News

According to the ranking presented by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), in 2012 the most corrupt official was the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev.

Today, Armenia has completed the nomination procedure of president candidates; now, on January 4-14, the Central Election Commission (CEC) will register them.

Today, a series of solo pickets were organized on the border of Ingushetia and North Ossetia by relatives of Akhmed Buzurtanov, the kidnapped coach of the Ingush sports club "Kaloy". The actions will be held every day, said the organizers of the protest actions.

The Mayoralty of Maikop has not sanctioned the rally in support of Syrian Circassians scheduled for January 5, said Arthur Bagadirov, one of the organizers.

The Ministry of Corrections of Georgia is forming a new group for monitoring the jails. The work will be over by the end of January.

The Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has withdrawn five ambassadors, Maia Pandzhikidze, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, said at a press conference.

Tbilisi and several other cities of Georgia have become venues of protests demanding resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili. They were initiated by activists of several public organizations.

The today's session of the Majlis of the "Musavat" Party has decided to nominate the party leader Isa Gambar, 56, to the post of the President of Azerbaijan at the regular presidential election upcoming on October 16, 2013.

For the second day, a one-year-old child is in grave condition at the district hospital in the village Agvali, the Tsumadin District of Dagestan; doctors, accused by parents of acting too slowly, cannot bring down the baby's high temperature.

The territorial association (TA) of the Volgograd Region "Sotsprof" has sent an appeal to the regional governor Sergey Bozhenov concerning the problems of the disabled. According to activists of the association, the regional government is making too little to improve the status of people with disabilities.

Tonight in Kaspiysk, Dagestan, four unidentified persons opened fire at four other men, who were hospitalized with wounds of different severity.

In the resort city of Sochi, Krasnodar Territory, residents of Djaparidze and Leselidze Streets located in the Khosta District on the left and right banks of the Sochi River, report that as at 11:00 p.m. Moscow time, the fire in the area of Orekhov Waterfalls did not go down and moved towards individual houses.

Within two months from the entry into force of the Law "On Amnesty", 3000 inmates will be released; and 14,000 others will have their terms reduced, said Sozar Subari, Minister for Correction, Probation and Legal Assistance of Georgia.

The tenants of an apartment building in the outskirt of the township Yablonovsky, which is a part of Adygea but located in a suburb of Krasnodar, report that they are without heating since the evening of December 31.

During the first days of 2013, residents of Sochi report about violations of public order in the city, illegal felling of trees and other accidents; they express discontent over the inadequate police reactions to their complaints.

In 2012, 30 Armenian families from Syria arrived in the Kashatakh District of Nagorno-Karabakh. Those who need housing will be provided with their own apartments in February, the district administration has promised.

In the Rostov Region, the public organization "Rostov without Drugs" is undertaking the action "With Faith for the Best", during which homeless people are given meals and New Year gifts.

The Chechen capital plan to build a synagogue; the ceremony of laying the foundation stone is scheduled for January 9. The site is in the place of the Ashkenazi synagogue that existed in the early 20th century.

On January 2, on the bottom of the Volga River, in the area of the central embankment of Volgograd, rescuers found a bone of a prehistoric animal, presumably a mammoth.

The website of electronic referenda "Democrator" began collecting signatures to the demand to allow girls from Muslim families to wear hijabs in schools.