QUOTATION OF THE YEAR:
�If there were no elections, they would be worthy to be invented for the sake of this moment of truth.�
Nursultan Nazarbaev
ALMATY, Dec 23
(THE GLOBE based on
materials by media)
One thousand five hundred volunteers accompanied by the Russian army entered Grozny, the Russian Service of BBC announced on Thursday, December 23 referring to the former mayor of the Chechen capital Beslan Gantamirov.
Gazeta.ru, referring to Gantamirov�s press-secretary wrote that a troop of the former mayor entered Grozny on Wednesday evening. Besides, officers of the new administration came to the city. Vahid Mahchaev appointed the new mayor. According to the press-secretary, Beslan Gantamirov asked for a week to establish complete control for Grozny.
The Russian Defense Ministry neither confirms nor refutes this information.
On Thursday after the situation in Chechnya had been discussed with the Russian Foreign Ministry Igor Ivanov, the first deputy US State Secretary Strobe Telbott blamed the Russian government for violating the international laws in the Caucasian republic, according to Russian media.
In connection with this, the BBC review about some Chechen people�s complaints is noteworthy. In Ingushetia they complained to a representative of the UN Supreme Commission on Refugees that the authorities did not give them food, as they tried to make them return home. According to Enders, despite there was enough foodstuffs, officials rejected to provide refugees from released regions with food. On the other hand, Gazeta.ru referring to Russian special services states that there is no western reporter in Chechnya. All video-materials are prepared by Chechen stringers (free journalists) and transmitted via Georgia. This electron newspapers thinks that western media do not principally use Russian materials. To prove their subjectivity, Gazeta.ru quotes an Italian journalist: �If I bring a material about Russian attack and peaceful life in the released regions in Chechnya, of course they will not retire me, but will look at me as at an idiot.�
Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry presented the official information that 357 Russian soldiers had died in Chechnya.
CEBU, Philippines, Dec 23 (AFP)
Sixty people were still missing and nine others were confirmed dead when an overcrowded ferry with 660 people aboard sank Thursday off the central Philippine island of Cebu two days before Christmas, officials said.
Officials said search efforts were continuing into the night to find more survivors from the ill-fated MV Asia-South Korea, which sank 10 nautical miles off Bantayan island at dawn Thursday after being battered by strong waves.
Cebu coastguard chief Commander Franklin Llanto said at least two civilian vessels and three Philippine navy boats rescued most of the survivors and the waters were still being scoured despite the bad weather.
An �emergency command� post has been set up in a coastal town in Cebu to receive some of the survivors, officials said.
�Operations are ongoing,� Llanto said.
An official report by the armed forces in Manila said as of 4:30 p.m. (0830 GMT) 591 survivors had been rescued and nine bodies, including that of a 37-year-old woman and a boy, were recovered. Sixty others remained unaccounted for.
The military report showed that a total 660 passengers and crew were aboard the ferry, 20 more than its authorized capacity of 640.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
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