Ralf Goergens

The Russian hostage situation has been resolved bloodily, but the number of casualties is unknown so far:

Deutsche Welle
Interfax: All Hostages Freed

BBC
Bloody end to Russia school siege

CNN
Bloody end to school siege

Fox News
Russian Forces Storm School; Gunfire Continues

ABC News/Reuters
Soldiers Fight Rebels to End Russian School Siege

(While I wrote the post, several headlines changed)

Surprisingly the number of hostages was close to 1.500, and not just 200, as previously thought.

Update (1:45 PM CET): According to German news, 15 hostage takers have been killed, and 200 hostages have been injured. There still are no reliable reports about the number of dead hostages (due to the power of some of the explosions there have to be at least some).

Update II (2:10 PM CET): German news report that 10 hostages have been killed, and 120 of the wounded are children. At this point there may still be some gun battles.

The situation seems to have been escalated by a badly prepared assault by the Russian special forces, not by the terrorists.

While I’m writing this the number of reported deaths fluctuates between 7 and 150, so there is still a lot of confusion.

13 terrorists seem to have escaped, some may still be in the building.

Update III (2:25 PM CET) Unsubstantiated reports by Russian media: Many have died when part of the roof collapsed.

Exact numbers are still hard to come by. Many parents seem to have taken their children straight home, instead of having them taken to hospitals by police and ambulances.

Update IV (3:05 PM CET) Via CNN: ITV News reports that there about a hundred dead bodies in the school’s gym

Update V (6:02 PM CET) Via Outside the Beltway: Here is a very good timeline at the BBC website

The latest entries so far:

1540: The bodies of sixty victims of the siege have been identified.

1530: Officials say the death toll could be much higher than 150.

1520: Presidential adviser Aslambek Aslakhanov says that there were at least nine Arabs among the hostage-takers.

1514: Officials say that some children are still being held hostage.

1450: Interfax reports three rebels have blockaded themselves into Russian school basement, possibly including head hostage-taker.

1440: Regional emergency officials confirm that there are at least 100 dead bodies in the school gym.

In 1998 the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir Mohamed sacked his Deputy Anwar Ibrahim and had him jailed and convicted on trumped-up charges. Now that Mohamed now longer is the power in the land, Malaysian courts finally acknowledge that there was no case against Anwar in the first place:

Malaysian former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has been set free from jail after the country’s highest court overturned his sodomy conviction.

The decision came six years to the day after his mentor-turned-rival, former leader Mahathir Mohammed, sacked him following a row over the economy.

Mr Anwar has always argued that charges against him were politically motivated.

…

His original trials had been widely condemned as flawed and Malaysia’s federal court accepted that his sodomy conviction was unsafe.

The court was reviewing an earlier rejection of Mr Anwar’s appeal – but decided to quash the original conviction by a vote of 2-1.

“We allow the sentence and conviction to be set aside. We find the High Court misdirected itself. He should have been acquitted,” said Judge Abdul Hamid Mohamad, head of a three-judge panel.

…

In reviewing the evidence, the court decided the prosecution’s key witness was unreliable and in effect an accomplice.

…

The court also concluded that Mr Anwar’s co-accused did not appear to have confessed voluntarily, and expressed concern that the police had been heavy-handed.

The judges therefore concluded that Mr Anwar should have been acquitted without having to enter a defence as the prosecution had not managed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.

I posted about Mahatir Mohamed before: A moderate in his own special way

And by the standards of Muslim heads of government he was, Anwar is still alive.

I think this complements Michael`s post about attempts to impeach Tony Blair quite nicely:

Michael Howard last night accused George Bush of seeking to protect Tony Blair in an extraordinary row sparked by news that the Tory leader has been banned from the White House.

Mr Howard hit back after it emerged that his calls for Mr Blair to stand down over the Iraq war have enraged the US President. The simmering feud was
laid bare yesterday as it emerged that Karl Rove, Mr Bush’s most powerful official, told the Tory leader that he “could forget about meeting the President”.

Read more

I now set up my own website so I can host images from there. Jonathan offered to host my images via Chicagoboyz, but I don’t want to hog the space when my ISP offers some for free anyway. I tried the Yahoo photo service and Geocities first, for they are free too and don’t require the use of FTP programs, but they cut way down on the image size and don’t let you directly link to your images.

Update: I replaced the original one for a smaller image. Sorry about the inconvenience.