Malcom Pein Comments on Women's World Chess Championship

From the Telegraph.co.uk: Georgia on their mind By Malcolm Pein Last Updated: 12:01am BST 03/09/2008 Six Georgian players have boycotted the Fide Women’s World Championship which got under way at Nalchik in the south western Russian province of Kabardino-Balkaria. Your correspondent does not turn down all expenses paid trips often but he made an exception in this case. A call came out of the blue from Fide offering a free trip at a time of my choosing but a little research made up my mind. The region has been somewhat unstable even before the Russian assault on Georgia and this also convinced the American Irina Krush and the French player Marie Sebag to cancel their participation. In all, eleven of the sixty four invitees did not play round one of the knockout competition.

Violence and Mayhem in Nalchik

Oh yes, Fearless Leader Kirsan and the Russian organizers of the Women's World Chess Championship assured the world that Nalchik is a safe and peaceful place. That's BULLSH*T. Fresh off the press at The New York Times: 2 Journalists Are Attacked in Russia By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: September 3, 2008 Filed at 8:51 a.m. ET ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (AP) -- One journalist was shot and killed and another was left with a fractured skull after a beating in Russia's troubled North Caucasus, and police and co-workers said Wednesday the two men were likely targeted for their work. The attacks on an Islamic TV reporter and an opposition newspaper editor are the latest violence to renew fears about the safety of journalists in Russia. A third journalist was shot by police on Sunday -- a killing the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said represented ''a further deterioration of media freedom in Russia.'' In the North Caucasus city of Makhachkala, Islamic TV reporter Telman Alishaev died at a hospital Wednesday morning, one day after being shot by two men as he sat in his car, Interior Ministry spokesman Mark Tolchinsky said. Alishaev, who hosted a religious-themed program in Dagestan, had produced documentaries and written extensively about Wahhabism -- a severe strain of Islam that is the main sect in Saudi Arabia, Shamil Guseinov, another Interior Ministry official, said. Meanwhile, police in the North Caucasus city of Nalchik said Wednesday that three people, one in a mask, assaulted Miloslav Bitokov outside his home Tuesday evening, along with another man. Bitokov was hospitalized with skull injuries. Colleagues at Bitokov's newspaper ''Gazeta Yuga'' said he had been threatened previously for publishing articles critical of local authorities. Both Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkariya, where Bitokov was killed, are located near violence-wracked Chechnya. Rights groups say authorities in both regions have stepped up pressure against opposition groups and independent media in recent years. Also targeted have been devout Muslims who practice outside of officially sanctioned mosques and are frequently labeled by authorities as being ''Wahhabis.'' Russia has long been considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. More than a dozen reporters have been slain in contract-style killings since 2000 including Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist killed in 2006 after winning acclaim for reporting on atrocities in Chechnya. On Sunday, the owner of an independent Web site in another Caucasus region, Ingushetia, was shot and killed by police and his body dumped by the side of the road, his colleague said. Magomed Yevloyev ran a Web site that was intensely critical of Ingush authorities. Hundreds of angry mourners gathered Monday in Ingushetia's main city of Nazran to mourn Yevloyev's death in a rally that turned into an anti-government demonstration. Prosecutors say Yevloyev was accidentally shot while sitting in a police car after he tried to take away a police officer's gun. [Yeah, right.] ^------ Associated Press Writer Arsen Mollayev contributed to this report from Makhachkala.

Squirrel to Protect Chessplayers in Nalchik

Breaking news from CNN.com: Armed and dangerous: a squirrel from an undisclosed country is headed to Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkar Republic, Russia, CNN has learned, to protect any chessplayers who show up for the Women's World Chess Championship scheduled to begin in Nalchik on August 28, 2008. Thus far, ten percent of the invited chessplayers have chosen to withdraw from the lucrative championship rather than risk travelling to and staying in the unstable Caucasus region. Sources within FIDE (the International Chess Federation) who declined to give their names because they have not been authorized to speak with the press, have informed CNN that the warrior squirrel was hired as a last ditch effort by FIDE presiden Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to "save" the WWCC from increasing world wide concern about the safety of the female contestants travelling to an area in such close proximity to Georgia, which was invaded by Russian forces on August 7, 2008. Nalchik itself was the site of terrorist attacks in 2005. Ilyumzhinov took the step, sources say, to stop the spread of condemnation for FIDE's perceived capitulation to the Russians and refusal to address the concerns of Georgian chessplayers published in an "open" letter at a popular internet web site, Chessbase.com on August 12, 2008. "Fearless Leader does not wish to be seen as one with weak-knees," said one source." He continued "Therefore, FL has hired relative of Rocky Flying Squirrel, graduate of Rambo Training School in Annapolis, Maryland, USA, to protect women chessplayers from all threats."