International Politics Thread

[feersum.endjinn 6]

Hence doctors and nurses migrate from the UK to the USA and Canada and from Eastern Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Indian Sub Continent in to the UK. It is the Wage diferential. Predominantly they return to their country of origin on retirement as their savings and pension tend to go much further and they like to be close to family.

It happens here in Finland too, though on smaller scale. Well educated young couples go abroad to make some money, but usually when their kids are supposed to go to school, they move back to Finland to enjoy all services and security this "socialist welfare state" (which they diss so much ) offers.

[fallchild 0]

Not quite sure the best place for this, but here goes:

Israel Cut Contacts with Palestinians - BBC News

Quote[/b] ]

Israel cuts Palestinian contacts

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered a freeze on all contacts with the Palestinians until their newly elected leader acts against militants.

The announcement comes after gunmen killed six Israelis at a Gaza Strip crossing point on Thursday night.

The attack was a blow to Mahmoud Abbas, who was elected on Sunday amid hopes he could promote new moves toward peace.

After his election, Mr Sharon called Mr Abbas to congratulate him and said he hoped to meet the new leader "soon".

But on Friday hopes for a speedy meeting appeared to be dashed.

"Israel informed international leaders today that there will be no meetings with Abbas until he makes a real effort to stop the terror," Mr Sharon's spokesman Assaf Shariv said, according to AP news agency.

Joint responsibility for Thursday's raid was claimed by three Palestinian groups, including Hamas and the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which has links with Mr Abbas's Fatah movement.

Three Palestinian gunmen were killed in the attack at Karni, the main crossing point for food and vital supplies into the Gaza Strip, home to 1.3 million Palestinians.

Mr Abbas, the successor to the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, said the bombing and shooting raid at Karni, as well as Israeli military actions, "do not benefit peace".

He had been hoping to persuade militant groups to agree to a ceasefire.

The news that contacts have been cut is a huge setback for the new leader, says the BBC's James Reynolds in Jerusalem.

Mr Abbas was elected on hopes he would be able to draw some concessions from Israel but they will not be able to agree concessions - and begin the groundwork for a fresh peace initiative - if no meetings are taking place.

[Colossus 2]

Thats rumbish, if some scandinavian terrorist (as if thats gone happen) are bombing us we wouldnt cut the connection with the country.

The whole point of terrorism is to kill and destroy either relasonships or people.

He does exaclty what they want him to do, I guess they would do all in there power to stop the two countrise to be peacefull.

[ralphwiggum 6]

I'd say the topic would be better located in Mideast thread.

[ralphwiggum 6]

http://www.cnn.com/2005....ex.html

Quote[/b] ]HAVANA, Cuba (AP) -- Cuba banned smoking in public places on Monday, as the government of the country known for its famous cigars acknowledged the health risk of tobacco.

Smoking will be banned in restaurants, except in designated smoking areas, and cigarette machines also will be removed. The law will also suspend sales of cigarettes to children under age 16 and at stores less than 100 yards from schools.

According to government statistics, four of every 10 Cubans smoke, and 30 percent of the 15,000 deaths from preventable cancers each year can be linked to smoking.

News of the ban was first announced last month, when it was published in Cuba's National Gazette by the Commerce Ministry.

The resolution said the move was "taking into account the damage to human health caused by the consumption of cigarettes and cigars, with the objective of contributing to a change in the attitudes of our population."

But some Cubans didn't seem to know, or care, and continued to light up their black tobacco cigarettes in enclosed areas now designated as nonsmoking.

"I won't give you my name," a woman worker in an office building in Old Havana said as she stubbed out her filterless cigarette in a hallway ashtray by the elevator.

Cigar exports continue to play a key economic role, generating $200 million annually.

Cuban President Fidel Castro, who gave up smoking years ago, once joked about giving away boxes of cigars, saying "the best thing to do is give them to your enemy."

damn! another CIA plot to kill Castro has failed...

[theavonlady 2]

One of these two may become Britain's future queen.

