CANADA - Canada is bracing for another fight with Quebec separatists. Premier Pauline Marois today called an election for April 7 as she met Lieutenant-Governor Pierre Duchesne to ask him to dissolve the provincial legislature. Polls show Marois’ separatist Parti Quebecois may have enough support to form its first majority government in more than a decade. “Today, I have summoned my ministers and we have taken the necessary steps to dissolve the National Assembly and call an election,” Marois said in televised remarks in Quebec City. “It’s now up to you, Quebeckers, to decide.” A majority would set the stage in the French-speaking province for a possible referendum on secession from the rest of Canada, roiling credit markets and threatening to push the Canadian dollar lower.

UK - David Cameron sets out the seven major changes he wants to make to the European Union to stop Britain being “sucked into a United States of Europe”. “People are worried that Britain is being sucked into a United States of Europe. That may be what some others want, but it is not for us.”

USA - Williamsburg will play host to world leaders beginning Monday as part of a discussion about the state of European affairs in the second instalment of a global forum.

UKRAINE/CRIMEA - Crimea's parliament has formally declared independence from Ukraine and asked to join the Russian Federation. It follows Sunday's referendum in which officials say nearly 97% of Crimeans voted to break away from Ukraine. The government in Kiev has said it will not recognise the results. The US and EU say the vote was illegal and have vowed to impose sanctions on Moscow. The Crimean peninsula has been under the control of pro-Russia forces since late February. According to the vote in Crimea's parliament on Monday, Ukrainian laws no longer apply in the region and all Ukrainian state property belongs to Crimea. Speaking in parliament, interim President Oleksandr Turchynov described the referendum as a "great farce" which "will never be recognised either by Ukraine or by the civilised world".

EUROPE - The billionaire financier says in its tepid response to Russia’s Crimea land grab, the EU flubbed a key chance to breathe new life into the stale union. George Soros, one of the world’s leading investors, has warned that the European Union is in danger of falling apart if it fails to confront Vladimir Putin’s naked aggression in Ukraine. The billionaire financier told The Daily Beast that European governments should have seized on Russia’s land grab in Crimea to breathe new life into a union that is disintegrating and stumbling towards oblivion. Instead, he argued, squabbling European nations have failed to meet the challenge and continued to act in their own narrow self-interest. “Europe was totally unprepared for this crisis and Putin outmaneuvered Europe with no difficulty,” he said.

USA - A US regulator has sued 16 banks for allegedly manipulating the London interbank offered rate (Libor). The Libor rate is used to set trillions of dollars of financial contracts, including mortgages and financial transactions around the world.

RUSSIA - Russia vetoed the UN Security Council resolution that declared Sunday’s referendum in the autonomous republic of Crimea invalid. The draft resolution, drawn up by the United States, urged nations not to recognize the results of the vote, widely expected to back Crimea, a southern Ukrainian region with a narrow ethnic Russian majority, joining Russia. Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Moscow will respect the choice of people in the region that has refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new central government in Kiev. China, a close ally of Russia, abstained from the vote.

ISRAEL - In the wake of "conclusive" suspicions of hijacking in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which vanished without a trace along with its 239 passengers last Saturday, Israel has decided to tighten its security measures for foreign aircraft entering Israeli airspace. Security and airport officials discussed the changing security situation in light of the disappearance, and eventually decided to change regulations for foreign aircraft, which now will be required to identify themselves well before entering Israeli airspace, reports Channel 2. A list of similar procedures tightening security were decided by the officials, but due to security reasons the list has not been made public.

RUSSIA - From the economic point of view, everyone should get ready for tough actions from Moscow. Sergei Glazyev, the most hardline of Putin’s advisors, sketched the retaliation strategy: Drop the dollar, sell US Treasuries, encourage Russian companies to default on their dollar-denominated debts, and create an alternative currency system (reference currency) with the BRICS and hydrocarbon producers like Venezuela and Iran.

RUSSIA - We are sure it is just coincidence - and an awkward combination of luck and suspicious timing - but Vedomosti reports that Viktor Zubkov, the Chairman of Russia's massive energy monopoly Gazprom, dumped his entire stake in the company just a few weeks before Vladimir Putin crossed the red line. Gazprom shares have dropped 25% in the last 3 weeks so his timing was impeccable. It's good to have friends running the country eh? Thank you Mr Putin. This is important as so many Western watchers believe a crumbling Russia stock market will prompt Putin to back away… it appears his Oligarch friends already got the nod…

MIDDLE EAST - The West enjoys portraying Qatar as a modern nation-state on the rise. Under the carefully managed facade lies barbarism and institutionalized support for international terrorism in support of the West's hegemonic goals across the planet - not to mention the fact that it is ruled by an unelected, autocratic, hereditary dictatorship.

USA - Arizona is the latest state to confirm cases of the deadly Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus, a highly contagious pig disease, increasing the tally of US states with confirmed cases to 27, a group of animal health researchers said. Virginia has reported positive samples of the virus in the environment, but not yet in a hog herd, according to data released on Thursday by the US Department of Agriculture's National Animal Health Laboratory Network. Confirmed cases of PEDv increased by 274 in the week ending March 8, bringing the total number to 4,458 in 27 states.

CHILE - A magnitude 7.0 earthquake has hit the Pacific coast of Chile, the US Geological Survey said. As a preventive measure, Chilean authorities have ordered a partial evacuation of the northern coastline. The epicentre of the quake was located 70 km northwest of Iquique in northern Chile, at a depth of 32 km, the US Geological Survey said. The National Office of Emergency of the Interior Ministry has ordered an evacuation of the coastline between the northern towns of Arica and Tocopilla, over the fears of a possible minor tsunami. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center however said there was no tsunami expected. About 80,000 people were evacuated in the Tarapaca region, 3,000 in Arica and Parinacota region and 22,000 in Antofagasta region, said ONEMI's national director, Ricardo Toro, adding that the sea had risen by almost 13 inches.

LATVIA - On Sunday, the most extremist right wing organizations in Latvia are planning to stage a demonstration in commemoration of Latvian Nazi collaborators. "Legionaries' Day" commemorates Latvia's Waffen-SS units, honored as combatants against the Soviet Union. Many of them had helped the Nazi occupiers carry out mass murders of around 75,000 Latvian Jews, unable to flee before the Nazis' arrival. One of the extreme rightwing parties usually organizing the commemoration procession has a minister in the current government. One of that party's leaders expresses the anti-Russian sentiments of his followers by referring to the Latvian ethnic Russian inhabitants as "occupiers" and "illegal colonialists." His party is calling for their deportation ("repatriation") to Russia. The organization "Latvija bez Nacisma" ("Latvia without Nazism") has announced it will protest against this commemoration procession. Ukrainian nationalists had also participated in last year's procession.

USA - You can't get blood out of a rock. Traditionally the United States has had a consumer-driven economy, but now years of declining incomes and rising debts are really starting to catch up with us. In order to have an economy that is dependent on consumer spending, you need to have a large middle class.