News

The OSCE team of experts, representing 11 countries and based in Armenia, started its observation mission. This was announced by Heidi Tagliavini, the head of the OSCE mission, at the today's press conference.

The Court has changed the restriction measure to Irakli Okruashvili, ex-Minister of Defence of Georgia, to release on bail of 15,000 laris (about 9000 US dollars) and released him in the courtroom.

On January 10, Nazran held a ceremony of awarding the winners of the contest "Heroes of Civil Society", founded by the human rights organization "Mashr". The number of winners includes human rights activists, members of the public associations, officials, the businessman and the local imam.

On January 9, young people from different regions of Nagorno-Karabakh celebrated the New Year's Day in accordance with the ancient traditions of Karabakh. The unusual celebration took place in the village Khachmach of the Askeran District, one of the oldest villages of the republic.

In the village of Yanikoi of the Chegem District of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), a staff member of the Centre to Combat Extremism of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) for the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) was wounded. The policeman got wounded while trying to detain a local resident, the MIA reports.

In Azerbaijan, a protest arose in connection with death of soldier Djeikhun Gubadov. Relatives of the soldier demand to conduct investigation into the circumstances of his death, a number of top-ranking military officials were reprimanded, and NGO activists have announced their intention to hold protest actions against non-combat losses in the Azerbaijani army, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

In this March, combat engineers intend to resume works to clear agricultural lands in the Chechen Republic. Till the end of the year, it is planned to demine more than 700 hectares of land areas in the foothills and mountainous areas of the republic. This was reported by the Military Commandant's Office of the republic.

Today, in Astrakhan, the first tenants of the building No. 172 in Krasnaya Naberezhnaya Street, which has no sewerage, water supply and heating, received the keys of a new two-room apartment in a new building.

The Krasnodar Regional Court upheld the decision of the first instance court that obliged the Sochi administration to take on the balance of the municipality the emergency building No. 3 in Petropavlovskaya Street.

Today, the Georgian Court of Appeal granted the motion filed by advocates of Irakli Okruashvili and cancelled the decision of the Tbilisi City Court on sentencing him to 11 years of imprisonment in the case of extortion of shares of the cellular communication company "GeoCell".

Today, in Armenia, the Government's decision enters into force to cancel the visa regime for entry of citizens of the EU and the Schengen Agreement countries.

The decision to raise fare for private route taxi of the route Makhachkala-Kaspiisk starting from January 1 was taken without consultation with the appropriate authorities, and it has been suspended. This was announced by Djamaludin Omarov, Mayor of Kaspiisk.

The trial in the case against Hilal Mamedov, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Tolyshi Sado", will be partially held in open mode. The decision was made today by Judge Azer Orudjev at the preparatory court session at the Baku Court of Grave Crimes.

Eight candidates will continue running for the Armenian presidency. This was reported today at the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Armenia.

The deputy head of the IVS (temporary detention facility) of the inter-municipal department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) "Krasnosulinskoe" is suspected of abuse of power with using violence. This was reported by the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) for the Rostov Region.

Today, the Moscow City Court continued the trial on the case of the murder of Colonel Yuri Budanov. A witness of prosecutors, who was not questioned by the prosecutors at the courtroom, was brought to the trial. Ruslan Fataliev did not identify the defendant and stated that Yuri Budanov was shot by "a man with red hair wearing a baseball cap on his head, a white T-shirt and jogging trousers".

On January 9, Olga Egorova, Chairman of the Moscow City Court, dismissed the appeal filed by the defence of the sentenced man against the verdict to Igor Berezyuk sentenced by the Tver District Court of Moscow for riots in Manezh Square that occurred in December 2010.

Today, in Khasavyurt, three participants of action on distribution of leaflets calling not to celebrate the New Year were released from IVS (temporary detention facility).

The Taganka Court of Moscow arrested seven natives of Northern Caucasus, who participated in the conflict with trainees of the GIBDD (road traffic police) that occurred on January 5.

In the course of the court session that was held today at the Tbilisi City Court on the case against Irakli Okruashvili, ex-Minister of Defence, nine witnesses retracted their statements.