[HotShot 0]

There was a 1/2 hour speacial just on the annoucment of this, plus 20minutes of the regualr news on BBC1 was of this too, and then they came back to it again at the end, and it was on the London regional news, and also the main headline on all the other UK channel's news. Mean while, Shinn Fein was getting blasted, N. Korea say they have nukes, and Kofianan (dont think i've spelt that right) is in London, and they get at the most a few mins for each subject, and i dont remember UN one getting any coverage.

That doesn't seem right some how I doubt anyone cares that those 2 are getting married anymore than say Brad and Jennier Anersdon. If they (news broadcasts) were talking about the waste of money and such this may bring, OK, but not just that they're going to get married.

EDIT: Almost forgot, Ikea rampage too, didn't even get a look in on the main news

[theavonlady 2]

EDIT: Almost forgot, Ikea rampage too, didn't even get a look in on the main news  

That's already been posted on the War On Terror thread.

[theavonlady 2]

Mean while, Shinn Fein was getting blasted

I didn't know what you were referring to until now.

Quote[/b] ]Commission Says Sinn Fein Backed N.Irish Bank Raid

1 hour, 51 minutes ago World - Reuters

By Alex Richardson

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - Senior members of Sinn Fein -- Northern Ireland's largest republican party -- approved a huge bank robbery in Belfast carried out by Irish Republican Army guerrillas, the province's cease-fire watchdog said Thursday.

In a special report, the Independent Monitoring Commission echoed police and politicians on both sides of the Irish border in blaming the IRA for the $50 million theft at the headquarters of Northern Bank.

It also backed Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's suggestion that senior members of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally, had prior knowledge of the raid.

"We have carefully scrutinized all the material of different kinds that has become available to us since the robbery, which leads us to conclude firmly that it was planned and undertaken by the (Provisional) IRA," the IMC said in its report.

It said it believed IRA guerrillas also carried out three other robberies last year before the December bank raid.

"In our view Sinn Fein must bear its share of responsibility for all the incidents," it said. "Some of its senior members, who are also senior members of PIRA, were involved in sanctioning the series of robberies."

Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, the biggest party representing Northern Ireland's minority Catholics, is expected to respond to the report later in the day.

The fallout from the December 20 raid has dealt a huge blow to Anglo-Irish efforts to hand the running of the British-ruled province back to its divided Protestant and Catholic parties. The commission said that had Northern Ireland's legislative assembly been sitting, it would have recommended punishing Sinn Fein by a period of exclusion from political office.

"(We) recommend that the Secretary of State should consider exercising the powers he has in the absence of the assembly to implement the measures which are presently applicable, namely the financial ones," it added.

PUNISH VIOLATIONS

The IMC -- set up by Britain and Ireland to rule on whether rival paramilitary groups are sticking to peace pledges -- can recommend punishments for political parties linked to organizations it deems guilty of cease-fire violations.

Its four members are appointed by London, Dublin and Washington, and include a former head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism squad and an ex-deputy director of the CIA.

Britain fined Sinn Fein after the IMC's first report recommended financial sanctions over alleged IRA activity.

Protestant unionists -- who support the union with Britain -- are refusing to share power with Sinn Fein -- which wants the province to become part of the Irish Republic -- until the IRA disbands. London and Dublin have accused the IRA of blocking progress by clinging to paramilitarism and criminality.

Last week the IRA responded to the criticism being heaped on it by withdrawing a conditional offer to disarm -- made during aborted negotiations late last year -- and accused Britain and Ireland of "making a mess of the peace process."

Although the violence which claimed more than 3,600 lives in Northern Ireland over 30 years has largely stopped, politics has been deadlocked since 2002 when the regional government set up to share power between the two communities broke down.

Both Dublin and London have said they want to continue all-party talks on restoring the assembly but that Sinn Fein must severe all links with criminal and paramilitary activity if progress is to be made.

Police investigating the Northern Bank robbery were continuing a major search operation Thursday at two houses and a scrapyard near Beragh, in the west of the province.

A leopard doesn't change its spots.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]UNITED NATIONS — A scandal about the sexual abuse of Congolese women and children by U.N. officials and peacekeepers intensified Friday with the broadcast of explicit pictures of a French U.N. worker and Congolese girls and his claim that there was a network of pedophiles at the U.N. mission in Congo.

