Mothers of victims of the Beslan school seizure, their grief mixed with fury a year after Russia’s deadliest hostage-taking raid, said today that the government had failed to learn from the tragedy and had left the country vulnerable to equally devastating terrorist attacks.

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.

Fifteen women, including mothers of children killed in last year’s Beslan school seizure, left a courtroom today where they had staged an overnight protest to demand that high-level officials also be prosecuted in the case.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has cancelled a visit to Moscow this week in protest at the refusal of Russian prosecutors to drop a criminal case against her.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko can visit Moscow this week without fear of arrest, but a criminal case against her on bribery charges will not be dropped, Russia’s top prosecutor said today.

Ukraine’s former Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko was found dead today, hours before prosecutors were to question him about the killing of an investigative journalist five years ago, officials said.

Ukraine’s former Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko was found dead today at his country house outside Kiev, officials said.

Russia’s chief prosecutor will not drop a criminal case against Yulia Tymoshenko, nominated this week as Ukraine’s new prime minister, and warned that she could be arrested if she enters the country.

Ukraine’s two presidential candidates mapped out campaign strategies before the repeat of last month’s fraud-marred election run-off, as dozens of protesters maintained a vigil today outside the president’s office.

Ukraine’s outgoing President Leonid Kuchma today fired the country’s prosecutor general, following demands from the opposition.

Three people have been charged in connection with last month’s bombings of two Russian airliners, the Interfax news agency reported today.

A police captain who worked at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport has been arrested in connection with last month’s bombings of two Russian airliners.

THE two Chechen women suspected of blowing up two Russian airliners last month were briefly detained by airport policemen, but paid bribes to get on to the flights.

RUSSIA’s top general said yesterday he was ready to attack ‘terrorist bases’ anywhere in the world, as security services put an €8.5 million bounty on two Chechen rebels blamed for last week’s school siege.

A fire ripped through a wooden mental hospital in Belarus today, killing 30 patients, the government said.

Attempts to save the crew of Russia’s Kursk nuclear submarine were doomed by mistakes and sloppiness, not least the failure of a top admiral to realise anything had gone wrong, a government report has revealed.

SINN FÉIN yesterday demanded the resignation of Colombia’s Prosecutor General after he claimed there was considerable evidence linking three Irishmen to left-wing rebels in the country.

Sinn Fein today demanded the resignation of Colombia’s Prosecutor General after he claimed there was considerable evidence linking three Irishmen to left-wing rebels in the country.

In a renewed attack on former Kremlin insiders, authorities in Russia issued an arrest warrant for tycoon Boris Berezovsky and charged railways minister Nikolai Aksyonenko, the state prosecutor said yesterday.

Three simultaneous car bomb blasts killed at least 21 people and wounded more than 100 others today in southern Russia near the breakaway republic of Chechnya.