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VESHENSKAYA, Rostov Region, May 25 (RIA Novosti) - Cossacks asked President Putin on Wednesday to help return Russians to North Caucasian republics. They met with Vladimir Putin in the Veshenskaya Cossack village, where the president arrived at to mark the 100th anniversary since the famous writer and Nobel prize winner Mikhail Sholokhov was born. Chieftain of the Tersky military unit Vasily Bondarev said that the Russian population had reduced from 23% to 3.7% in Chechnya and from 23% to 1.2% in Ingushetia (a republic bordering on Chechnya) in recent decades. "The exodus of Russians from Chechnya and Ingushetia has reached...

The sound of sporadic gunfire in the distance mingled incongruously with a bellicose chorus of croaking toads as 15 heavily armed commandos in camouflage uniforms and black masks loaded their assault rifles and set off on foot in the dead of night towards a remote village in Chechnya. The men, members of an anti-terrorist unit of Chechen special forces loyal to Moscow, walked in silence, a few paces apart, through fields lit by a star-studded sky. I watched them as they crouched in the wet grass to avoid being spotted by enemy lookouts, exchanging hand signals and whispering urgent commands....

Russian Federation: Russian police officer found guilty of crimes against the civilian population in the Chechen Republic Amnesty International welcomes the conviction and sentencing of Sergei Lapin, member of a special federal riot police unit (OMON) from the Khanty-Mansiisk region in the Russian Federation, by the Oktiabrskii District Court in Grozny in the Chechen Republic. For the first time a member of the Russian federal forces has stood trial in Chechnya itself for human rights violations against the civilian population. Sergei Lapin had been involved in the torture and "disappearance" of 26-year-old Zelimkhan Murdalov, who was detained on 2 January...

Putin: Ally or Terrorist? by William F. Jasper Counting Vladimir Putin as an ally against terrorism ignores his career in the murderous KGB/FSB and his ongoing support for terrorist regimes and organizations. ‘‘Lena Goncharuk, aged 38, said that she was the only one to survive out of a group of six who were ordered out of the cellar where they had been hiding and shot at point blank range. Resting in her hospital bed, her voice barely rising above a whisper, she said she had survived only by pretending to be dead." So reported Paul Wood from the Chechen border...

07 September 2004 11:36 How the Guerillas Lost ChechnyaThe tragedy in Beslan should not disguise the fact that the guerillas have already lost Chechnya. They have turned from “freedom fighters” into international terrorist elements. AndreiTsunsky The recent series of terrorist attacks in Russia stirs up a whirlwind of negative emotions from grief to rage. It is hard to put them aside, but we must in order to look at what happened objectively. Are the terrorists really so powerful? Are Russian intelligence forces really so weak? Are government authorities as weak as many seem to think? We believe that these terrorist...

The shock of the horror of Beslan will linger for a long time, but the local repercussions are only just beginning. It is time to start paying serious attention to the North Caucasus. One small cause for relief throughout the entire decade of the Chechnya conflict has been that the rest of this complex multi-ethnic region was not sucked into the turmoil. Even the incursion by Chechen fighter Shamil Basayev into Dagestan in 1999 failed to destabilize the region, as Basayev -- and whoever else had planned it -- had hoped it would. Things have changed. The turmoil had begun...

Policy-makers in Moscow are engaged in a strenuous debate on the limits of Russian power in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Some analysts believe that neither the United States nor Russia will be able to establish itself as the dominant geopolitical player in the two regions. With hopes for a decisive geopolitical victory slim, an increasing number of Russian experts say Moscow would be better off increasing its cooperation with Washington. Developments throughout the summer have helped to sharpen the Russian debate – in particular, the threat of renewed conflict in the Georgia’s separatist-minded region of South Ossetia [For background...

The Islamic Movement of Afghanistan, the IMU, whose suicide bombers struck the US and Israeli embassies and the Uzbek prosecutor-general’s office in Tashkent Friday, July 30, – killing three Uzbek guards and injuring 9 - is a multifaceted fundamentalist terror group affiliated to al Qaeda and sharing its philosophy. Friday, its bombers failed to break into the embassies, but many counter-terror authorities see this attack as the opening shot in their next major confrontation. President Islam Karimov, evidently sharing this view, cut short his Crimean vacation to return home and secure the capital with roadblocks at strategic points and searches...

I have created a public register of "bump lists" here on Free Republic. I define a bump list as a name listed in the "To" field used to index articles. Free Republic Bump List Register

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia (AP) - A nighttime attack this week in the Russian republic of Ingushetia by militants near the border of war-ravaged Chechnya killed 92 people and wounded 125, a regional government official said Wednesday. Among the dead were 67 members of law enforcement agencies, said the official, Magomed Ziyaudinnov. About 1,000 militants had taken part in the attacks late Monday night, Ziyaudinnov said, quoting the Ingush Interior Ministry. Ingush officials had previously said about 200 fighters had participated. The regional branch of Russia's Federal Security Service received information about the movements of an armed group about 30 minutes before...