ABC News’ “20/20†program showed pictures taken from the computer of a French U.N. transport worker. The hard drive reportedly contained thousands of photos of him with hundreds of girls. In one frame, a tear can be seen rolling down the cheek of a victim.

The news report coincided with the U.N.’s new “zero-contact†rule banning any interaction between U.N. soldiers and locals in Congo.

The staffer, Didier Bourguet, 41, is facing charges of sexual abuse and rape in France. His lawyer, Claude de Boosere- Lepidi, said in court last week that there was a network of U.N. personnel who had sex with underage girls and that Bourguet had engaged in similar activity in a previous U.N. posting in the Central African Republic.

Bourguet’s case is the only one that has been prosecuted among 150 allegations against about 50 soldiers and U.N. civilian officials who have served in the Congo peacekeeping mission. At least seven cases of sexual exploitation and abuse have been documented against peacekeepers based in Bunia, a northeastern town. One civilian has been suspended until the investigation is complete, and another has resigned. The U.N. is conducting further investigations and expects to find more cases.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent a letter to the Security Council on Wednesday announcing a set of strict measures designed to stem the sexual abuse that has haunted peacekeeping operations for decades. The Democratic Republic of Congo has the U.N.’s largest peacekeeping mission, with 13,950 soldiers and 1,875 civilian employees, and thus has the greatest potential for problems.

Peacekeepers are no longer allowed to have contact with Congolese except to carry out their official duties, and cannot even buy fruit from vendors; they must wear their uniform even when off-duty or off their base. A general curfew has been imposed from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and bars and some cafes have been designated off limits to U.N. soldiers and civilians. Offenders will be repatriated.

[theavonlady 2]

I'm sorry. I dropped a pin.

[ran 0]

Quote[/b] ]

Beirut blast kills former Lebanese PM Hariri

By Bassem Mroue and Joseph Panossian, AP

14 February 2005

The former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed today when a massive bomb explosion tore through his motorcade on Beirut's famed seafront corniche.

"He's dead," said Tourism Minister Farid Khazen as he left the scene of the explosion. The explosion killed at least nine other people, including several of his bodyguards.

At least 20 cars were set on fire in a blast that devastated the front of the famous St George Hotel, blowing off balconies.

Explosions in Beirut - while common during the 1975-90 civil war - have become rare since the conflict ended.

However, in October, amid rising tensions between the government and opposition groups, a car bomb seriously injured an opposition politician and killed his driver in Beirut.

Hariri was a self-made billionaire who led Lebanon for 10 of the years since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. Since he resigned in October, he has been considered in the opposition. He has been in a rivalry with pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud for years.

Witnesses at the scene confirmed that Hariri's motorcade had just passed the area shortly before the bomb went off.

TV footage showed dramatic scenes of one burning man struggling to get out of a car window, then falling on the ground. He was helped by a bystander who used his jacket to put out the flames, but it was not clear if he survived.

a new civil war anyone ?

[theavonlady 2]

Quote[/b] ]

Beirut blast kills former Lebanese PM Hariri.

ISn't there an ME thread?

Quote[/b] ]a new civil war anyone ?

Nah! Syria and Hizbalah squelching the opposition?

Who's gonna fight them? So many Lebanese Christians have fled the country over the last 20 years.

[Placebo 28]

Take it to the ME thread please.

[theavonlady 2]

Quote[/b] ]UNITED NATIONS — A scandal about the sexual abuse of Congolese women and children by U.N. officials and peacekeepers intensified Friday with the broadcast of explicit pictures of a French U.N. worker and Congolese girls and his claim that there was a network of pedophiles at the U.N. mission in Congo.

ABC News’ “20/20†program showed pictures taken from the computer of a French U.N. transport worker. The hard drive reportedly contained thousands of photos of him with hundreds of girls. In one frame, a tear can be seen rolling down the cheek of a victim.

The news report coincided with the U.N.’s new “zero-contact†rule banning any interaction between U.N. soldiers and locals in Congo.

The staffer, Didier Bourguet, 41, is facing charges of sexual abuse and rape in France. His lawyer, Claude de Boosere- Lepidi, said in court last week that there was a network of U.N. personnel who had sex with underage girls and that Bourguet had engaged in similar activity in a previous U.N. posting in the Central African Republic.

