News

A group of convicts in Georgia appealed to President of the USA Barack Obama asking him to help in release of political prisoners. Similar appeals were sent to President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso and Head of EU Mission in Georgia Philip Dimitrov.

A serviceman of a military unit located in the settlement of Balajary, Baku, died from wounding he got as a result of careless weapon handling, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan reported.

Adoption of the French Senate of the law on criminalizing the denial of genocides, including the Armenian genocide, will play a major role in the overall process of international recognition of that fact. The law will also have an impact on European politics in general. This opinion was announced by Armenian politicians and experts.

Today, the Saratov Garrison Military Court suspended consideration of the criminal case against soldier Andrei Popov, accused of desertion, who had earlier claimed that he had been kept in slavery Dagestan. At present, Andrei Popov is in hospital after undergoing of three operations.

Problem of residents of the village of Khrakh-Uba, one of the two dwelling settlements, which remained in the territory of Azerbaijan after the revision of the borders of the former Soviet Union, is not solved. This was reported by Arif Kerimov, the head of the Federal Lezgin National and Cultural Autonomy. According to Evgeny Kozmin, Consul of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Azerbaijan, residents of the village Uryan-Uba accepted Azerbaijani citizenship and continue to live in the village as citizens of Azerbaijan, and problems of residents of the village of Khrakh-Uba arose from the fact that almost all residents left the village.

Summit of presidents of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia in Sochi on Karabakh settlement; presentation in Moscow of the Human Rights Watch report on human rights violations; end of inquiry into terror act in "Domodedovo" Airport; decision of the Russian Supreme Court on Sviridov's murder in Moscow; adaptation commission for militants set up in Kabardino-Balkaria, - look these and other events in the Caucasus in the review of the week of January 23-29, 2012, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

In Moscow, the materials of the investigation into the case of the murder of anti-fascist Ilya Dzhaparidze were presented to parties for studying.

The capital of Armenia hosted a protest action against the transfer of the demolished kiosks from Abovyan Street to the territory of the park, located in the area of Mashtots Avenue.

Lance Corporal Khachatur Sarkisyan, a serviceman of a regular term, is suspected of murdering Pailak Shakhnazaryan, a regular term soldier, in an army unit of Nagorno-Karabakh. This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of Armenia.

Today, in Georgia, a group of prisoners of the Tbilisi women's colony stopped their hunger strike to protest against transfer of children under three years old to children's homes.

A resident of Karachay-Cherkessia, without waiting for trial on case of a road accident that killed his sister, stabbed with a knife a suspected perpetrator of the road accident. This was reported by the Investigatory Department of the Republic's Investigatory Committee.

Defence of Sergey Arakcheev, ex-officer of internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), who was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment in a colony for murdering three Chechen residents in January 2003, asks the General Prosecutor's Office to reopen the case, since new reasons for its reconsideration have appeared.

On January, 29, activists of non-governmental organizations, scientists and ecologists held a picket in Stavropol "Healthy life-style is our people's happy future". At the action the participants called for maintenance of the springs in the forests of the city and elimination of pollution of water storages in order not to harm the residents' health.

19 schools and kindergartens in Rostov region were totally closed, seven more institutions stopped functioning in part. The reason was that the temperature in these buildings dropped under admissible level.

Parents of lost servicemen of law enforcement bodies called for the authorities of Kabardino-Balkaria to take over the control of the situation in the republic, provide people with jobs and eliminate corruption. On January, 28, they held their first organizational meeting in the town of Baksan. About twenty persons took part in it.

Part of local observers in Dagestan where installation of web-cameras started at the polling stations for the election of President of Russia are sure that the cameras will not help solve the problem of ballot rigging during voting. In their turn, the authorities state that the systems of video surveillance will make the election more transparent.

Near the building of the Parliament of Georgia, the police detained seven participants of an unsanctioned oppositional action in memory of the killed employee of the "United Bank of Georgia" Sandro Girgvliani. The protesters tried to block traffic in Rustaveli Avenue.

Two children suffered as a result of two explosions in Makhachkala, the spokesperson of the Dagestani MIA has reported.

The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence (MoD) has stated that today and on January 27 the Armenian Armed Forces repeatedly violated the ceasefire regime. At the same time, the Armenian MoD has claimed that on January 22-28 they registered about 150 cases of ceasefire violations by the Azerbaijani party.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has learnt about the 17-day-long hunger strike of Alaudin Almurziev, a native of Ingushetia, who is serving his term in the Kamchatka Territory, from his grandmother Minovsi Almurzieva. According to her story, Alaudin Almurziev is hunger-striking against violation of his rights in the colony.