News

Judge Alexander Zamashnyuk, chairing the trial on the murders of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova, has dismissed the petition lodged by Alexei Nikulochkin, defendants' advocate, on judge disqualification. The judge explained his decision by saying that a judge challenge should be petitioned prior to formation of the jury.

Azerbaijani police detained 65 participants of an unauthorized action in Baku which had been planned by a number of oppositional parties, law enforcement bodies of Azerbaijan report.

According to official data from the web-site of Astrakhan regional Government, Alexander Zhilkin, Governor of Astrakhan region, earned one and a half million rubles last year.

In Sochi, four fixed-route taxi drivers who held strike against free transportation of privileged passengers were subjected to administrative arrest.

Today, Egle Kusaite, a citizen of Lithuania, accused of preparing a terror act in the territory of Russia, has filed a lawsuit with a demand to stop tapping her telephone conversations.

Vitaly Ivanov, one of those accused of murdering 12 persons in the village of Kuschevskaya, Krasnodar Territory, has confessed that in September 2003 he killed two entrepreneurs, acting together with his accomplice.

On April 15, the Russian Theatre of Makhachkala hosted an official presentation of the world's first multilingual social network Godudu.com.

At the rally of fire victims held in Tskhinvali an attack was made on human rights defender Vissarion Aseev, runs the message that arrived today from South Ossetia to the SMS-service of the "Caucasian Knot".

On the eve of the rally in Baku, appointed by the Azerbaijani opposition for April 17 with a demand of democratic reforms, the international human rights organization Amnesty International has urged the Azerbaijani authorities not to admit any police's attack on peaceful demonstrators.

The participants of the rally, which started today in the capital of South Ossetia at 11 a.m., want to get money from regional authorities to build new houses; their homes burnt down during the August 2008 war.

In Ingushetia, the central part of the city of Nazran is blocked. Many streets are patrolled by power agents in masks with firearms; the city is full of armoured vehicles, local residents say.

As stated by the operative headquarters (OHQ) of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), since April 16, because of continuing threat of subversive and terror acts, the republic keeps all its mountain resorts near Elbrus closed for tourists.

The rain that poured on Astrakhan on April 12-13 flooded the main streets and houses of residents who live in their private houses in the low areas of the city. The city administration has sent 28 special vehicles to pumping water from the streets. The problem is aggravated since the city has no storm sewer system.

The Georgian Labour Party has moved a legislative initiative assuming a large-scale amnesty in the country.

The multinational exercises "Viking-2011" were held at the military base in Vaziani near Tbilisi within the framework of the NATO programme "Partnership for Peace".

Maria Ameli, a native of North Ossetia and deportee from Norway, shall compensate to Norwegian authorities their expenses on her deportation to Russia. Only after that, she will be able to come to work to Norway.

On April 15, as a result of an accident with the water line "Vezur-Kvaisa", the city of Kvaisa, South Ossetia, remained without water. The municipal services detected three significant damages of the water line caused by mudflows.

In an attempt to attract attention of local authorities to the problem of shortage of places in kindergartens of Volgograd, 16 young mothers have announced a three-day-long hunger strike.

The leadership of the Lutheran Church of Finland has dismissed the Finnish pastor, doctor of theology Juha Molari for his criticism of the website "Kavkaz-Centre", which is close to the terrorist leader Dokku Umarov. Human rights activists from the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) offer Molari to move to Orthodoxy.

As reported by John Crowfoot, the creator of the database and an expert of the International Federation of Journalists, and Roman Serebryany, advisor of the chairman of the Union of Journalists of Russia, at the training seminar on "Youth Leadership" in Makhachkala, Russia is creating a database of crimes committed against journalists. The seminar was attended by Dagestani, Chechen and Ingush journalists.