News

On September 21, Hadjimurad Gatsalov, a sportsman from Vladikavkaz, won the first golden medal for the national team of Russia at the world championship in free-style wrestling, held in Danish city of Hoerning. After defeating Khetag Gozyumov, Azerbaijan, a prize-winner of the Beijing Olympiad, Gatsalov became the quadruple world champion.

President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili has expressed his resolute discontent, while making comments on the conclusion of the unpublished report of the European Union's independent commission set up for investigating the reasons of the armed conflict in August 2008 in South Ossetia that Georgia was the initiator of the war.

The situation around Deni Baisarov, son of the Chechen businessman Ruslan Baisarov and singer Christina Orbakaite, will be considered at parliamentary hearings of the State Duma of the Russian Federation on October 5.

For three hours on September 21 residents of Makhachkala blocked the highway in protest against electric power cut-off, as a source in law enforcement bodies has reported today. The protesters demanded to restart electricity supply, which failed after an accident at the power plant caused by pouring rains.

Armen Arutyunyan, Ombudsman in Armenia, said, in his comments on the report, published on September 17, of the interim parliamentary commission for studying the events on March 1, 2008, in Yerevan, when the authorities dispersed mass actions of the opposition, that the actions of power agents had been approached too mildly.

In the Kizilyurt District of Dagestan and in the city of Derbent the recent downpours have flooded more than 500 houses. Because of incessant rains, in a number of villages of the Sergokalin District, rivers have overflowed the banks and flooded power substations, transmission lines and transformers.

Mayor of Elista Radiy Burulov has offered himself to local members of the "Edinaya Rossiya" Party as a candidate to the post of Kalmykia's Premier. Mr Burulov said that he would like to share the power in the republic among the Prime Minister and the President and offered the latter to deal exclusively with political matters and not to interfere with operation of the government.

The new law on gambling business in Batumi will be discussed at the autumn session of the parliament of Georgia. According to the bill, all the hotels with more that 100 rooms will be exempted for 10 years from the annual license fee, which in Batumi makes 250,000 laris.

The believing Moslems of Chechnya celebrated their Uraza-Bairam ('Id al-Fitr) yesterday, on September 21. Like in recent years, the celebrations in the republic passed later than in other Russian regions and other Moslem countries. The believers blame local clergy for these discrepancies and doubt the reason of their actions.

In total, 238 contracts to the sum of 481.8 billion roubles have been signed at the 8th International Investment Forum in Sochi. The organizers of the Forum report that the majority of them were signed by representatives of the Krasnodar Territory, which will accumulate more than two thirds of the total involved investments.

Reshad Gasanov, Judge of the Azizbek District Court of Baku, has refused to replace the imprisonment of Ganimat Zakhidov, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Azadlyg" (Freedom) for a more lenient punishment, not related to deprivation of liberty. The respective petition of Zakhidov's advocates was considered on September 18 at the travel session of the court held at Penitentiary Establishment No. 17, where the editor-in-chief is serving his term.

Four militiamen have suffered today from a shelling of an UAZ patrol car in central Nazran, as reported by sources in law enforcement bodies of Ingushetia. The victims were hospitalized.

School No. 1 in Beslan, where terrorists 5 years ago took children as hostages, should become a memorial complex of the federal value; and its conservation should be done for the funds of the Russian Federation. This is the opinion of Ella Kesaeva, head of the All-Russian Public Organization "Voice of Beslan".

The farewell ceremony to Ismail Bostanov, Deputy Head of the Spiritual Department of Moslems of Karachai-Circassia and Stavropol Territory, who perished in an attempt on him committed on September 20, was held in his native village of Znamenskoe. Bostanov's murder was committed on the final day of the sacred Moslem month of Ramadan. The culprits could not be found hot on the trail.

The criminal case against journalist Besik Pipiya, head of the representative office of the RIA "Novosti" in Tbilisi, has been stopped because of absence of crime attributes. This was reported by Mr Pipiya himself and his advocate Levan Buadze.

Relatives of Nariman Mamedyarov, who disappeared on September 10 in Makhachkala, had planned to send him out of the republic. Fizuli Asaliev, Mamedyarov's stepbrother, said about it to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. According to his story, in September they expected that Mamedyarov's recognizance not to leave would be lifted.

Russian frontier patrol ship "Novorossisk" has reached the coast of Abkhazia and immediately started its on duty mission of guarding the marine border of this breakaway republic.

Today, at about 2 a.m., near the city of Kizilyurt, some 60 kilometres off Makhachkala, eight freight-cars of a cargo train loaded with pipes and building materials went off the track because the railway was flooded. No victims are reported.

The situation in Ingushetia should not and cannot be a barrier to potential investors, President Yunus-Bek Evkurov believes; during the International Investment Forum in Sochi he guaranteed safety to the companies, which want to work in the territory of this North-Caucasian region.

The Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO) of Russia has reported solving the murder of Senior Justice Advisor Maksud Maksudov, Deputy Public Prosecutor of Makhachkala for supervising law enforcement in corrective-labour establishments.