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InvisibleDiploidM
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Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil
    #7254074 - 08/03/07 01:04 AM (16 years, 7 months ago)

Russia's recent claims to vast swaths of the resource-rich Arctic highlight the need for Canada to defend its sovereignty in the region, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday.

While saying he doesn't know exactly what to make of Russia's latest move -- placing a Russian flag on the sea floor beneath the North Pole -- he said it shows Canada can't be complacent about the North.

"It shows once again that sovereignty over the North and sovereignty in our Arctic is going to be an important issue as we move into the future," Harper told reporters after a Conservative caucus meeting on Thursday in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

"This government has put a real emphasis on northern and Arctic sovereignty and we will continue to do so and we will move quickly in that regard."

The government plans to spend $7.5 billion to build and operate up to eight Arctic patrol ships in a bid to help protect northern sovereignty.

Earlier Thursday, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay dismissed the Russian move, calling the flag-planting tactics "just a show."

Russian explorers dived deep below the North Pole in a submersible on Thursday and planted a national flag on the seabed to stake a symbolic claim to the oil and gas wealth beneath the Arctic Ocean.

A mechanical arm dropped a rust-proof titanium Russian flag onto the Arctic seabed at a depth of 4,261 metres, Itar-Tass news agency quoted expedition officials as saying.

"Look, this isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming this territory,'" MacKay told CTV's Question Period co-host Jane Taber.

The foreign affairs minister asserted that there was no threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic, despite the latest claims by Russia.

"Our claims over our Arctic are very well-established," MacKay said in Charlottetown.

While Mackay hasn't been in direct communication with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, he said Ottawa was making regular contact with Russian officials through the embassy.

The Rossiya atomic icebreaker plowed a route to the North Pole through a sheet of multi-year ice, paving the path for the Akademik Fedorov research ship to follow, said Sergei Balyasnikov a spokesperson for the Arctic and Antarctic research institute that prepared the expedition.

The voyage, which is led by polar explorer and Russian legislator Artur Chilingarov, also has some scientific objectives, including the study of Arctic plants and animals.

But the main goal appears to be strengthening its legal claims to the resources believed to lie beneath the Arctic sea floor.

The symbolic gesture of dropping the Russian flag onto the seabed, is intended to bolster Moscow's claims to about 1.2 million square kilometres of the Arctic shelf.

According to some estimates, it may contain about 9 billion tonnes of oil and gas deposits.

Russia's expedition is partly over oil, but it is also symbolic, says Michael Byers, academic director at The Liu Institute for Global Issues.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 25 per cent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves are on the floor of the Arctic Ocean. But it is also about Russian domestic politics and international politics," Byers told CTV Newsnet.

"The Russian government seeks to remind people that Russia is a powerful country. ... This move to put a titanium flag on the floor of the ocean under the North Pole is a pretty impressive technological feat, even if it has no legal consequences."

About 100 scientists aboard the Akademik Fedorov are looking for evidence that the Lomonosov Ridge, a 2,000-kilometre-long underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region, is a geologic extension of Russia, and therefore can be claimed by it under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

"What Russia is doing in terms of collecting scientific evidence concerning the character of the seabed is actually part of a process at the United Nations whereby countries can claim continental shelves beyond the 320-kilometre mark," Byers said.

Moscow has claimed the polar region since at the least the days of the Bolsheviks.

In 2002, Russian officials argued to the United Nations that there was geological data backing their claim that the Arctic seabed and Siberia are linked by one continental shelf.

The UN dismissed Moscow's application then, citing lack of evidence, but Russia is expected to try again in 2009.

The expedition reflects an intense enmity between Russia, the United States, Canada and other countries -- whose shores face the polar ocean for the Arctic's icebound riches.

Last month, Ottawa said it would build up to eight patrol ships designed to operate in the frozen region in a bid to help protect its sovereignty.

"I think this is an opportunity for Canada to engage in some pro-active diplomacy and also to make its own contributions to this United Nations process by giving more money, more equipment to Canadian scientists so that they can match the Russian efforts on the Canadian side of the North Pole," said Byers.

With files from The Associated Press and The Canadian Press

ctv.ca


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Offlineledfut
I once jerkedoff w/ bothhands
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Registered: 02/22/07
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Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: Diploid]
    #7254076 - 08/03/07 01:06 AM (16 years, 7 months ago)

lol @ canadians trying to act tough.


