News

On January 5, in the Sunzha District of Chechnya, the police detained a young man, who had abducted a girl with the aim to marry her, the local MIA reports.

Today, the Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates Christmas together with Baptism under the united name of Epiphany.

A residential neighbourhood “Artstakh” where families of the victims of Karabakh military conflict, servicemen of the Defense Army of Nagorno-Karabakh and full orphans received flats was put into operation in Stepanakert.

Head of the Ministry of Interior Affairs of Georgia Vano Merabishvili signed an enactment which improves the conditions of serving administrative penalty and extends the convicts’ rights. The enactment came into effect since the beginning of the year.

A severe landslip happened at about 22:00, January, 5, near the Winter Theatre of Sochi. Buildings and landscaped areas were damaged.

The French government has decided to submit the bill, which assumes criminal punishment for denial of Armenian genocide, to the Senate in the end of January, said Patrick Olier, the French Minister for Relations with the Parliament.

It is planned to finish construction of the ski resort "Veduchi", which was launched in 2011 in the mountainous Itum-Kalin District of Chechnya, in 2014. As reported by the office of the leader and the government of Chechnya, the ski resort will be an all-season one, and the ski routes will suit all categories of sports fans. Not all local residents support the idea of building a ski resort in Chechnya, claiming that the republic needs to recover its industrial potentials more.

The works on gasification of the village of Nogkau, Tskhinvali District of South Ossetia, are over. Houses of the village are already receiving natural gas.

As announced by Grair Tovmasyan, the Minister of Justice of Armenia, in 2012 the country will start a programme of judicial and legal reforms aimed at transforming the judicial system.

The opposition party "Free Georgia" has decided to appeal to the European Court and the Council of Europe in order to appeal against the outcomes of presidential election held on January 5, 2008.

The participants of the picket organized in Vladikavkaz by public organizations against pollution of the environment by the metallurgical factory "Electrozink" said that they would go on with their protests.

Many provisions of the Administrative Code of Georgia are legally untenable and violate human rights, says the Human Rights Watch (HRW) and encourages the Georgian authorities to amend the Code in order to guarantee the rights of detainees.

A new service of Supervision and auditing Chamber in Georgia created to monitor financing of political parties will pay special attention to the parties financed by the state, the management of the Camber reported.

The officials and human rights activists of Azerbaijan disagreed in their attitude towards the National plan of actions in the sphere of increase of effectiveness in protection of human rights and freedoms signed by President Ilham Aliev on the New Year’s eve.

Over the period of 2011, no less than 173 persons became victims of armed confrontation in Kabardino-Balkaria, 129 of them were killed and 44 got wounded. These are the totals of calculation by the “Caucasian Knot” based on the data from its staff correspondents and other open sources.

Today, the managers of some Georgian television, radio and printed media have issued a memorandum on cooperation with the aim to protect the interests of media in Georgia and agreed to establish the NGO entitled "Solidarity for Media Freedom".

Zviad Sichinava, President of the Football Federation of Georgia, has amnestied five footballers earlier disqualified for organizing "fixed" matches.

In the city of Akhtubinsk (Astrakhan Region), investigators accuse Elena Grigorieva, 43, a member of the religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses, of "inciting hatred or enmity." The believer herself denies the charges and complains about "threats and blackmail" from an FSB agent.

On January 3, two residents of Dagestan addressed the local police and reported disappearance of their relatives.

The main condition of a militant's adaptation is his refusal from armed struggle against the authorities, rather than from his views, while both militants and power agents need an adaptation mechanism, said journalist Maxim Shevchenko.