Moscow’s theatre community on Wednesday buried two of its bright young talents, swept away when Chechen separatists stormed centre stage last week and turned a light-hearted song-and-dance musical into a tragedy.
Russia’s Alrosa says it expects the European Commission to force it to cut the value of its rough diamond sales to De Beers by 25% before approving a five-year deal between the two.
Ninety-nine servicemen were killed and 33 injured when a troop transport helicopter fell into a minefield in the biggest single-day casualty count in the second Chechen war.
The Chechen conflict, which led Wednesday to a daring hostage crisis in downtown Moscow, has already claimed the lives of 4 500 troops according to official figures, with between 10 000 and 20 000 civilians killed.
Explosions heard near theatre
The FBI receives many complaints about these services, but others insist ”e-mail brides” are driven by more innocent desires and simply prefer the life and manners of Western men
Rescue workers have been able to recover only nine bodies among the more than 100 people missing in the wake of a huge avalanche in the Russian Caucasus, the emergencies ministry said on Tuesday.
The band of heavily armed Chechen rebels holding hundreds of hostages at a Moscow theatre agreed early on Friday to free all 75 foreigners held captive, the first major breakthrough in the crisis as the siege entered its second day.
Special forces troops took control of a Moscow theatre in the early hours of Saturday morning where hundreds of hostages were being held by Chechen rebels, killing their leader and freeing all the captives.
RUSSIAN prosecutors pinned the blame on Sunday for a bomb attack that killed 42 people in Dagestan last week on pro-Chechen rebels trained at terrorist camps stretching from Georgia’s notorious Pankisi gorge to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The governor of Russia’s far eastern region of Magadan, Valentin Tsvetkov, was shot dead by unknown gunmen on Friday in central Moscow.
A human rights group sharply criticised Russia’s efforts to return displaced Chechens to their ruined homeland, saying that Chechnya is too dangerous and that dozens of civilians there are killed by Russian forces every month.
Russian emergency workers raced against time on Monday to rescue thousands of families made homeless by flash floods in war-torn Chechnya and the rest of the North Caucasus, where 53 people have so far been confirmed dead.
Russia’s former nuclear minister warned Chechen rebels that if they engage in nuclear terrorism, Moscow would retaliate with such force that the breakaway region would disappear from the map.
Russia’s Supreme Court began deliberating on an appeal
by jailed journalist, Grigory Pasko, against a spying conviction imposed for what campaigners say were legitimate whistle-blowing activities.
Nearly 650 of the released Moscow theatre hostages remain in hospital and more than 200 are in a very serious condition, Russian medical authorities said on Sunday. They said that the death toll so far was 117.
Curtain closes on theatre siege
At least half a million scientists have left Russia over the past decade because of pitifully low wages, a senior science figure said on Thursday.
Six people were killed and another 21 severely injured on Monday when a powerful explosion occurred near Grozny’s central market, ripping apart a municipal bus as it drove by, local pro-Moscow officials told Interfax.