Bourguet’s case is the only one that has been prosecuted among 150 allegations against about 50 soldiers and U.N. civilian officials who have served in the Congo peacekeeping mission. At least seven cases of sexual exploitation and abuse have been documented against peacekeepers based in Bunia, a northeastern town. One civilian has been suspended until the investigation is complete, and another has resigned. The U.N. is conducting further investigations and expects to find more cases.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent a letter to the Security Council on Wednesday announcing a set of strict measures designed to stem the sexual abuse that has haunted peacekeeping operations for decades. The Democratic Republic of Congo has the U.N.’s largest peacekeeping mission, with 13,950 soldiers and 1,875 civilian employees, and thus has the greatest potential for problems.

Peacekeepers are no longer allowed to have contact with Congolese except to carry out their official duties, and cannot even buy fruit from vendors; they must wear their uniform even when off-duty or off their base. A general curfew has been imposed from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and bars and some cafes have been designated off limits to U.N. soldiers and civilians. Offenders will be repatriated.

Meanwhile, back at the Ponderosa:

Quote[/b] ]U.N. Refugee Chief Resigns Over Scandal

38 minutes ago U.S. National - AP

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. refugee chief told Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Sunday he was resigning because of a lack of confidence in him over sexual harassment allegations.

Ruud Lubbers' letter of resignation as U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees was sent to Annan on Sunday, a spokesman said.

"The complaint of sexual harassment could not be substantiated," Lubbers wrote.

"For more than four years I gave all my energy to UNHCR. Now in the middle of a series of problems and with ongoing media pressure you apparently view this differently."

After allegations first surfaced last year that Lubbers made unwanted sexual advances toward a female employee, Annan said there were insufficient grounds to fire him.

But on Friday, Annan consulted lawyers, clearly angered at the resurgence of sexual harassment allegations following publication by the British newspaper, The Independent, of details of a previously secret U.N. investigation of allegations that Lubbers sexually harassed a female employee. That report included graphic details.

Lubbers maintained his innocence and noted that Annan had closed the case in July after obtaining legal advice.

Indicating the secretary-general had decided it was time for him to go, Lubbers said, "To be frank, and despite all my loyalty, insult has now been added to injury and therefore I resign as high commissioner."

He criticized U.N. investigators of compiling a biased report and of constantly leaking developments to the news media, and he rejected the investigators' allegation that employees feared retaliation if they complained.

"There was no retaliation at all," Lubbers said.

Lubbers told Annan he would continue to be available to UNHCR "until you have found the successor and she or he is confirmed by the General Assembly and ready to take over."

At an impromptu news conference Friday after his meeting with Annan, Lubbers said allegations of sexual harassment against him were "made up" and "slander," and said Annan did not ask for his resignation.

[theavonlady 2]

Meanwhile, back at the Ponderosa:

Quote[/b] ]U.N. Refugee Chief Resigns Over Scandal

38 minutes ago   U.S. National - AP

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. refugee chief told Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Sunday he was resigning because of a lack of confidence in him over sexual harassment allegations.

Ruud Lubbers' letter of resignation as U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees was sent to Annan on Sunday, a spokesman said.

/avon drops another pin

Quote[/b] ]Lawyer: Annan Covered Up for Old Friend

Monday, February 21, 2005

BACKGROUND

•U.N. Refugee Chief Resigns Amid Scandal•U.N. Official Responds to Oil-for-Food Report•Panel: Documents Implicate Oil-for-Food Chief•U.N. Office Tries to Save Annan's Job•AP: Sevan Blocked Oil-For-Food Audit•Charting Oil-for-Food's Trail in the U.S.•U.N. Chief No Stranger to Controversy

UNITED NATIONS — The lawyer for a woman who accused a senior United Nations official of sexual harassment said he believes that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan covered up for an old friend by letting him keep his job despite the harassment charges.

The accusation follows Sunday's resignation by Ruud Lubber, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees. Lubbers, a former Dutch prime minister, has insisted he's innocent of charges that he sexually harassed female staffers and has said he felt insulted, accusing U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan of giving in to "media pressure."

The sexual harassment allegations were made against Lubbers in April 2004. In May of that year, an investigation into those claims was launched by the United Nations and the investigators backed the woman's claims.

