[Franz Josef]

Today's the first anninversary of the Beslan tragedy when circa 300 died (half of them kids) at a school in North Ossetia in Russia. Terrorists rigged a school with explosives. Unimaginable . I remember the day well - I spent it comparing news reports of the event (Russian, German, US and UK). The town itself has only 30,000 so it's a fair bet that every family either lost a member or had a friend or neighbour who was killed or injured.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4203250.stm
http://www.tagesschau.de/aktuell/mel...F1_BAB,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan

Oddly, the website (www.beslan.ru) appears to be unrecognised and not just overloaded with traffic - was up and running yesterday

[Mac+]

The www.beslan.ru website is running fine now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_...hostage_crisis - for a detailed account of the events and aftermath.

What a tragedy on so many levels. May the families, relatives and friends of the deceased find solace somehow in their lifetime.

[Franz Josef]

Today's the anniversary of the end of the Beslan siege. A tragic affair . For those not entirely sure where Beslan is - it's really just on the edge of Europe, in the Caucasus. During WWII, the Caucasus was the bit of Russia Hitler was trying to occupy (because of its oil) when part of his army got distracted and had its ass kicked at Stalingrad.

Beslan seems important to me because hundreds of kids were deliberately targeted by terrorists, becuase so many died and because Russia seemed to show blatant disregard for the life of its citizens in the rescue (as happened in the Moscow theatre siege which was also linked to Chechnya).

It's a dreadful piece of European hiostory.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4210628.stm