federative region in Iraq, which enjoyed its separative political entity as de facto state from 1991 to 2003, and voluntarily rejoined a federal democratic Iraq. Italy In Italy, five regions (namely Sardinia, Sicily, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Aosta Valley and Friuli-Venezia Giulia) have been granted special status of autonomy. Their statutes are constitutional laws approved by the Italian Parliament, granting them relatively broad powers in relation to legislation and administration, but also significant financial autonomy. They keep between 60% (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) and 100% (Sicily) of all taxes and decide how to spend the revenues. These regions became autonomous in order to take into account that they host linguistic minorities (German-speaking in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Arpitan-speaking in Aosta Valley, Friulian and Slovenian-speaking in Friuli-Venezia Giulia) or are geographically isolated (the two islands, but also Friuli-Venezia Giulia). Malaysia Malaysia is a federation of 13 states formed in 1963 by the merger of the independent Federation of Malaya and the formerly British colonies of Singapore, Sabah, and Sarawak. Under the terms of the federation, Sabah and Sarawak are granted significant autonomy in excess of that exercised by the 11 Malayan states, most notably the control over immigration to these two states. Singapore was a part of Malaysia until 1965. During its time as a state of Malaysia, Singapore enjoyed autonomy in setting labour and education policies. Russia The Russian Federation consists of 83 federal subjects, all equal in federal matters but enjoying six more or less different levels of autonomy. A republic is the most autonomous subject. Each has its own constitution, has its own official language (alongside Russian, which is official throughout the federation) and is meant to be home to a specific ethnic minority. An autonomous okrug also has a substantial ethnic minority, but is not allowed to have its own constitution and official language. An oblast, a krai, and an autonomous oblast has subjects without a substantial ethnic minority, completely equal to an autonomous okrug with other rights. A federal city is a major city that functions as a separate region. Previously, the Soviet Union often demonstrated traits of asymmetric federalism, including defining the RSFSR's Constitution inside of the 1936 Soviet Constitution, subnational asymmetric federalism (especially within the RSFSR but also in other SSRs), and giving the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) the most representation in the Supreme Soviet, particularly the Soviet of Nationalities, where each autonomous area of the RSFSR was