--------------------
May our only occupation be not having a job.
May the only cocktails that we make be molitov.
-Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains

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Invisibleparadox_
Life as Shaun
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Registered: 07/17/07
Posts: 349
Loc: BC
Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: ledfut]
    #7254098 - 08/03/07 01:20 AM (16 years, 7 months ago)

Yeah great, they drop a $500 flag at the bottom of the ocean where nobody will ever see it and we spend 7.5 billion on a bunch of ships, which will probably float as well as those damn submarines. Good thing to have though. I mean, there's so much action up there what with all the ice. Oh right, and the polar bears too.

Do we even have the technology to profitably harvest that oil 4,261 some-odd metres below the sea? Ill bet the Russians are just laughing at us right now. It's like two children playing with a toy. The only reason the second child wants it is because the first has it.

Just goes to show what a retarded robot Harper is.

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Offlinekidaihuan
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Registered: 07/25/07
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Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: paradox_]
    #7254212 - 08/03/07 02:07 AM (16 years, 7 months ago)

The next thing we need is the conservative government deciding that another oil war would get Canada in the good books with the US...

...and with Russia?:sad:

I'm happy to be in China. Call it communist, but I'd be happy if I could one day call it home.

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Invisiblezorbman
blarrr
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Registered: 06/04/04
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Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: Diploid]
    #7254925 - 08/03/07 10:39 AM (16 years, 7 months ago)

I love it.

The planet is warming due largely to the burning of fossil fuels which uncovers our ice caps and what do we do?

Use it to find and burn more fossil fuels of course.


--------------------
“The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.”  -- Rudiger Dornbusch

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Invisiblejohnm214
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Posts: 17,582
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Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: zorbman]
    #7258568 - 08/04/07 09:27 AM (16 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

A mechanical arm dropped a rust-proof titanium Russian flag onto the Arctic seabed at a depth of 4,261 metres, Itar-Tass news agency quoted expedition officials as saying.

"Look, this isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming this territory,'" MacKay told CTV's Question Period co-host Jane Taber.




This has to be the funniest thing I've ever heard. "hey, lets sneak up north and put up our flag... " Russia is acting like a bunch of little kids

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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: johnm214]
    #7258571 - 08/04/07 09:30 AM (16 years, 7 months ago)


Quote:

“I’m not sure whether they’ve put a metal flag, a rubber flag or a bed sheet on the ocean floor,” Tom Casey, spokesman for the US State Department, said, affecting uncharacteristic jollity. “Either way, it doesn’t have any legal standing or effect on this claim.”



Edited by johnm214 (08/04/07 09:31 AM)

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OfflineBasilides
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Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: johnm214]
    #7258586 - 08/04/07 09:36 AM (16 years, 7 months ago)

Has anyone claimed space yet?

If not, I declare it to be mine.


--------------------


"Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."

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InvisibleLuddite
I watch Fox News
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Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: Diploid]
    #7258756 - 08/04/07 10:51 AM (16 years, 7 months ago)

The global warming alarmist hippies made the Russians take the artic oil and gas away from the west. We need to use coal as if there is no global warming. Screw the rest of the world.

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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: Basilides]
    #7260132 - 08/04/07 07:29 PM (16 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Basilides said:
Has anyone claimed space yet?

If not, I declare it to be mine.




Seems like its kind of an open question.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_real_estate

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InvisibleDisco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR

Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 2,601
Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: Diploid]
    #7268661 - 08/06/07 11:23 PM (16 years, 7 months ago)

Now the US is heading up there

http://en.rian.ru/world/20070802/70196501.html

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OfflineThe Crow
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Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: johnm214]
    #7268772 - 08/07/07 12:04 AM (16 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

johnm214 said:
Quote:

A mechanical arm dropped a rust-proof titanium Russian flag onto the Arctic seabed at a depth of 4,261 metres, Itar-Tass news agency quoted expedition officials as saying.

"Look, this isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming this territory,'" MacKay told CTV's Question Period co-host Jane Taber.




This has to be the funniest thing I've ever heard.  "hey, lets sneak up north and put up our flag... "  Russia is acting like a bunch of little kids




They didn't "sneak" over there.



LoL, I really don't know know what to make of this weird confontation, as I am a full citizen of both Russia and Canada. Russia has always been a little greedy, though...all that landmass...
We should solve our internal affairs, and get rid of Putin before trying to claim the North Pole :rofl:


But hey, Russia legalized ALL drugs in moderate amounts, so who can stay mad at 'em?


--------------------

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InvisibleDisco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR

Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 2,601
Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: Diploid]
    #7269215 - 08/07/07 04:29 AM (16 years, 7 months ago)

Harper to bolster Canada's territorial claims during Arctic visit

OTTAWA -- Assert Canada's Arctic sovereignty by depositing a titanium-encased Maple Leaf flag on the North Pole seabed? Forget it. It's not the Canadian way.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to rely, instead, on a combination of vigorous rhetoric and fresh spending and building initiatives to bolster Canada's territorial claims in the Arctic as he hopscotches across the North this week.

