] MOSCOW (Reuters) - A heavily armed gang has seized up to
] 400 hostages at a Russian school near Chechnya and
] threatened to shoot dead 50 children for any one of their
] comrades killed, a senior local official says.

My heart goes out to the hostages and their families. What a nightmare.

I try to imagine what the reaction would be in this country to something like this. If Al Qaeda or some other group decided to storm a school and hold hundreds of kids hostage, while demanding some sort of political change. The rage would be incomprehensible.

Barbarians.