News

The Georgian Patriarchy has apologized, on behalf of Elias II, head of Georgian Orthodox Church, to Moslems for the anti-Islamic statements, which appeared yesterday in the official website.

President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan expects that the Armenian-Turkish border will be unblocked by the football match between the teams of the two countries to take place in Turkey on October 7.

Some residents of the Sunzha District of Ingushetia, where on March 30 six villages were announced under the counterterrorist operation (CTO) regime, did not know about it. According to local residents, the CTO regime passed without any restrictions on civilians' rights.

Today in the morning, two explosive devices were detected in the Karabudakhkent District of Dagestan, on the main gas line "Mozdok-Kazimagomed". During demining one of them, a sapper was lost.

On April 9, Estonian MP Andres Herkel, co-rapporteur of the Monitoring Committee of Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), and Veronica Kotek, special representative of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in Azerbaijan, had a meeting with Novruzali Mamedov, head of the Talysh Cultural Centre, who is serving his term in high security Colony No. 15.

In the Rostov Region, miners-pensioners from the city of Zverevo, who are striving for their privileges on heating, are filing new claims to the European Court on Human Rights. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed about it by Valery Dyakonov, deputy of the municipal duma of Zverevo. The pensioners continue their pickets and hunger strike.

Residents of Ingushetia Madina Ozdoeva and Patimat Mutalieva, detained in the course of the special operation conducted by power agents on March 26 in Ordzhonikidzevskaya village, Sunzha District of the republic, are at large. The investigation regards them as witnesses.

The opposition, which is holding a rally in Tbilisi, has split into parts and blocked strategic streets of the capital of Georgia. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed about it by Paata Zakareishvili, a political scientist and human rights activist, who is present at the rally.

The night in front of the Parliament of Georgia, where a small group of opposition supporters and activists were on duty, passed in peace. However, elsewhere in Tbilisi incidents were registered connected with participants of the protest action - a young oppositionist was beaten.

Today, in the southwest part of Yerevan, a strike of minibus drivers was held. Several dozens of drivers protested against increase of liquefied gas prices, used by their minibuses. According to their story, this price rise was not accompanied by transportation tariff growth.

Among all the districts of Russia the South Federal District (SFD) is in the last place by development of the use of Internet. However, bloggers and Internet edition are more active in the SFD than on the average in Russia. These are the data from the information bulletin published by the "Yandex" Company on the Internet development in regions of Russia in 2008.

On April 8, in the Karabudakhkent District of Dagestan, unidentified persons wounded two employees of the road police service, and then, trying to escape the chase, killed a local resident.

The tax service demands that parents of the children-victims of the Beslan terror act in 2004 should pay taxes on their free-of-charge training at the "Podmoskovny" College in Koralovo founded by Mikhail Khodorkovskiy and financed by YUKOS, as Ella Kesaeva, chair of the "Voice of Beslan", reports.

Georgian journalist Irakliy Berulava, who is present in the venue, has treated the data about the number of participants in the protest rally in Tbilisi, reported by some mass media, to be frankly false.

Early in the morning on April 9, in Azerbaijan, poet-satirist Mirza Sakit (Sakit Zakhidov), a journalist of the "Azadlyg" (Freedom) newspaper, who was sentenced in October 2006 to three years in prison for drug dealing, got at large.

The European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR) has again condemned Russia on four claims filed by Chechens and has obliged Russia to pay 282,000 euros out to residents of Chechnya for disappearance of their relatives in 2001-2003.

The Party of Zurab Nogaideli, former prime minister of Georgia, named as "Movement for United Georgia", is holding protest actions in Adzharia.

On April 5, unidentified power agents kidnapped Yusup Zagirov, born in 1977. His brother Omar Zagirov made a statement yesterday, on April 8.

According to Georgian sources, on April 7, a Georgian named Gvandzhi Kuprava, 65, was kidnapped from Sida village, Gali District. The kidnappers asked for a ransom, and then took Kuprava in an unknown direction.

Yuri Airapetyan, Ombudsman of Nagorno-Karabakh, will become a member of the European Institute of Ombudspersons. Having announced this news to journalists, Mr Airapetyan added that in 2008 there were no mass violations of human rights in Nagorno-Karabakh, as the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.