News

In the evening on Saturday, January 30, in the Krasnodar Territory, in the Southern Gambling Zone "Azov-City", a solemn opening ceremony of the first in Russia legal gambling institution - the "Oracle" Casino - took place.

Tonight in Ingushetia, unidentified persons shot dead a Nazran local resident named Dobriev, a relative of the Ingush human rights activist Maksharip Aushev, assassinated last October. Dobriev died in place from received wounds.

The Norwegian Council on Refugees' Matters has closed its office in the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia, where refugees from Chechnya live. According to the refugees, the new head of the Council demanded to close the office.

Valery Gaevskiy, Governor of the Stavropol Territory, made an offer to the famous sculptor Zurab Tsereteli to erect a monument of unity of the Caucasian nations in Pyatigorsk, the capital of the newly formed North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD).

The number of Armenian schools in Istanbul continues to go down; the basic problem of the community is to preserve the language. This was stated to journalists by turcologist Ruben Melkonyan, deputy dean of the department of oriental studies of the Yerevan State University.

Residents of Kalmykia think, and social polls support their conclusions, that STSI (State Traffic Safety Inspectorate) employees, militiamen, and workers of medical and educational establishments are most corrupted in their republic. It was declared on January 28 by Prime Minister Vladimir Sengleev at the government's sitting.

Moscow is worried with another "fact of disrespect by the authorities of Georgia of the memory of soldiers who perished in the Great Patriotic War." This was stated by Andrei Nesterenko, official spokesman of the Russian of Foreign Affairs.

The erection of Orthodox Creeping Crosses in Adygea causes dissatisfaction among the Circassian community of the republic. Murat Berzegov, head of the Circassian Congress, treats the erection of crosses as provocation; while the "Adyge Khasse" asks the President of the republic to interfere with the situation. In the turn, representatives of the Orthodox Church are indignant with the facts of damaging the crosses and believe it to be desecration of relics.

In the nearest months some four thousand citizens of Georgia will be sent away from Poland. Georgian officials admit that their fellow citizens has mostly crossed the Belarusian-Polish border illegally; and then addressed Polish authorities for political asylum.

On January 30, the Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates the St Sargis Day - the patron of all people in love. All the churches named after this Saint held celebratory liturgies.

President of Russia Dmitri Medvedev hopes that already this year the "extraordinary high" level of corruption in Northern Caucasus will be lowered. He made such statement on January 28 at the enlarged sitting of the board of the FSB (Federal Security Bureau).

Nikolai Ukraintsev, advocate of former militia major from Novorossisk Alexei Dymovskiy, believes that the criminal case initiated against his client is an act of revenge undertaken by his former bosses. His other advocate - Sergey Gubar - notes that the searches now conducted in Dymovskiy's house have the aim "to dig out something serious", as the today's indictment is "very weak". The Novorossisk UVD (Interior Department) refutes these statements.

Today, the Tbilisi City Court has sentenced political scientist Vakhtang Maisaya to 20 years of imprisonment for espionage in favour of Russia.

By the outcomes of 2009, Russia is in the first place by the number of claims submitted against its government and pending consideration at the European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR). This was reported by Jean-Paul Costa, the Chairman of the Strasbourg Court.

The Prosecutor's Office of the Stavropol Territory has initiated a criminal case on the fact of chilblain received by schoolchildren in the course of their sport training session.

One employee of the criminal inquiry unit of the Gali District Interior Division was lost and his four colleagues were wounded as a result of a terror act committed today in the village of Chuburkhindzh, Gali District. Besides, two civilians were killed and three wounded.

The statement of President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov about Boris Berezovsky's involvement in the murder of Natalia Estemirova, an employee of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" caused bewilderment in Natalia's friends and colleagues.

The Investigatory Department for St Petersburg of the ICPO has initiated a criminal case under the article of "murder of two and more persons" in connection with disappearance in this city of four natives of Ingushetia, relatives of the widow of Maksharip Aushev, a human rights activist, who was shot dead last October.

More than 50,000 residents of the capital of Dagestan remain without heat and water for the fifth day already. Electricity is also cut off all the time. The authorities and municipal services are unable to remedy the situation, and residents have started their protest action.

The reason of the armed incident in one of military units of Azerbaijan, where six servicemen were killed and two more wounded, is in impunity for hazing and non-manual relation in the army. This was stated by retired colonel-lieutenant and former employee of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Uzeir Dzhafarov.