News

A preliminary hearing of the case of Oyub Titiev, the head of the Grozny office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", will be held behind closed doors. Titiev complained about informational isolation at the SIZO (pre-trial prison) – he fails to receive all the letters addressed to him; and they do not allow him to have a wireless or a TV set in his cell.

In the city of Khasavyurt, Dagestan, a fifteen-year-old teenager, driving an off-road Mercedes car, knocked down two pedestrians to death, another person was hospitalized.

Azerbaijan neglects its obligations to the Council of Europe (CoE), political persecutions and imprisonments are widespread in the country. This is said in the statement signed by 21 PACE MPs.

A tractor driver got buried under sand and stones in a quarry in Chiatura District of Georgia; he died on the spot, the police have reported.

A video about how residents of the Khasavyurt village of Andiyskoye forced law enforcers to release their detained fellow villager caused a resonance in the network. Commentators supported the actions of the people who protested against the detention without presenting documents.

Two officers of the Georgian Border Police, detained at the Dagestan section of the Russian border, have been released, the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has reported.

The film "Deep Rivers" by Vladimir Bitokov, a film director from Nalchik, will be screened in the programme "To the East of the West" at the festival that opens in Karlovy Vary today.

One of the five people injured in the explosion at a car fuelling station in the Shelkovskaya District of Chechnya was hospitalized, the Ministry for Emergencies (MfE) has reported.

Residents of Kuban need no high-speed railway (HSR) from Chechnya to Krasnodar; and it is unacceptable to cover the expenses for its construction from the budget against the background of plans on the retirement age growth. This opinion was voiced by residents of the Krasnodar Territory interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

In France, the criminal case against Suleiman Kerimov, a Senator from Dagestan, accused of violating the procedures to purchase real estate objects, is not closed, but he is granted the status of a witness, the Prosecutor's Office reports.

The Tbilisi City Court has found Mikhail Saakashvili, the third president of Georgia, guilty of beating up the MP Valery Gelashvili in 2005, and sentenced him in absentia to six years in prison.

Women-activists of the Democratic Coalition have held a flash mob against raising the retirement age; they appeared in the street without clothes with posters "They've robbed us to panties!"

Servicemen of Russian military bases in Abkhazia and Armenia were provided with new field military uniforms to protect them from thermal shocks; soldiers call new clothes "tropikanka".

Based on the outcomes of the inquiry into corruption at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), access into the building of the Council of Europe (CoE) is banned for life for two active and one former Azerbaijani MPs. One of them, Gyultekin Gadjibeili, has stated that Azerbaijani authorities prevented her from proving her innocence.

All the charged on violations during real estate purchases in France have been removed from Senator from Dagestan Suleiman Kerimov.

The Transcaucasian high-speed railway (HSR) proposed by Ramzan Kadyrov will be in demand; however, there are no full calculations of its efficiency, experts assert. Users of social networks doubt the need for high-speed trains in Northern Caucasus.

The military exercises will involve 20,000 soldiers and officers, reports the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence (MoD). The maneuvers will be apparently held in conditions close to combat as possible, experts believe.

The court arrested Major General Vachagan Kazaryan on the charge of illegally enriching and concealing incomes.

The court sentenced Aliskhan Esmurziev, a native of Ingushetia, to two years of imprisonment for illegal possession of weapons and failure to report on the preparation of a terror act. After their detention, Aliskhan Esmurziev and Shamil Omargadjiev, a native of Dagestan, sentenced in the same case, complained of torture.

Despite the Azerbaijan's demonstration of modern types of weapons, it is too early to talk about a change in the balance of forces for the parties to the Karabakh conflict. However, Armenia should be ready for a new aggravation of the conflict, Armenian experts believe.