INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russian President Vladimir Putin called Wednesday on local leaders in Siberia and the Urals to make sure flood-hit homes are safe from
looting, as authorities in the Kurgan region evacuated 14,000 people from the rising Tobol River.Russia and neighboring Kazakhstan have
meeting, saying he was receiving frequent updates."There are delicate [restoration] issues and we will definitely come back to them," Putin
said, after the issue of how victims would be compensated caused some tensions in flood-hit areas."A bit later, when the water will go down,
we will meet in an even wider format with the head of municipalities and we will discuss the issues of restoring infrastructure and homes,"
he said.Thousands of homes in swathes of Russia have been affected by the floods.Putin also scolded the governor of the flood-hit Tyumen
region for calling people who resisted evacuation orders "stubborn.""You should not say that about people," said the Russian leader, who
often reprimands officials in public."I know you are tired and that you are trying, you do not sleep enough
But why do people not want to go? They worry about their property, their homes," Putin said.Several people in the flood-hit city of Orenburg
the rising Tobol, local Governor Vadim Shumkov told Putin at the meeting.He said there were some 20 temporary accommodation centers in the
region, where 25 villages had been flooded.Shumkov said that over 2,500 people in the region had filed for compensation.Earlier this month,
rare protests broke out over the handling of the floods and compensation in the worst-hit city of Orsk.Russia's emergency minister Alexander
Kurenkov told Putin that the water has reached the main city of the Kurgan region of the same name."In the nearest days we expect the
maximum level of water, which is expected to reach 10 meters," Kurenkov said.Kurenkov said that around 600 homes had been flooded in the
