In the audio, the separatists appeared to acknowledge shooting down a civilian plane.
Russia to Ukrainian separatists appeared to be imminent, with the arms close enough to the border they could be handed over "potentially today".
While the Dalai Lama has called for talks on autonomy for Tibet and has become a global spokesman against Chinese repression, Chinese officials portray him as a deceitful separatist and appear to have no intention of letting him return.
To give an idea — still a fairly superficial one — of the dangerous diversity of Ukraine, there's the problem of the Crimean Peninsula, a mostly pro-Russian region with formal autonomy, where existing separatist sentiments appear to be further incited by Russian emissaries.
Ukrainian authorities have released what they say are intercepted phone conversations between pro-Russian separatists and what appear to be Russian military officers saying that separatists shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation website said "high representatives" from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE did in fact meet in Kiev on Sunday, though separatist leaders did not appear to have attended.
As the military cordon around the separatists has tightened, the rebels appear to be forcing an increasing number of civilians to take up arms, said Gordon Weiss, a United Nations spokesman in the capital, Colombo.
Similarly, some of the separatist claims in the Caucasus appear to be exaggerated, as they have been for years, including a claim on a separatist Web site that as many as 2,000 new volunteers had taken up arms.
While some of the tradecraft discussed on The Base is common in survivalist and separatist circles, the site's members appear to be even more radical, particularly in a number of discussions around explosives usage.
