Western chiefs at first threatened to set up a breakaway state, but have since proposed their own man as president.

ECONOMIST: The Pacific

The Turkish-Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, dug in his heels, demanding international recognition of his breakaway state before talks could begin.

ECONOMIST: Cyprus

The breakaway state of Somaliland held its first multi-party general election since it seceded from anarchic Somalia, of which it is still legally a part, more than a decade ago.

ECONOMIST: Turkey and the EU

So the dominant pattern is the breakaway state has to begin by applying for admission to the UN and in the case of the EU it would be the EU as well.

BBC: Scotland politics

To the north, the self-proclaimed breakaway state of Somaliland (once British Somaliland, the rest of Somalia being run by Italy until its defeat in the second world war) has been fairly well governed.

ECONOMIST: Somalia

Mr Singh has inducted half-a-dozen ministers from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, where the Congress has been fast losing ground to a breakaway group led by the son of a former loyalist leader who died in a helicopter crash and the mounting movement for a new Telangana state.

BBC: What does the India government reshuffle mean?