But in July, Annan ruled that no further action be taken. He also kept the report secret.

The report was then leaked to FOX News last Friday, the same day Annan was holding a long-scheduled meeting with Lubbers. U.N. diplomats told The Associated Press that the secretary-general offered Lubbers two choices -- resign or face suspension and charges of breaking U.N. rules.

Two days later, Lubbers resigned.

Annan's decision has left those familiar with the case, both inside and outside the United Nations, bemused. "This resignation should have happened a long time ago," one high-ranking U.N. official told FOX News.

The alleged victim's lawyer said Annan was simply trying to give a friend a break.

"Yes, in my opinion, absolutely," Annan was involved in a cover-up, said lawyer Ed Flaherty. "Again, there being no new facts between what Mr. Annan had in July of 2004 and yesterday, that in my mind was the only explanation."

Further evidence of Annan's determination to keep the report secret appears to come in a series of letter exchanged between the United Nations and the alleged victim in this case, which has been obtained by FOX News.

The letters show that the alleged victim, an American woman who was a 24-year veteran of the United Nations, repeatedly appealed to Annan to allow her to see the report into the allegations she made. Her request was consistently turned down, as shown by the letter.

Messages left for U.N. officials by FOX News seeking an explanation for this have not yet been returned.

FOX News' Jonathan Hunt contributed to this report.

[belgerot 33]

UN is a piece of crap anyway, figures even Annan has been up to his own agenda

[theavonlady 2]

And the beat goes on.............

Quote[/b] ]The Real Refugee Scandal

It's a matter of life and death, not sex.

BY CLAUDIA ROSETT

Wednesday, February 23, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

So prolific in scandal has the United Nations become that it's getting hard to keep tabs. You can surf the channels, from rape by peacekeepers in the Congo, to theft at the World Meteorological Organization, to a Human Rights Commission crammed with despots; from inadequate auditing to botched management to wasted money to running the biggest heist in the history of humanitarian work--the Oil for Food program in Saddam's Iraq.

An aggrieved Secretary-General Kofi Annan has chosen to describe the reporting of such outrages as "attacks on the United Nations"--as if the problem lay in the reporting, rather than the scandalous behavior that is the real threat to the U.N.'s peace-and-human-dignity mandate. But at least a little daylight has prompted some acknowledgement from the U.N. Secretariat itself that there is a need, as Mr. Annan's new chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, just wrote in London's Sunday Times, for reform at the U.N. "through deeds, not words."

Fine, let's look to the deeds. One test of that promised reform will be the next move at the U.N.'s refugee office, where High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers resigned Monday over allegations that he had sexually harassed a woman who worked for him. The allegations were not new. The U.N.'s internal auditors concluded last June, in a secret report, that Mr. Lubbers had engaged in "misconduct and abuse of authority" by way of "unwanted physical contact with the complainant." This report was submitted months ago to Mr. Annan, who ignored the findings, and kept Mr. Lubbers on, until the press last week got hold of the document. In the ensuing flap, Mr. Lubbers resigned.

But that's hardly the worst outrage that's been bubbling at the UNHCR. If you believe in the U.N. charter's promise to promote "justice and respect for obligations arising from treaties," along with "the dignity and worth of the human person," then the real scandal--less racy, but colossally more devastating in human cost--has been the UNHCR's failure in recent years to stand up for refugees fleeing North Korea. The problem here is not, as far as I am aware, one of embezzlement or fraud. Nor is it on a par with any amount of sexual harassment in the comfortable Geneva headquarters of the UNHCR--however upsetting that might be. The true horror is the way in which the well-mannered nuances of U.N. bureaucracy, structure and management have combined to dismiss demurely the desperate needs of hundreds of thousands of human beings fleeing famine and repression in the world's worst totalitarian state.