Among other things, the prime minister will presumably end the suspense and name the site for a long-promised deep-water port in the region, and possibly a military training centre as well.

The plan for a trip Friday to the Nunavut community of Nanisivik, site of an abandoned lead-zinc mine that still boasts an airport and an aged dock, has heightened speculation it could end up a winner.

Harper also will visit the nearby Northwest Passage community of Resolute Bay, a scientific research centre and another contender for fresh federal investments.

Harper's expedition opens Wednesday and involves stops in half a dozen spots in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut before wrapping up Friday in Iqaluit.

The first official stop is Fort Simpson, N.W.T., followed by a flying visit to nearby Nahanni National Park Reserve, home to a storied collection of wildlife, mountain ranges, hot springs, waterfalls and canyons, to illustrate the development challenges in the Arctic.

"The protection and enhancement of the environment along with sustainable development is something we must factor into any activity in the North," Carolyn Stewart Olsen, a spokeswoman for Harper, wrote in an e-mail.

Although planned for some weeks, the trip has proved timelier than anyone could have anticipated. It will give Harper the opportunity to counter the Russian government's latest startling bid to assert its sovereignty over a vast, potentially energy-rich stretch of the Arctic by planting a Russian flag -- which was encased in titanium -- on the North Pole seabed.

Since the Kremlin-backed expedition came to light late last month, Harper has faced stepped up calls from politicians and a leading Canadian expert on Arctic sovereignty to fight back diplomatically and also on the ground by changing course and purchasing full-fledged, year-round icebreakers capable of going anywhere, including the area the Russians are claiming.

Harper announced plans last month to spend about $7 billion on the construction, retrofitting and maintenance of up to eight specially reinforced Arctic patrol vessels capable of operating in ice up to a metre thick.

"Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic," Harper said at the time. "We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this government intends to use it."

Harper also promised anew that a deep-water port would be built in the Arctic to service the vessels.

The announcement of patrol vessels fell short, however, of the Conservatives' election promise to build three armed icebreakers capable of crashing through six-metre thick ice.

NDP Leader Jack Layton dismissed Harper's chosen vessels as "slushbreakers," and accused the government of relying too heavily on military activities to protect the country's Arctic sovereignty.

In an interview and an open letter to the prime minister, Layton said a more comprehensive approach to asserting sovereignty would require improving the social and economic health of remote communities, and investing in polar icebreakers for the Canadian Coast Guard that would be capable of breaking ice for commercial vessels and research activities. They also could help re-supply northern communities and provide search and rescue support.

Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia, has advocated purchasing two heavy icebreakers and putting more money into mapping Canada's northern continental shelf in support of future territorial claims.

Premier Joe Handley of the Northwest Territories and Mary Simon, a national Inuit leader, also have called on the government to revive the position of circumpolar ambassador, a job it axed last year.

Five polar countries - Canada, Russia, the U.S., Norway and Denmark - are competing to secure subsurface rights to the Arctic seabed, a vast expanse believed to hold billions of dollars in oil and gas deposits.

Harper's tour comes almost a year to the day after his first official trip North, during which he declared "action to protect our territorial integrity in the Arctic has never been more urgent."

The trip attracted almost no media coverage. Indeed, many Canadians would not have known the prime minister was in the North except that he took a high-profile verbal beating from critics for choosing the Arctic tour over accepting an invitation to appear at the 16th International AIDS conference in Toronto.

This time, Harper, who is traveling without his wife and children, is seeking national coverage.

In a rare nod to the parliamentary press gallery in Ottawa, Harper has arranged to have a small media entourage accompany him.

The prime minister has often made it difficult for Ottawa-based reporters to cover his domestic trips outside of the capital by providing little advance notice of his plans.

---------------------------------------------------------

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InvisibleDisco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR

Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 2,601
Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: The Crow]
    #7271234 - 08/07/07 05:38 PM (16 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

The Crow said:
LoL, I really don't know know what to make of this weird confontation, as I am a full citizen of both Russia and Canada. Russia has always been a little greedy, though...all that landmass...

We should solve our internal affairs, and get rid of Putin before trying to claim the North Pole :rofl:




What makes you want to get rid of Putin, and who would you prefer?


Quote:


But hey, Russia legalized ALL drugs in moderate amounts, so who can stay mad at 'em?



I haven't read that anywhere, can you clarify your comment?

