News

At night on December 14 in Sochi, the cargo port located near the mouth of Mzymtma River was washed away. Residents of the Imereti Lowland report that the storm has demolished the piles and dropped building cranes. Water attacks the coastal road running along the sea from the mouth of the river to the main ice palace.

Two bombs were neutralized on the gas pipeline Mozdok-Tbilisi. As reported by the PR Group of the local FSB Department, currently the works are underway on liquidation of other explosives. Because of limited gas supplies, lessons were cancelled today in all Ingush schools.

The terror act against the "Neva-Express" train, committed on November 27, made no effect on the case about a similar episode in 2007. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about it by Murat Yunusov, the lawyer for the defendants in the case of the explosion of the same train committed two years ago.

According to the Georgian party, Alexander Bondarev, a dissident from Soviet time, living in Paris, and a resident of St Petersburg Ekaterina Timofeeva have addressed their requests for citizenship to the authorities of Georgia.

On December 26-27, 2009, the all-Russian action in defence of the unique natural territory of the Utrish Nature Reserve at the Black Sea shore, which, in the opinion of activists from ecological organizations, is under threat of extinction.

President of the Russian Federation Dmitri Medvedev has congratulated Sergey Bagapsh on his re-election to the post of President of the Republic of Abkhazia. According to Mr Medvedev, "the Russian-Abkhazian relations have received a powerful impetus for development and reached a new level."

On December 11-13, Sochi districts held public hearings on the draft "Rules of Land Use and Development of Sochi" (RLUD). The RLUD draft was designed by the Limited Liability Company (LLC) "Institute of Building Projects" from St Petersburg under the order of the Department of Architecture and Town-Planning of Sochi Administration.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France has awarded the premium of the French Republic "Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood" to the Chechen NGO "Let's Save the Generation". This French premium is awarded every year on the International Day of Human Rights, December 10, to five human rights organizations from different countries of the world.

As reported by Georgian MP Giya Tortladze, who visited today the conflict zone, the authorities of South Ossetia refused to release the two Georgian teenagers detained in this zone and postponed the issue till December 14.

The visit to Azerbaijan on December 11 of Yuri Merzliakov (Russia), Robert Bradtke (USA) and Bernard Fassier (France) - co-chairs of the Minsk OSCE Group - was held confidential.

Today, at the presidential election in Abkhazia, by 7:30 p.m. Moscow time the voter turnout was 64.29 percent; at many polling stations people had to wait for their turn to cast ballots. As stated by Batal Tabagua, chair of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Abkhazia, the figure allows recognizing the election valid. The CEC promises to announce preliminary outcomes by midday on December 13.

The parliament of the Republic of Nauru will consider the issue of recognition of independence of South Ossetia. This was stated Kiren Keke, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Finance of Nauru, at his meeting in Tskhinvali with Stanislav Kochiev, chairman of the parliament of South Ossetia.

A young man - Ramaz Bezhanidze, 27, whose life was supported by a respiratory apparatus, - died today in the afternoon from swine flu in a Batumi hospital. This was reported at an emergency press conference by Alexander Kvitashvili, Minister of Public Health of Georgia.

Ruslan Kishmariya, Abkhazian President's plenipotentiary for the Gali District, has categorically refuted statements of some Georgian media that the Abkhazian militia and Russian militaries violently brought residents of the Gali District to polling stations to force them to take part in today's presidential election in Abkhazia.

In the opinion of Ibragim Yaganov, leader of the public organization "Khasse", who was not long ago beaten in Nalchik, in the land disputes between Kabardians and Balkars, dialogue is a possible way to a compromise.

Even though the investigation is under personal supervision of President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov and Russian Public Prosecutor Yuri Chaika, nothing is known so far about any progress in investigating the kidnapping attempt and subsequent murder of Ingush human rights activist Maksharip Aushev. Musa Aushev, the casualty's brother, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent about it.

The case of Sarkis Atspanyan, an activist of the opposition of Armenia, who is serving his term in the Yerevan prison of "Vardashen", was sent to the European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR). This was reported by Asmik Pogosyan, Sarkis' wife.

The foothill Achkhoy-Martan and Urus-Martan Districts of Chechnya are under the counterterrorist operation (CTO) regime after December 11, and militants are searched there.

The initiative group of the project named "Volgograd Breakthrough" has filed a claim to the prosecutor's office of Volgograd against the well-known Runet designer and thousand-reader-blogger Artemiy Lebedev in the context of his permanent use of obscene language in his blog. The applicants see it as offence of all Russians.

Senor Asratyan, press secretary of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of Nagorno-Karabakh, has refuted the accusations announced on December 10 by his Azerbaijani counterpart Eldar Sabiroglu that the Karabakh party breaks the ceasefire regime at the contact line on the everyday basis.