BRIEFS

–150,000 CHECHEN REFUGEES IN EUROPE

As many as 150,000 Chechen refugees are in Europe, Kavkazky Uzel reported on January 18, citing Prague Watchdog. According to the website, while the exact number of Chechen refugees in Europe is unknown because they are categorized simply as Russian citizens, “it is known that 95 percent of refugees from Europe are Chechens.” Most of the refugees in Europe in 2003 and 2004 were from Russia, meaning the number of Chechens among them was in the range of 100,000-150,000.

–CHECHNYA MAKES MSF TOP TEN

The international humanitarian medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has included Chechnya among its “Top Ten” most underreported humanitarian stories in 2005, PNNOnline reports. “Caught in a stranglehold between Russian Federation forces and Chechen armed groups, traumatized civilians continue to bear the brunt of this conflict of attrition and find they have nowhere to go to be safe,” MSF wrote. The Congo, Haiti, Sudan, Somalia and Colombia were also on the MSF list.

–QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I’ve already killed who I should have killed. And I will kill all of those standing behind them, as long as I myself am not killed or jailed. I will be killing as long as I live… Putin is a beauty. He thinks more about Chechnya than about any other republic. When my father was murdered, he [Putin] personally came down and went to the cemetery. Putin stopped the war. Putin should be made president for life. Strong rule is needed. Democracy is an American invention… Russians never obey their laws. Everyone stole, and only Khodorkovsky is in jail.” —from an interview with Ramzan Kadyrov published in the October 2005 issue of the Russian GQ magazine, as quoted by the grani.ru website on January 18.