News

On February 18, Olli Rehn, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, signed a memorandum of understanding with Armenia on provision of macro-financial help amounting to 100 million euros. Of these, 65 million will be provided as a credit, and 35 million - in the form of a grant.

Within the first month of operation, more than seventy residents of Dagestan have addressed for help to the free telephone call desk. So far, most of them call lawyers on their social problems: labour dispute, and documenting benefits and subsidies.

A resident of the Moscow Region was detained for an attempt to disseminate extremist literature in a hotel of Rostov-on-Don.

Relatives of Aslan Zhukov, deputy chairman of the Public Movement "Youth Adyge Khase", have addressed their complaints to the Cherkessk City Court, Supreme Court of Karachay-Cherkessia republic and the Republic's MIA demanding to immediately detain the resident of Karachay-Cherkessia, suspected of murdering Zhukov.

On February 18, in the village of Zayukovo, Baksan District of Kabardino-Balkaria, unidentified persons attacked a Gazel minivan with tourists, killing four of them. All the casualties have been identified; they were three men and a woman.

As stated by Jean-Claude Killy, Chairman of the Coordination Commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), who visited Sochi in connection with the first test races at the ski resort "Rosa Khutor", about 75 percent of construction works of the objects for the 2014 Winter Olympics will be completed by the end of this year.

Yesterday, on February 17, Moscow held an extended discussion of the problems of interethnic relations in modern Russia at the background of recent nationalist actions in Moscow and other Russian cities.

On February 16, the House of Cinema hosted the first run of a new documentary made by the video studio of the Human Rights Centre. The film "Those Disappeared" tells the story about un-investigated cases of human disappearances in the territory of the country.

Advocate Gulnara Bammatova intends to insist on initiation of a criminal case against the employee of the Dagestani Drug Control Department, who, according to her story, caused bodily injuries to her. This was stated by advocate Konstantin Mudunov who defends Ms Bammatova. On February 17 he received a statement of the Sovietskiy District Court of Makhachkala who sat on February 11 and confirmed the refusal of the prosecutor's office to reject the criminal case.

The founders of the public movement named "White Tape" want to quit the organization and to stop cooperating with the website Dymovskiy.name, named after Alexei Dymovskiy, former militia major, in protest against the policy of the movement and the website. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about it by Svetlana Svetikova, a member of the "White Tape" in St Petersburg. Alexei Dymovskiy himself asserts that he has nothing to do with the website and supervises another resource.

The aim of the Fund is to render help to employees of law enforcement bodies and militaries affected by terror acts and members of their families.

Madina Evloeva and her husband Khavazh Tsoroev, residents of Ingushetia, have been detained in Novoslobodskaya Moscow metro station. As reported by Madina's sister Khava Garaeva, they are now kept at Militia Station No. 4 of Moscow Metro.

Today, jurymen passed a guilty verdict to neo-Nazis Arthur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, earlier already convicted for nationalism-based crimes and accused of another murder, said Dmitry Agranovsky, an advocate of one of the defendants.

Last year, as reported by Misir Mardanov, Minister of Education, 108 educators lost their posts within the campaign of fighting corruption.

The judge has satisfied the petition of the defence of Apti and Aishat Magmadova, accused of recruiting a citizen of Lithuania for committing a terror act in Moscow, to summon the key witnesses in the case, one of whom is Egle Kusaite. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed about it by Tamara Magmadova, mother of Apti and Aishat.

According to latest data, as a result of the night blast in Dagestani city of Kizlyar a shop watchman suffered and was hospitalized with a fragmental leg wound.

The Astrakhan journalist Oleg Teplischev will have to leave the apartment, which is his property, within 10 days. The journalist believes that his eviction is illegal - although the city officials deemed the house to be an emergency, an independent examination has not confirmed it. According to Mr Teplischev, his eviction is explained by the fact that the apartment became interesting for a high-ranking city official.

About 100 residents of the Kayakent District gathered in the square in front of the White House in Makhachkala. They sent several representatives to President of Dagestan to demand to grant residents the right to freedom of expression at election of the head of the district. The rest of the rally was driven by militiamen away from the square towards the park.

The Runet blogosphere is actively discussing the case of a three-day-long violence over a 13-year-old girl committed back in summer of 2010 in Khasavyurt by a group of teenagers who have not been punished yet. After a broad resonance of the incident on the Internet, Pavel Astakhov, Children's Ombudsman in Russia, and Magomedsalam Magomedov, President of Dagestan, took the investigation into this rape under their personal control.

The Panel on Criminal Cases of the Russian Supreme Court has upheld the sentence of life imprisonment to Rinat Salekhov, former head of the department for combating organized crime (known as "UBOP") at the UVD (Interior Department) for the Astrakhan Region, for organizing a criminal grouping and committing especially grave crimes.