North Ossetian Parliament Elects New President

7 June 2005 -- North Ossetia's parliament has elected speaker Taimuraz Mamsurov to be the republic's president.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had proposed Mamsurov to succeed Aleksandr Dzasokhov, who resigned earlier today.

Dzasokhov, who is 71, came under criticism for his handling of the hostage crisis last September in Beslan in which more than 330 people were killed, half of them children.

(ITAR-TASS/Interfax)