News

The Apparat of Plenipotentiary of the President of the Russian Federation in Southern Federal Okrug has established a telephone "hotline" where entrepreneurs could ask questions or submit their offers on improving investment climate in the okrug.

Tonight in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, the youth wing of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) "Dashnaktsutun" of Artsakh and the "Aram Manukyan" Student Union organized a torchlight march in memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide.

Today, residents of the resort city of Sochi, Krasnodar Territory, went out to hold a picket as part of the All-Russian action in support of the law on protection of animals.

A torchlight march dedicated to the 96th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian Genocide was held in Yerevan today. This year saw coincidence of two important dates for Armenia - the Easter and the Remembrance Day of Armenian Genocide.

As reported by the press service of the Department for Dagestan of the Russian FSB, today's fifth bomb was found in the railway section Kizilyurt-Temirgoe in this republic; the bomb was successfully defused.

The family of the Ingush oppositionist Magomed Khazbiev has announced a reward of one million roubles for information about the persons who on March 23 captured him and his two brothers, Murad and Berd, in their own home and delivered to the GUVD (Chief Interior Department).

The participants of the rally started today at 3:00 p.m. near Chistye Prudy metro station are protesting against allocation of budget funds for supporting North-Caucasian republics.

On the eve of the upcoming May accreditation of tourist operators for the Hajj, different viewpoints are expressed. The governmental commission on religious communities believes that travel agencies and mediation companies are the perpetrators of the problems encountered by pilgrims. The board of muftis puts part of the blame on pilgrims as such.

On April 22, law enforcers of Dagestan and Chechnya conducted an operation and detained three female residents of Khasavyurt who tried to sell a newborn baby.

In front of the Central Marketplace in Moskovskaya Street of Sochi, a picket is being held from 2 to 4 p.m., organized by Evgeniy Zakharov, a member of the initiative group for protection of the resort city against skyscrapers.

The documentary "Barzakh" telling about facts of torture and kidnappings in Chechnya, which was presented at film festivals in Lithuania, Switzerland and Spain, aims to tell the world about the situation in today's Chechnya, the Lithuanian film director Mantas Kvedaravichyus told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

At night on April 22, in the village of Khasanya, a suburb of Nalchik, unidentified persons set fire to a grocery store, which burned down completely. Nobody was hurt.

As reported by the State Committee for Restoration Projects in South Ossetia, the funding of housing construction in Tskhinvali has been suspended; it is unknown when it may be resumed.

On April 22, Makhachkala hosted a rally of residents of the Tabasaran District of Dagestan and public activists. The action in defence of law enforcers was about 600 persons strong.

Yesterday, on April 21, a meeting was to take place of relatives of the Georgian sailors, kept for over eight months by Somalia pirates, with the head of the government of Adzharia Levan Varshalomidze; however, it was reappointed on April 27.

During the week from April 11 to April 17, at least 17 persons were killed and at least 15 more were wounded in the glowing 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.

Respect for human rights and the rule of law in Northern Caucasus are prerequisites for ensuring peace and stability in the region, said Oleg Orlov, head of the Human Rights Centre "Memorial", at a press conference on human rights in Chechnya.

Employees of the Department of Constitutional Security of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) have detained Avtandil Mestvirishvili, Deputy Governor of the region Shida Kartli (Eastern Georgia), on bribery charges. No details have been disclosed so far.

For celebrations of the Orthodox Easter, Chechnya expects arrival of plenty of its former residents. A special working group has been set up to cope with all the activities associated with this holiday.

On April 27, the Moscow Cultural Centre "Pokrovskie Vorota" will host a book presentation, written by Zoya Svetova, a Russian human rights activist, a publicist and journalist, about the trials of the scientist Igor Sutyagin, convicted as a spy, and of the Chechen woman Zara Murtazalieva, convicted for terrorism.