Chechen leader: Terrorists should be ‘poisoned like rats’ STORY HIGHLIGHTS Chechen leader says “struggle against terrorists must involve the toughest measures” Russian police release images of two women suspected of being the bombers Hundreds of thousands of commuters return to Moscow subway after bombing Flags across city lowered to half staff as Moscow pauses to mourn dead Moscow, Russia (CNN) — Terrorists who target innocent civilians must be “poisoned like rats,” the Russian-backed leader of Chechnya wrote in a newspaper article Tuesday. “We have always believed and we continue to believe that terrorists must be hunted down and found in their lairs, they must be poisoned like rats, they must be crushed and destroyed,” Ramzan Kadyrov wrote in the Russian daily Izvestia a day after suicide bombers struck a pair of Moscow subway stations in a deadly rush-hour attack. “The struggle against terrorists must involve the toughest measures and defeating this evil with only persuasion and educational measures is impossible,” he wrote. Russian investigators believe Chechen rebels may have been behind the deadly strike. Are you in Russia? Share your reaction to the attack Meanwhile, police have released photographs of two women suspected of being the suicide bombers. Special services are also seeking three suspected accomplices of the bombers, Russian state TV reported, citing Moscow police spokesman Viktor Biryukov. They are hunting for a 30-year-old man from the Northern Caucasus who was seen on security cameras wearing dark clothes and a black baseball cap, and two women, aged 22 and 45, both ethnic Slavs, who allegedly assisted the man, state TV reported. Investigators believe that the three suspects accompanied the suicide bombers when they entered the metro, the report said. Moscow paused to mourn its dead Tuesday, and flags across the city were lowered to half staff as hundreds of thousands of commuters returned to the transit system. Authorities said the attacks have killed at least 39 people — an increase of one since Monday — and wounded more than 60 others. Television stations canceled entertainment programming for the day, while some also pulled commercials. After being closed most of the day, both stations reopened around 5 p.m. (9 a.m. ET) Monday, said Veronica Molskaya, a spokeswoman for the Russian Emergencies Ministry. A heavy security presence was apparent throughout the subway network as police officers were visible on train platforms. “Our preliminary assessment is that this act of terror was committed by a terrorist group from the North Caucasus region,” said Alexander Bortnikov of the Federal Security Service, in reference to the investigation at one of the blast sites. Although nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks, Bortnikov’s statement is a strong implication that Chechen rebels fighting for independence were behind the strike. The Russia-Chechnya conflict dates back nearly 20 years, with Chechens having laid claim to land in the Caucasus Mountains region. Thousands have been killed and 500,000 Chechen people have been displaced by the fighting. Chechnya is located in the North Caucasus region of Russia between the Black and Caspian seas. Monday’s blasts tore through the Lubyanka and Park Kultury stations in central Moscow — the female bombers detonating their explosives about 40 minutes apart, starting just before 8 a.m. (12 a.m. ET) In St. Petersburg — about 650 km (400 miles) northwest of the Russian capital — three metro stations were shut as the result of a bomb scare after the Moscow blasts. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the “terrorists” responsible for the Moscow subway attacks “will be destroyed.” “I am sure that law enforcement agencies will do everything to find and punish the criminals,” said Putin, who called for helping the families of the victims and bolstering transportation safety. Millions of commuters use the Moscow metro system each day. An estimated 500,000 people were riding trains throughout the capital at the time of the attacks. Why no subway is safe from terror attacks The attacks reverberated across the globe. U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the “outrageous acts” and passed along his condolences. “The American people stand united with the people of Russia in opposition to violent extremism and heinous terrorist attacks that demonstrate such disregard for human life,” Obama said. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Monday that there have been no reports of U.S. citizens killed in the Moscow attacks. The federal Transportation Security Administration said there is “no specific or credible information indicating an imminent or current threat to U.S. transportation systems,” even though some local authorities have decided to beef up security measures in some cities. CNN’s Matthew Chance, Claire Sebastian and Max Tkachenko contributed to this report.

