News

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.

It was decided to demolish a small mosque in Kadyrov Avenue in the Chechen capital, where broad-scale repair and construction works are on for several weeks already. According to the authorities, "it does not match the architectural appearance of the avenue," which awaits a radical reconstruction. A local clergyman treats the demolition of the mosque as sacrilege.

The niche of independent journalism in Azerbaijan is almost completely destroyed; the country has big problems with the freedom of speech; however, readers want restoration of independent newspapers and continuation of the previous political course. This was stated by Einullah Fatullaev, a former political prisoner and editor-in-chief of the newspapers "Real Azerbaijan" and "Gyundelik Azerbaijan", who had spent his last 4 years in prison and was released on May 26. Therefore, he intends to continue publishing his newspapers.

Gadjimagomed Makhmudov, a resident of the township of Novy Khushet, Lenin District of Makhachkala, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that in the morning on June 11 many township houses were searched; Ramil Magomedov and Akhmed Omarov were detained.

Abusupyan Gaitaev, advocate of the blogger Alexei Dudko, intends to file a cassation complaint against the sentence passed by Judge Natalia Larina from the Taganka District Court of Moscow, which awarded Dudko with 6 years in a minimum security colony.

In the Canadian city of Toronto, eight Armenians began their 72-hour-long hunger strike, saying that they protest against denial by Turkey of Armenian Genocide.

The assassination of former colonel Yuri Budanov has nothing to do with the death of Elza Kungaeva, which caused Budanov's conviction in 2003, as Visa Kungaev, the girl's father, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by telephone from Norway.

On June 10, at the headquarters of the oppositional "Musavat" Party, the diplomatic corps and heads of the international organizations deployed in Azerbaijan held a meeting with activists of the oppositional Civil Movement for Democracy "Public Chamber" (CMDPC).

Vengeance and provocation are named among the versions of the murder of former Colonel Yuri Budanov, who was convicted back in 2003 for murdering a Chechen girl. Meanwhile, the Moscow police is taking steps to curb possible attempts of nationalist-minded groups to use the murder for their own benefits, said a source from local law enforcement bodies.

Eighty residents of the village Boiko-Ponura, Kalinin District of the Krasnodar Territory, went on hunger strike, said Alexei Volchenko, a farmer. However, the district administration does not confirm this information.