AP News in Brief
Ukraine regions vote on sovereignty as president warns of 'a step into the abyss'
• DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) -- Residents of two restive regions in eastern Ukraine engulfed by a pro-Russian insurgency cast votes Sunday in contentious and hastily organized independence referendums, which have been rejected as illegal by the Ukrainian government and the West.
• The ballots seek approval for declaring so-called sovereign people's republics in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where rebels have seized government buildings and clashed with police and Ukrainian troops over the past month.
• Ukraine's interim president has said that independence for eastern regions will destroy the country's economy. "This is a step into the abyss for the regions," Oleksandr Turchynov said in comments posted on the presidential website Saturday.
• Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and were due to close at 10 p.m. (1900 GMT). Referendum organizers said they expected a high turnout, even though the security situation remained unstable around much of the area where the vote was held.
• There were reports of sporadic clashes, but the situation remained calm in most of the sprawling regions with a population of 6.5 million as voting got under way.
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Nigerian rights group calls for UN sanctions against Islamic extremists holding missing girls
• LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- A leading Nigerian rights group is urging the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on the Islamic extremists that abducted some 300 schoolgirls, saying concern and condemnation are not enough.
• A statement Sunday from the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project says it is time for the council to "act decisively" and that the cost of inaction is "too high to contemplate."
• It comes as more experts are expected in Nigeria to help in the search, including U.S. hostage negotiators. Nigeria's government belatedly accepted offers of help last week from the United States, Britain, France, China and Spain amid mounting national and international outrage at its failure to rescue 276 girls abducted from a northeastern school on April 15. Fifty-three escaped. The militants are threatening to sell the girls into slavery.
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