Sudan court sentences 10 alleged rebels to death

A Sudanese anti-terrorism court on Wednesday convicted 10 alleged Darfur rebels of waging war and sentenced them to death for their role in last year’s deadly attack on the country’s capital, court officials said.

Also Wednesday, Senator John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, arrived in Khartoum in the first U.S. congressional visit since an international court issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president for alleged war crimes in Darfur. Kerry is expected to visit the western Sudanese region on Friday, making him the second high-profile American to travel to Darfur this month.

The court’s verdict brought to 60 the number of people who have been sentenced to death in a series of trials after the May 2008 attack just outside of Khartoum that killed about 200 people including civilians.

The fighting began when rebels from Darfur’s Justice and Equality Movement drove into a Khartoum suburb. The assault was the closest rebels from Darfur have gotten to the government’s seat in the six-year conflict.

It is unknown how many people were arrested after the attack, and it is not clear if all those detained were rebels. New York-based Human Rights Watch, citing witnesses, said in May at least 100 people were arrested at checkpoints and in house-to-house searches.

Judge Mutasim Osman convicted the 10 of waging war against the state and terrorizing civilians and acquitted three others. After the verdict was read, the men chanted slogans against the government, and some of their relatives wept.

The government and JEM had started peace talks in February. But the talks faltered after the International Criminal Court issued its warrant in March against President Omar al-Bashir.

Al-Bashir rejected the accusations and responded by expelling 13 foreign aid groups and three local ones working mostly in Darfur.

JEM says it will not participate in further talks unless al-Bashir reverses his decision. The aid groups make up nearly 40 percent of relief providers in the region, and the U.N. and U.S. officials warned of a developing humanitarian crisis.

After arriving in Khartoum, Kerry, D-Mass., said he was “hopeful” that progress can be made in Sudan.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama’s envoy to Sudan visited a Darfur refugee camp and warned that water and sanitation services in the overcrowded camp were in a jeopardy. J.S. Gration said chances for the return of all the 13 aid groups were slim and called for ways to prevent a crisis.

OXFAM-GB also said Wednesday it appealed the Sudanese government’s decision to expel it from Darfur and northern Sudan. Alun McDonald, who is based in Nairobi for Oxfam, said the legal process would take at least a month.

The Darfur conflict started when mostly ethnic African rebels took up arms against the government in 2003, complaining of neglect and discrimination. Up to 300,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million displaced in the conflict, according to U.N. figures. Sudan says the numbers are exaggerated.

Terrorism, kidnapping among top fears for today’s youth

By Elizabeth Landau
CNN

(CNN) — A five-eyed monster under the bed isn’t what worries most kids. Experts say young people fear a lot of what’s in the news — from kidnappings to murders to salmonella.

It’s good for teens to fear the negative consequences of risky behavior, one expert says.

A study on more than 1,000 children and adolescents in grades 2 through 12 found that some of the 20 most common fears include “terrorist attacks,” “having to fight in a war,” “drive-by shootings,” “tornadoes/hurricanes” and “drowning/swimming in deep water,” based on self-reports of how scary each of 98 events or concepts seems. The study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Counseling and Development.

Study author Joy Burnham, associate professor at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, collected data from November 2001 to April 2004 in 23 schools in two southeastern states. The most common fears closely aligned with those found in previous studies on youth, and the pattern of findings has persisted in studies on fear for the past 30 years, she said.

By 8 years old, children know the difference between fantasy and reality, so they are more likely to be frightened by televised news coverage of events such as kidnappings, murders and terrorism, said Joanne Cantor, professor of at University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved with the study. Before age 8, they express fears of fictional scenarios and characters but also worry about hurricanes and drowning, she said.