IN BRIEF • Leader - Amir Khamzat (the soi dissant Abdu Sabur) is believed to have assumed control of the group following the death of Movsar Barayev. • Base - Reports have suggested both the Urus-Martan district of Chechnya, and northeastern Georgia's Pankisi Gorge. • Size - Perhaps as many as 400 active fighters, and, according to a 2001 interview with Basaryev, just as many in reserve. Russian authorities claim the number is greatly exaggerated. • Cause - The removal of Russian forces from Chechnya, an end to the war, and independence from Moscow. Also, to establish Wahhabism under an...

FR SWAT TEAM ACTION PROJECT John Kerry recently said he is "unsure" about The Passion of The Christ, the film Christians of all tempers are flocking to see, "I don't know," Kerry said when asked if he would see Mel Gibson's blockbuster film. "I am concerned," Kerry told reporters. "I think we have to be careful," he said echoing secularist critics complaints about Mel Gibson's depiction of Christ's last 12 hours. (Reuters, "Democrat Kerry Urges Caution on 'Passion,' 26 February 2004, by Patricia Wilson). John Kerry also said he is "not sure" God is on America's side in the war...

SPARTANBURG, SC (Talon News) -- Liberal anti-Bush online political activist group MoveOn.org sent a warning message to its members this week regarding the upcoming ruling by the Federal Election Commission about the legality of so-called 527 groups accepting soft campaign contributions to run political ads."The Republican National Committee is pressing the Federal Election Commission to issue new rules that would cripple groups that dare to communicate with the public in any way critical of President Bush or members of Congress," MoveOn.org charged in an e-mail to supporters.In the e-mail, MoveOn.org attempts to scare "conservative, progressive, labor, religious, secular, social...

In 1999, U.S. presidential candidate George Bush spoke for much of the American right when he warned the Russians that they "need to resolve the dispute (with the Chechens) peaceably and not be bombing women and children and causing huge numbers of refugees to flee Chechnya."[1] If the Russians did not stop their brutal second war against the Chechens, which had begun in the fall of 1999, Bush threatened to cut off IMF and Export-Import Bank loans to the former superpower that the Republican right, led by Senator Jesse Helms, still saw as a dangerous manifestation of the USSR. In...

Thousands of people have been abducted by the war-torn republic's kidnapping machine. Tales of the survivors read like relics from a barbaric past. By ROBYN DIXON, Times Staff Writer Kidnap victim Mikhail Brenner, shown with wife Tatyana, lost all but one of his teeth in beatings. "You try not to succumb to the pain," he says. YURI KOZYREV / For The Times NALCHIK, Russia--As awkwardly as a newborn foal struggling on spindly legs, Lena Meshcheryakova is learning how to curl her lips up at the corners to make a smile. Drifting just beneath the surface of her 5-year-old world are...

<p>IT sure is hard to juggle your wife and your girlfriends - just ask billionaire investor George Soros.</p> <p>The 73-year-old Soros seems to be trying to patch things up with his wife of 20 years, Susan, by spending weekends with her and their two sons at their upstate Bedford estate. But he's also been seeing a string of lovely ladies on the side.</p>

<p>You know what I think is just amazing? It's the resurrection of Henry Blodget, formerly of Merrill Lynch.</p> <p>In a mere 10 months' time, Henry's disgrace has turned to triumph, and he's back in the game as a darling of the media - living proof that in America, if you're nervy enough and cute enough, there's always a second act for a scoundrel.</p>

Lea Fastow Gets Preliminary Approval On Deal Wife Of Enron's Former Finance Chief To Spend 5 Months In Prison HOUSTON -- A federal judge Thursday conditionally agreed to accept a plea agreement from the wife of Enron's former finance chief in a deal that would send her to prison for five months and also could result in a plea bargain involving her husband. U.S. District Court Judge David Hittner, however, citing "preliminary concerns," said he wanted to wait to make the agreement final until completion of a presentencing investigation of Lea Fastow so he could determine if the sentence...

06/02/2003 George Soros is angry. In common with 90 per cent of the world's population, the Man Who Broke the Bank of England has had enough of President Bush and his foreign policy. In a recent article in the Financial Times, Soros condemned the Bush administration's policies on Iraq as "fundamentally wrong" -- based as they were on a "false ideology that US might gave it the right to impose its will on the world". Wow! Has one of the world's richest men--the archetypal amoral capitalist who made billions out of the Far Eastern currency crash of 1997 and who...

PARMA, Italy, Jan. 8 - An employee in charge of Parmalat's switchboard was listed as the chief executive of more than 25 affiliated companies, investigators said Thursday. Italian investigators have been following leads provided by a former chief financial officer, Fausto Tonna. The disclosure that a low-level employee had been used - apparently unwittingly - to represent a top executive indicates the lengths Parmalat went to hide the true state of its finances through a complex web of subsidiaries. On Thursday, Parmalat's former Italian auditor, Grant Thornton S.p.A., was expelled from Grant Thornton International, the network of accounting firms. ''Grant...