News

Today, the Khamovniki Court of Moscow has announced the verdict on the nine-month-long litigation, in which Oleg Orlov, Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", was accused of slandering the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov.

The Audit Service of the Revenue Department of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) of Georgia has started the second phase of the audit at the editorial board of the Media Holding "Palette". Earlier, the employees of the Service conducted an inventory, and are now start a financial inspection of the six enterprises, which form the Holding. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about it by Diana Drapaidze, an editor of the Holding's information division.

The head of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov held a meeting in the city of Magas with relatives of the young people, who, according to law enforcement bodies, had left their home to join illegal armed formations (IAFs). Evkurov urged parents to persuade their children to leave "the forest".

Private households and other structures are demolished in Khankalskaya Street in Grozny. The authorities explain this by the need to expand the roadway and make exit from central Grozny as comfortable as possible. Residents of the street are indignant that their opinion was not taken into account.

Today, the city held a mourning rally and memorial church services in commemoration of the 16th anniversary of the attack on the city of a group of militants under command of Shamil Basaev.

On June 13, several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of Azerbaijan, whose offices are located in central Baku, in No. 68 Shamsi Badalbeili Street, were pressed by the police, as reported by Leila Yunus, head of the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD).

Negotiations in Transcaucasia on Nagorno-Karabakh and Georgia's conflicts with South Ossetia and Abkhazia; resonant murder of religious leaders in Makhachkala, Dagestani capital; and assassination in broad daylight in Moscow of Yuri Budanov, "an enemy of the Chechen nation", – look these and other events in the review of the week of June 6-12, 2011, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

In the city of Khimki near Moscow the funeral took place of the former colonel Yuri Budanov, who was shot dead in Moscow on June 10. The ceremony passed without incident.

Today, the Bureau of the Georgian Parliament has initiated the bill on neutral passports for residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The most effective solution to the problem of new jobs in the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) is to implement 70 selected investment projects, said Sergey Vereschagin, Deputy Minister of Regional Development of the Russian Federation at the first sitting of the working group on employment and labour migration in the NCFD, convoked in the city of Yessentuki.

Several filling stations in Grozny keep the earlier gasoline prices. According to drivers, owners of some of them are deliberately selling only expensive gasoline with high octane number.

According to the latest data, the amnesty declared by the Parliament of Armenia has already released 434 persons, said the press service of the Penitentiary Department of the Ministry of Justice.

The incumbent President of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity has refused to run for the republic's presidency, irrespective of the decision to be passed on June 14 by the Supreme Court on the issue of a referendum on the third term. This was announced today by the press service of the President and Government of South Ossetia.

Today, a number of newspapers appeared with the only inscription across the front page – Solidarity with "Media Palette". This was done in support of the Media Holding "Media Palette", whose enterprises had been audited for several days by the Ministry of Finance of Georgia.

Amidst the plain Shelkovskoy District in northern Chechnya, a mass grave with remains of victims of extrajudicial executions was found. The remains of unidentified casualties were buried here by local residents in the early years of the counterterrorist operation.

This year, the Eighth Traditional International Festival "Golden Apricot" has received a record number of applications – 630 films from 81 countries; out of them, 150 films from 45 countries were selected for the contest, Mikael Stamboltsyan, the festival programme director, told reporters. The festival will last from July 10 to July 17.

During the week of May 30-June 5, at least ten persons were lost and at least eight more were injured in the armed conflict in Northern Caucasus. These are the results of calculations made by the "Caucasian Knot" based on its own materials and information from other open sources.

In the morning on June 11, in the highway "Untsukul-Shamilkala", explosive devices were triggered, when the VAZ-21014 car with the above head of the Untsukul District Electric Grid inside was passing by.

On June 11 in Moscow during a working meeting, the basic principles of Nagorno-Karabakh settlement were discussed by heads of MFAs (Ministries of Foreign Affairs) of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan Eduard Nalbandyan, Sergei Lavrov and Elmar Mamedyarov respectively.

Announcement of the verdict to Oleg Orlov, Chairman of the Board of the Council of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", who is accused of slandering the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, is scheduled for Tuesday, June 14. The verdict will be read out at 4:30 p.m. in the courtroom of the Khamovniki Court of Moscow.