News

Three years after terror acts in Moscow metro; mass checks of NPOs in Russia, including in country's south; military exercises in the area of Russian Black Sea shore; another round of Geneva Debates, where the parties failed to agree on a joint statement on non-use of force; adoption amendments to Constitution of Georgia and the first application for running for the presidency; ASF hotbeds in North Ossetia, – look these and other events in the Caucasus in the review of the week of March 25-31, 2013, prepared by the "CaucasianKnot".

A joint documentary made by authors from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey "Memoirs Without Borders" dedicated to problems of the residents of Southern Caucasus, who had suffered from the Armenian Genocide and Karabakh conflict, was presented in Tbilisi.

The Commission of the National Agency for Probation of Georgia has cancelled before term the punishment and removed conviction from four photojournalists, who had been sentenced on charges of spying for Russia, said Sozar Subari, the Minister for Correction, Probation and Legal Assistance.

In Baku, on March 30, Uzeir Mamedli and Rashadat Akhundov, the members of the board of the civil movement "Nida" (Shout), were detained. By decision of the Nasimi District Court, both activists were arrested for three months, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

The military training ground in Vaziani near Tbilisi holds the exercises "Agile Spirit-2013"; they began on March 11 and will end on April 5. The active phase of the exercises was completed on March 29.

Today, the Khosta District of Sochi was affected by a landslide. A day earlier, on March 29, in the Lazarevskoe District in Sochi a landslide hit the township of Shkhafit. A four-apartment house in Adygeiskaya Street was under threat of destruction; its residents were evacuated.

A strong fire in a building that is under construction in central Baku in the evening on March 29 damaged two apartments in the adjacent three-storey house and two cars. According to the Ministry for Emergencies (MfE) of Azerbaijan, there are no fire casualties.

The case of the former deputy mayor of Novocherkassk Vladislav Zhuravlyov will not be returned to the prosecutor for correction, because the court found no violations of the law in it.

The streets of the eastern part of the city of Malgobek in Ingushetia are at risk of flooding because of the rise of ground water, said Akhmed Dodov, the head of the city administration.

On March 27, a group of oppositional politicians, human rights defenders, civil society experts and former political prisoners of Azerbaijan addressed Jean-Claude Mignon, the head of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) asking to extend the mandate of the PACE Rapporteur on political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

More than 12,000 entrepreneurs of Chechnya stopped operation, claiming a sharp increase in insurance premiums as the main reason.

A photo of Alexander Zhilkin, Governor of Astrakhan Region, dressed in the uniform of the Nazi army, caused resonance in the Russian blogosphere. There are no official comments; however, the governor's friends assert that the photo was made at a revue-sketch comedy 20 years ago.

During three days, on March 27-29, law enforcement officials of South Ossetia delivered to the Georgian party five persons detained on suspicion of illegally crossing the border.

On March 17-28, the Yerevan's Freedom Square hosted an open civil forum, organized by supporters of Raffi Ovannisyan, the runner-up in the February 18 presidential election and the leader of the "Heritage" Party. Representatives of the political forces, activists and ordinary citizens were invited to speak there.

Today in Yerevan, a number of environmental organizations and activists held am action in support of the ecologist Egiya Nersisyan, who is sued by a mining company.

Marina Nasirova, a resident of Ingushetia and a Chechen by her origin, said she was beaten because of her nationality.

In Azerbaijan, Hilal Mamedov, the detained editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Tolyshi Sado", has become the first laureate of the award named after the lawyer Isakhan Ashurov. A Themis statuette was given to Ramiz Mamedov, the inmate's lawyer on March 29.

The international "Liakhvi" Group, set up by the initiative of the Georgian party, will deal with the issues of rational management of water resources in the South-Ossetian conflict zone.

At a briefing on March 28, Christian Bzhaniya, the official representative of the president of Abkhazia, voiced out the position of his boss in relation to the demands of the opposition expressed on March 11 at a rally in Sukhumi. The president has rejected all the points of the resolution adopted by the rally.

On March 28, the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR) celebrated the Revival Day of the Balkar people with a motor rally, folk festivals, literary parties and sporting events.