The situation, by U.N. lights, is of course complex. For more than a decade, North Koreans have been fleeing their country by the only avenue even partly open to them--past the northern border patrols, into China. An estimated 300,000 North Koreans are in hiding in China today. They have a well-founded fear of persecution, should they be sent back. Testimony has stacked up high and wide--much of it over the past four years, on Mr. Lubbers's watch-- that if returned these refugees would likely end up starved or worked to death in the labor camps of Kim Jong Il. Some are murdered outright. One recent dispatch from a South Korean private aid group, the Headquarters for the Protection of North Korean Defectors, reports that according to sources inside North Korea the regime there just last month executed some 60 North Korean would-be defectors sent back by China, killing at least eight in public, in the northern city of Chongjin--to deter others from making a run for it.

Such would-be refugees have been dying faceless, nameless and scarcely even remarked upon by the world community. But these were human beings. They had faces and names. From what we know of conditions in North Korean detention centers, it's a good bet they were freezing, famished and quite possibly tortured in the hours before they were then murdered in public due to the combined and systematic state policies of China and North Korea.

Where is the U.N. in all this? Under the U.N. Refugee Convention--which Beijing has signed and the UNHCR, with its $1.1 billion budget, is supposed to administer--these North Koreans refugees had rights. The convention promised them not a return to their deaths, but at least safe transit through China to a place of asylum.

The UNHCR keeps an office in Beijing, with a budget this year totaling $4.4 million, to which asylum seekers have no access. Four years ago, a family of North Korean refugees actually stormed the premises and gained asylum after threatening to eat rat poison from their pockets if forced back out onto the street. Since then, the UNHCR has allowed China's security agents to better defend the compound against further visits by the people the UNHCR is supposedly in China to protect.

For years now, the U.N. policy in dealing with North Korean refugees in China has been one of what its spokesmen call "quiet diplomacy." The hushed implication is that behind the scenes, the UNHCR is in deep and earnest discussion with the Chinese authorities. No doubt. And there has been some help for a small number, mainly by way of easing them quietly out of the country once they have risked their lives by storming foreign compounds other than the UNHCR's. But the broad picture, for the hundreds of thousands, is a quiet but dire absence of any help whatsoever.

Ask the U.N. to explain its procedure for processing North Korean refugees in China. There is none. The UNHCR's Beijing representative referred me to the organization's Geneva headquarters. There, a spokeswoman in the midst of dealing with the Lubbers sex scandal wondered why it would be of interest at this moment of crisis to discuss North Korean refugees. "Why today?"

Why? Because after more than a decade of what this spokeswoman described as "low profile" diplomacy, the UNHCR, has failed these refugees, and done abysmally little to alert the world. Two years ago, Mr. Lubbers finally designated them a population "of concern," and there the matter sits, as people quietly die. With the UNHCR's top job now open for new management, it is less the new office etiquette in Geneva that should serve as a yardstick of reform, but whether or not there will now be deeds to save the refugees of North Korea.

Ms. Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Her column appears here and in The Wall Street Journal Europe on alternate Wednesdays.

[brgnorway 0]

UN is a piece of crap anyway, figures even Annan has been up to his own agenda

Yeah right, sometimes I just wonder about stupidity!

UN is an idea about cooperation to avoid the enormous failures that led to tragic events like the Great War and WWII.

If the idea and organisation crumbles it's not about UN itself but the lack of support from its most important members. Guess which one and guess which nation who loathed Boutros Boutros Gali as they do with the present one - only because they dared speak against the mighty US of A.

In a large organisation as UN there is bound to be corruption and crime. It's inevitable as in any organisation of that size and with so many interests at stake. Mind you, some of the scandals have certainly been instigated and perpetrated/orchestrated by US!

So, if US says UN has become "irrelevant" - the very same word they used on the "old Europe" it's because they feel strong enough to be without both UN and Old Europe. Don't you feel it's a little bit strange when Bushiewushy tour "old Europe and cries for help in Iraq and that they all of a sudden - after being bogged down in Iraq - condones the legitimacy of UN in Iraq and wants its memberstates to share the burden.

[Colossus 2]

Quote[/b] ]The European Court of Human Rights has ruled

that Russia committed serious abuses, including torture and

extra-judicial killing, in Chechnya.

The ruling came after the Strasbourg-based court hear

claims brought by six Chechens.

Russia accuses the West of hypocrisy and double standard

in its criticism of Russia's conduct in Chechnya.

It is the first time an international court has found Moscow

guilty of serious violations in Chechnya.