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Invisiblezorbman
blarrr
Male


Registered: 06/04/04
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Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: Disco Cat]
    #7271241 - 08/07/07 05:42 PM (16 years, 7 months ago)

I agree. Putin needs to go.


--------------------
“The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.”  -- Rudiger Dornbusch

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InvisibleDisco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR

Registered: 09/15/00
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Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: zorbman]
    #7271255 - 08/07/07 05:46 PM (16 years, 7 months ago)

I was asking about why. He has an approval rating above 70% in his country, and 2/3rds want him to stay on as President for a 3rd term... so I'm wondering why Cow wants him to go. Are you Russian aswell?

Generally, when a US citizen wants Putin to go it's because they've been trained to dislike him by their own media and government, and it doesn't really carry any clout.

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InvisibleDiploidM
Cuban


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Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: Disco Cat]
    #7271278 - 08/07/07 05:55 PM (16 years, 7 months ago)

they've been trained to dislike him by their own media

You mean by the free media that Putin has cracked down on in Russia because he doesn't want them to report the Truth, kinda like what the Chinese do?

In America the media freely report, and the people decide for themselves. In Russia, Putin decides what news the people can hear at all. It's for their own good that they never read about Russian police oppression of the people, you see. It keeps them happy. :shake:

As for Putin's approval rating, well, when Husein ran Iraq, he got a 100% re-election vote. There was not a single vote against him out of millions. Of course, he controlled the media there too so who knows how accurate that vote count was. :shrug:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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InvisibleDisco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR

Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 2,601
Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: Diploid]
    #7271367 - 08/07/07 06:26 PM (16 years, 7 months ago)

Could you please be more serious than suggesting that Putin's approval is doctored ala Hussein?

That you think Putin is sheltering Russia from the Truth is a perfect example of how US citizens are trained, brainwashed, to harbor all these sentiments against Putin.

The media centers Putin cracked down on were funded by the US, and used by US spies to spread dissent in Russia the same way they did in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, which is why they were shut down. Why do you think the US cried so loudly when Russia cut them off?

As for political critics in their news, Russia still has many, and they are not shut down.

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InvisibleDisco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR

Registered: 09/15/00
Posts: 2,601
Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: Diploid]
    #7271391 - 08/07/07 06:33 PM (16 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Diploid said:
In America the media freely report, and the people decide for themselves.



Good one. I remember when the US decided on Iraq.

Quote:


In Russia, Putin decides what news the people can hear at all. It's for their own good that they never read about Russian police oppression of the people, you see. It keeps them happy. :shake:



What nonsense. Please do some research before running your mouth. I think my case of the US being trained to harbor specific beliefs concerning Russia is well proven by you.

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InvisibleDiploidM
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Loc: Rabbit Hole
Re: Russia Trying To Claim Ownership of the Arctic Ocean Floor and its Oil [Re: Disco Cat]
    #7271432 - 08/07/07 06:46 PM (16 years, 7 months ago)

Please do some research

OK. Here's a story by the BBC who last I checked wasn't an American brainwashing operation.

It's amazing how you criticize American free media but not a word about Russian government controlled media.

If you were in Russia saying the same thing about Russian media, you'd be disappeared and no one would ever know what happened to you.

But then hypocrites love to live in the US while they criticize it. You never see them moving to Russia where they can be part of that 70% approval rating Putin has garnered in part through control of what news the people can read.

--

news.bbc.co.uk

Russia has recorded no attacks resulting in massive loss of civilian life in the year since pro-Chechen militants seized the school in Beslan.

But in Chechnya itself, civilians continue to suffer as the separatist war grinds on - much of it unpublicised because of Russian media restrictions.

Hardly a night passes without a rebel ambush or a raid by security forces, the latter sometimes only reported by human rights groups.

Chechen refugees may no longer spend the freezing winters in tents. But many remain scattered outside their homeland, dispossessed and often living in atrocious conditions, on former dairy farms, in factories and train carriages.

"There hasn't been a war in Chechnya for three years - the war is over," Russian President Vladimir Putin told foreign reporters late last year.

Yet the violence that has engulfed Chechnya and spread
beyond has not receded, and Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who claimed the Beslan attack, does not rule out further mass hostage-takings.

As Beslan remembers its lost children, bitterness on both sides continues to drive a particularly brutal conflict.

Lonely fight

If the war is over for Vladimir Putin, it has only gone into its sixth year for the new appointed leader of the Chechen rebels, Abdul-Khalim Saydullayev.

In a speech released online last month, he said no political step taken in the West regarding Chechnya was comparable in significance to a single attack on Russian soldiers by Chechen fighters.

