. News agencies report Russian peacekeepers as saying they have stopped a dozen soldiers and two armored vehicles at a checkpoint on the way to the Kodori Gorge. The Kodori Gorge district is the only...

Local southern leaders yesterday appealed for calm and urged authorities not to take rash action after a monk was hacked to death and two temple boys were killed and their bodies burned yesterday in a raid on a Buddhist temple in Pattani. Elsewhere in the ravaged region, five more people, including two soldiers, were also killed. Nimu Makaje, deputy chairman of Yala Islamic Committee, believes the temple raiders wanted to provoke a violent reaction from the government. ``State authorities must exercise utmost patience and be calm. ``They should stick to peaceful efforts to win the hearts and minds of local...

A quick-thinking border patrol policeman saved a number of lives yesterday after spotting a bomb on a table at a shophouse restaurant in tambon Sateng Nok in Yala province's Muang district, and managing to alert people to quickly vacate the area just seconds before it exploded. The explosion at the restaurant, which had been adorned with sky blue coloured flags denoting the sale of low-priced goods, was the worse of two separate bomb blasts in the deep South yesterday. The blasts came just a day after Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's well publicised visit with cabinet ministers to several Friday markets...

/begin my translationChina: Bomb Explodes at the Beijing Station Square...No Injuries2005.07.09 (Seoul, Yonhap News)  A day after the a series of bomb explosions in London  which left the whole world still tense, a bomb went off at the square of Beijing Train Station, which appears to be a premeditated act. Chinese authorities are on heightened alert. The incident happened at a time when Chinese securities, affected by London's multiple bombings,  are stepping up their watch against possible terrorism by separatists from Uighur Autonomous District in Xinjiang. It occurred around 1:40 pm, July 8th, on the Western part of the square, but there were no casualties, according to July 9th Internet...

A rubber tapper was beheaded at a plantation in Yala and five people, including three policemen, were wounded in a bomb blast in Narathiwat yesterday as daily violence continued in the deep South. The headless body of Bunchan Saipetch, 59, from Si Sa Ket, was found in front of a cottage in a rubber plantation in Yala's Yaha district around 6am yesterday. Six 11mm (.45 cal) bullet shells were found at the scene while there were multiple knife wounds to the victim's body. His head was found later in a box left on a roadside in the same area. Attached...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran suspended the nationwide operations of Arab TV broadcaster Al-Jazeera on Monday, accusing it of inflaming violent protests by the Arab minority in its southwest, state-run TV reported. Also, the government said two more protesters died in the unrest in Khuzistan province along the border with Iraq, raising the three-day toll to three dead and at least eight injured. ``The situation is under control in Khuzistan province right now,'' Interior Ministry Jahanbakhsh Khanjani said. ``The province is calm in general but unfortunately two people were killed during last night's violence in Mahshahr.'' Mahshahr is 50 miles...