The judges said Moscow had breached an article of the

European Convention on Human Rights guaranteeing the right

to life.

The Chechen plaintiffs had also been denied their right to a

full hearing in domestic courts, the judges said.

In one case, they ruled, Russia had breached a clause on the

protection of property.

And in two others, the court found that Russia had violated

the ban on torture and inhumane or degrading treatment.

The court ordered the Russian government to pay about

136,000 euros ($180,000; Å94,000) in compensation to the

six plaintiffs.

But the Kremlin is now likely to use its right of appeal, to

have the case referred to the court's grand chamber within

the next three months.

Good news for rights defenders

Some 120 cases brought by Chechens alleging Russia had

violated their rights are pending before the court.

And Thursday's ruling will hearten the Russian and

international human rights groups that have worked to

publicise what they say are ongoing Russian abuses in

Chechnya.

Moscow is under pressure from the international community

to negotiate with Chechen rebels, and to account for alleged

human rights violations.

But there is little appetite in Moscow to listen to foreign

criticism of its hard-line policies.

Indeed, following the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandals involving

American and British troops, Moscow has simply brushed

foreign criticism aside, saying it results from ignorance and

anti-Russian prejudice.

Russia started its war against separatists in the breakaway

republic in 1994.

It pulled out the troops following a truce in 1996, but

renewed the war in 1999 after incursions by Chechen

guerrillas in neighbouring Dagestan.

BBC News

136,000 euros is nothing compare to the total damage of the land.

[USSRsniper 0]

Russia committed serious abuses, including torture and

extra-judicial killing, in Chechnya.

LOL

Russia and russian soldiers its big differnce..

is this about torturing civilians? if its not i think terrorists must be tortured  

For example if you friend gets captured they you get video where terrorists show how they cutt his head off you would hate all chechens too.

And why money? money wont do anything good...

And about damage.. russian soldiers didnt destroy buildings for fun.. if you have heavy casulties while clearing building.. one way to clear terrorists inside.. its just to destroy building   War without damages is impossible

[Colossus 2]

For example if you friend gets captured they you get video where terrorists show how they cutt his head off you would hate all chechens too.

If Russian terrorist captured my friend and killed him should I hate all Russians too?

The defenition of terrorism is change after 9/11.

What I see in Chechnia is rebellion not terrorism,

but then again what happend on that school is terrorism.

And why money? money wont do anything good...

Well it would hurt the economy of Russia and will have an effect on the military funding of the Chechnian war.

So money has it's effect on everything.

[bn880 5]

Russia committed serious abuses, including torture and

extra-judicial killing, in Chechnya.

LOL

Russia and russian soldiers its big differnce..

Wait wait, it's not totally seperate, the thing is Russia could have stopped/clamped down on this very early on, but they didn't. I mean when you send the worst trained and inexperienced people to fight your wars, then yeah, shit happens even more than usual.

Don't blame it all on the individuals, they had poor training, extremely poor in some cases, giving them horrendous characters. All I'm saying is, mother Russia has responsibility here, no one in that govt. was actually _dumb_, they knew.

[nSe7eN 0]

Russia committed serious abuses, including torture and

extra-judicial killing, in Chechnya.

LOL

Russia and russian soldiers its big differnce..

is this about torturing civilians? if its not i think terrorists must be tortured

For example if you friend gets captured they you get video where terrorists show how they cutt his head off you would hate all chechens too.

And why money? money wont do anything good...

And about damage.. russian soldiers didnt destroy buildings for fun.. if you have heavy casulties while clearing building.. one way to clear terrorists inside.. its just to destroy building War without damages is impossible

Yeah sure! Like Russia gives fuck for the people!

No war without casualties agreed, but there is so many ways to make them less than the current line, did Russia done anything to insure those civilians safety?

You know if they knew that someone they want him dead real bad in some area and they currently have some soldiers in the same spot they will bomb the area killing there own soldiers just to make sure of that!

You remember the theater incident don’t you?

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

nSe7eN- Whilst i too disagree with the thrust of USSRsnipers post i dont think the moscow theatre siege is particularly funny (117 or so civilians that died?). It seems a bit tasteless but perhaps its merely your meaning not coming across through the internet so i wont elaborate.