TOP FEARS BY AGE

Ages 7-10
1. Being kidnapped
2. Myself dying
3. AIDS
4. Not being able to breathe
5. Being threatened with a gun
Ages 11-14
1. AIDS
2. Not being able to breathe
3. Being kidnapped
4. Being raped
5. Being threatened with a gun
Ages 15-18
1. AIDS
2. Being raped
3. Not being able to breathe
4. Being threatened with a gun
5. Myself dying

Source: Joy Burnham; article in Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, July 2005

A lot of children’s fears have to do with where they live, said Nancy Weisman, a psychologist in Marietta, Georgia, who was not involved with the study. In the Atlanta, Georgia, area, many children express fears of tornadoes, she said, prompted by the storm that sliced through the city March 14, 2008.

Dawn Huebner, a psychologist in Exeter, New Hampshire, who sees children ages 6 to 12, agreed that weather-related events make some kids anxious to the point that they don’t want to go outside if a storm may be coming.

Several psychologists agreed that abduction or kidnapping is a fear among many children today. One of Weisman’s patients became terrified of kidnapping after learning about slain Florida toddler Caylee Anthony, she said.

Children also fear diseases. In a separate analysis, when Burnham looked at data on fear by age, she found AIDS among the top five fears for ages 7 to 10, 11 to 14, and 15 to 18.

Complexity of teenage fears

Two of the top fears in Burnham’s study — “being raped” was No. 1 overall and “my getting pregnant or getting my girlfriend pregnant” was No. 19 — were presented only for students in grades 7 through 12 because of fear content, the study said.

The teenage years are also when young people begin to understand and fear larger world issues such as terrorism and war, Cantor said. Moreover, some teenagers become anxious about issues of global injustice but have the same divorce-related fears as young children, said Lawrence Balter, professor of applied psychology at New York University.

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Moreover, young people are not immune to fears about finances during the current economic downturn, he said.

“Almost everyone is affected by it, and there might be a fear that they’re going to lose their house or that their parents are going to lose their jobs,” he said.

Some fears have a good role to play in helping to promote caution, Weisman said. The negative consequences of risky behaviors — for example, getting sexually transmitted diseases or becoming pregnant — should make teenagers wary of taking unnecessary risks.

Burnham agreed that fear, like anxiety, can be a motivating tool.

“It is a natural process that occurs, and we all have fear,” she said in an e-mail. “However, if it rules someone’s life, it gets in the way, and that would be the unhealthy side.”

About 400 study participants also wrote their own ideas about what makes them or people their age afraid, scared or fearful. Responses included safety issues such as “abuse,” “scary movies and scary characters from movies,” “snipers at school,” “heights” and “driving.” Other self-reported fears related to animals or reptiles, spiritual or religious concerns, school, people (such as “clowns”), death, relational issues or social adjustment, sex-related issues and health or medical issues.

Movies and television, including news, can inspire fears that can last for years, said Cantor, who runs the Web site yourmindonmedia.com. Clowns, for example, inspire fear because of their presence in film.

“I’ve got lots of examples from research where college students and older say, ‘I feel uncomfortable in a certain situation, and I trace it back to news or movie,’ ” she said.

How parents can help

Many experts said parents should limit their elementary-school-age children’s exposure to local news to reduce anxiety about tragic events depicted on television.

Young children do not understand that when a news clip about an event such as a kidnapping is repeated, it is not a separate instance of a kidnapping, Huebner said.

Children should seek counseling when anxiety leads to sleep disruption or difficulty falling asleep, Weisman said. They may also present physical symptoms, such as stomach pain and headaches, that relate to anxiety problems.

“By definition, anxiety is being afraid without really having a target to the fear,” she said. “There’s a difference between being anxious and being cautious.”

Parents should not tell children that events such as kidnappings and murders could absolutely never happen, because the children won’t believe that, Weisman said. Instead, parents should focus on the probabilities, she said.

“The parents need to tell kids that the chances are very, very remote that these things are going to happen,” she said.

When a disaster strikes, don’t show it to young children on television, Balter said. Instead, assure them that the grownups are doing everything they possible to make things OK.

“Allow them to talk about their concerns; don’t trivialize and make believe that nothing is wrong,” he said.