Radical Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev today claimed in an internet posting that Russian security services bore responsibility for last year’s bloody Beslan school siege by allegedly providing the attackers a safe corridor through the region in an attempt to trap them.

Nur-Pashi Kulayev, the sole defendant in the trial over the Beslan school raid in southern Russia that killed more than 330 people, pleaded not guilty to all charges when he appeared in court in Vladikavkaz today.

Distraught parents and grandparents of children killed in the Beslan school massacre last year blocked a busy route in southern Russia for a second day today in a call for the regional president to step down.

THE Russian Duma marked its first session since the Beslan siege yesterday by rejecting a motion to restore capital punishment.

CHECHEN envoy Akhmed Zakayev said yesterday he fears there will be further massacres in his homeland if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not hold peace talks with the region’s political parties.

Svetlana Kuznetsova’s coronation as US Open champion ensures that 2004 will be remembered as the year of the Russian revolution in women’s tennis.

THE organisers of two separate appeals for the people of Beslan have raised an extraordinary €130,000 in just three days.

The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern today visited the Russian Embassy in Dublin to sign the book of condolence for the victims of the Beslan tragedy.

Shocking new footage, recorded possibly on the first day of the Beslan siege by the hostage-takers, shows terrorists dressed in military camouflage turning the crowded hall into something akin to a human booby-trap.

Hundreds of people have visited the Mansion House in Dublin to sign books of condolence for the victims of the Beslan school siege.

About 700 people attended a prayer service in Galway this afternoon for the victims of the Beslan tragedy and their families.

CHILDREN make it different. Like the tragedies of Columbine and Dunblane, the terror that stalks the classrooms of besieged Middle School 1 in Beslan, North Ossetia, is uniquely disturbing.