Gulf Times
Expats warned to respect fast
Published: Monday, 11 October, 2004, 11:32 AM Doha Time
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia yesterday warned non-Muslim foreign residents of the kingdom that they face deportation if they eat, drink or smoke in public from dawn to dusk during the holy month of Ramadan.
“Non-Muslim residents of this country must respect Muslims’ feelings by refraining from eating, drinking or smoking in public places, in the streets and in workplaces” during the dawn-to-dusk fast observed by Muslims throughout the holy month, an interior ministry statement said.
“Authorities will take deterrent measures, namely ending work (contracts) of and deporting violators,” said the statement carried by the official SPA news agency. – AFP
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=11133&version=1&template_id=37&parent_id=17
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s04100046.htm
ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA
E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com, Web Site: www.assistnews.net
Monday, October 11, 2004
HUNDREDS STILL MISSING IN BESLAN
Moscow Children To Wear Dog Tags In New Security Measures; Beslan School To Be Destroyed
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
BESLAN / MOSCOW, RUSSIA (ANS) -- Nearly 400 people who were held hostage in the Beslan school siege are still unaccounted for, according to a website run by teachers who were there, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reports.
The list of killed, injured or missing on the www.beslan.ru website has 1,338 names -- while the prosecutor-general's office gave a total of 1,156, the BBC said. (Pictured: The bloodbath in Beslan left many questions unanswered. Courtesy: BBC).
Three local police officers have been charged with negligence over the siege, in which at least 338 people died.
The BBC said a Russian parliamentary commission has started investigating the tragedy.
Russian Ekho Moskvy radio reports that more than 80 bodies remain unidentified. Nearly half of the people who died in Beslan in early September were children. (Pictured: The remains of the Beslan school are to be destroyed. Courtesy: BBC).
The school in North Ossetia, in Russia's North Caucasus, was attacked September 1 by a group of heavily armed pro-Chechen militants, who fought a fierce gun battle with Russian security forces as explosions wrecked the school.
COMMISSION STARTS WORK
The radio station said victims' representatives were not included on the commission -- they would be confined to the role of eyewitnesses, the BBC reported.
Eleven senators from the Russian Federation Council -- the upper house of parliament -- are on the commission. Five of them previously worked for security bodies, such as the FSB or defence ministry, and the other six are civilians with civil service experience.
The BBC said Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov said he expected the commission's work to last no longer than six months.
"Not one question will go unanswered," he pledged, vowing that the commission would get to the bottom of "the reasons and circumstances of the terrorist act in Beslan."
Much controversy still surrounds the exact circumstances of the siege and of the violence in which it ended. The bloodbath in Beslan left many questions unanswered.
President Vladimir Putin has vowed to take tough action, including pre-emptive strikes against Chechen separatists, who claimed responsibility for the school hostage-taking and other recent terror attacks, the BBC said.
MOSCOW CHILDREN TO WEAR DOG TAGS
Meanwhile, Moscow schoolchildren will soon have to wear military-style dog tags and carry special "passports" as part of a security drive in the wake of Beslan, the BBC said. (Pictured: Moscow schools fear a repetition of the Beslan attack. Courtesy: BBC).
The Russian capital is also beefing up protection of its schools against intruders to prevent any terror attacks like the Beslan mass hostage-taking.
"Before the New Year most schools will have these passports," a senior Moscow city official told BBC News Online.
Yuri Popov said the metal dog tags were already being mass-produced.
VITAL INFORMATION
More than 330 schoolchildren, teachers and parents died when the hostage-taking in the North Ossetian town of Beslan ended in a bloodbath. Dozens of victims remain unidentified more than a month after the tragedy.
Mr Popov, head of the Moscow city assembly's security and legislation committee, said children would wear the dog tags round their necks and carry the passports in their pockets, which would bear their fingerprints and other personal data.
The passport will give the child's name, address, telephone number, blood group and details of any allergies to medicines, he said.
It will also include advice on how to act in the event of an emergency, such as a terrorist attack.
"These measures can be introduced under the city's programme for civil defence," Mr Popov said.
"We asked teachers, school governors, and they conducted surveys. Most were in favour," he said.
The city authorities have been working on ways to improve school security since November, he added.
EXTRA SECURITY
The city authorities want to make sure that the private security firms guarding school premises carry out proper training, Mr Popov said.
Guards will not be armed -- their role will be to alert police if they spot something suspicious, he said.
New legislation is required "to clearly define the status of school premises --who is allowed in, who is not," he explained.
Moscow has about 1,500 schools and 3,000 kindergartens.
Russian lawmakers are currently reviewing all of the country's anti-terror laws, Mr Popov said.
Installing alarm systems in all Moscow schools will cost about 200m rubles ($7m) and erecting security fences around the buildings will cost another 600m rubles ($20.5m), he said.
In another measure, the remains of the Beslan school are to be destroyed, authorities said.
** Michael Ireland is an international British freelance journalist. A former reporter with a London newspaper, Michael is the Chief Correspondent for ASSIST News Service of Garden Grove, CA. Michael immigrated to the United States in 1982 and became a US citizen in Sept., 1995. He is married with two children. Michael has also been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station.
** You may republish this story with proper attribution.
Thanks MamaDearest. I have always believed that AQ are the willing (or ignorant) proxies for the Russians.