"If anybody really thinks the fate of the Chechen people is decided in Strasbourg, Washington or Moscow, they are deeply mistaken," he added.

Mr Saydullayev's speech suggests the rebels now despair of any meaningful outside intervention in Chechnya.

They argue that events like Beslan must be viewed alongside their own civilian losses and accuse Russia of pursuing "genocide".

That term has particularly painful associations after Stalin's mass deportation of Chechens and their Ingush neighbours in 1944 on suspicion of Nazi sympathies.

Tens of thousands of Chechens are thought to have perished before survivors were allowed to return from Central Asia in 1957. The event was a key Chechen argument for declaring independence in 1991, while other regions like Ingushetia and North Ossetia, where Beslan is located, were choosing to remain as autonomous republics.

Russia's indiscriminate bombing and shelling of Chechen towns and villages, particularly during the 1994-96 war, and "dirty war" tactics such as kidnappings, are widely believed to have radicalised Chechens further.

"It is undeniable that 'disappearances', killings, torture and ill-treatment continue to be a frequent occurrence, with abuses attributed to both federal and the various Chechen security forces, as well as Chechen armed opposition groups," Amnesty International's Victoria Webb told the BBC News website.

Adding fuel to the fire, many rebels view the conflict as a religious struggle, regarding themselves as Muslims pitted against a "godless" secular state.

Search for leadership

The death of Aslan Maskhadov in a Russian attack in March meant the loss of a veteran Chechen leader who had negotiated a peace deal before Vladimir Putin came to power.

He denounced the Beslan attackers as "madmen," while arguing that brutality by Russian troops may have driven them out of their senses.

Diederik Lohman of Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the rebels have long appeared to lack strong, central control.

"My sense has always been that it is a lot of loosely affiliated little groups that have more or less the same ideas about what they want to achieve, and use the same methods, but it is not necessarily coordinated," he told the BBC News website.

In his book Inside Putin's Russia, Andrew Jack contrasts Chechen fortunes to those of the neighbouring Ingush, whose success in peacefully forging a republic of their own within Russia he attributes largely to good political leadership at the right time.

Though ever a critic of Moscow's use of force, Ruslan Aushev earned broad respect as Ingush president.

At Beslan, he helped negotiate the release of 26 people, including babies, when he went into the school during the siege.

Minutes before the explosions began on the last day, he was still talking to the hostage-takers by telephone.

Impunity

An avowed aim of the Kremlin in the North Caucasus - "freedom and justice" - rings hollow for many.

Chechnya has become synonymous with a sense of impunity, as Beslan mothers demand prosecutions over the authorities' handling of the school siege, Chechens point to the small number of Russian soldiers prosecuted for human rights abuses and Russians demand justice for Russian civilians targeted under Chechen rebel rule.

At least 400 Beslan residents signed an open letter to the world on the anniversary of the siege declaring: "We do not want to live any longer in a country where human life means nothing."

Amnesty's Victoria Webb says the situation in Chechnya may be "one of the effects of a government policy that only pays lip service to human rights principles".

Russian security forces sent to Chechnya are influenced by two stereotypes: Chechens as criminals and Chechens as terrorists.

Chechens have been seen as playing a disproportionate part in organised crime in Russia's cities, while attacks on airliners and other civilian targets made for a summer of fear in Moscow before Beslan.

Russians who speak of "genocide" in Chechnya usually mean something very different: the fate of the estimated 270,000 Russians and other non-indigenous residents who made up nearly a quarter of Chechnya's population when the USSR broke up.

Largely abandoned by the Russian state, they quickly became scapegoats when the rebels declared independence.

Attempts to properly document the extent of the violence they suffered have run up against a wall of silence in Moscow.

In Chechnya, a few years after the second war began, there were practically no non-indigenous residents left, according to the Russian human rights group Memorial.

Now scattered across Russia, embittered Russian refugees pass on a message of unavenged wrongs.

Incalculable cost

"Next morning it snowed/After all the firing/The snow killed me/Put out a short life."

Dead City, Russian rock singer Yuri Shevchuk's requiem for Grozny, captures some of the horror of a war in which innocence may look out of place.

According to an HRW estimate, gleaned through field work among Chechen refugees in the absence of reliable figures from Moscow, a total of about 50,000 civilians died in the two wars, about a tenth of them children.

Beslan horrified Chechens too, Diederik Lohman points out, but the question many also ask is: "Where was the world when our children were dying under Russian bombs?"

--

Somehow I doubt that 70% of these hundreds of thousands of Russians caught up in this shit approve of Putin.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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