BRITISH HOSTAGES ALIVE AND WELL.

The two British aid workers, Camilla Carr and Jon James, who were kidnapped in Chechnya fourteen months ago, are alive and well but still in captivity. The British authorities have been given a videotape, apparently made quite recently, by a Russian member of parliament who received it from the couple’s kidnappers. It shows the couple in the room in which they are being kept, which they describe as windowless and airless. Carr, 40, and James, 38, were working in a children’s home in Chechnya when they were seized. In the video, the couple say they have been able to exchange letters with their two young sons, that they have a shortwave radio and that listening to the BBC World Service “keeps them sane.” The kidnappers are believed to have released the tape in order to prove to potential ransom-payers that the two are still alive. (BBC World Service, September 9)

FRESH TENSION IN MAKHACHKALA.