News

The oppositional parties of Georgia have gathered some 50,000 signatures of Tbilisi residents, who are ready to take part in the rally on April 9 in the centre of the capital with a resignation demand of President Mikhail Saakashvili. The signing-in campaign will continue, as Eka Beseliya, one of the leaders of the United Opposition of Georgia, said today at a briefing.

Today in Tbilisi, the police has dispersed the action, organized in Rustaveli Avenue by the members of youth organizations who have united into the oppositional movement "November 7".

Today in Yerevan, the process on "Case of Seven" about disorders in the capital of Armenian on March 1, 2008, will continue.

In Nazran, in the yard of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Ingushetia, a picket was held by the relatives of the defendants, figuring in the case about attack on Ingushetia in 2004 and kept at the pre-trial prison (the so-called "IVS") of the MIA of Ingushetia; the picketers demanded that the date of consideration of the case be appointed.

Magomed Ocherkhadzhi, one of the leaders of Chechen community in Norway, who, according to Ruslan Khalidov, a native of Chechnya, should have been killed by the latter under the alleged order of Ramzan Kadyrov, said that Khalidov himself had been recruited by Norwegian special agencies.

Georgian media have promulgated, with reference to a source in the local Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), the information that the authorities of South Ossetia had launched mass repressions against those Ossetians, who took part, on November 12, 2006, in alternative election of the President of South Ossetia held in the territory earlier controlled by Tbilisi. Tskhinvali refutes all statements of this sort.

Today in Moscow, a picket was held with a demand to set free Zara Murtazalieva, a native of Chechnya, convicted on accusation of preparing a terror act, and to release other women-political prisoners.

In the Kamensk District, Rostov Region, an attempt was made by members of one of private security agencies (PSA) to capture a large oil refinery in the city of Kamensk-Shakhtinskiy. Three persons were wounded.

Yunus-Bek Evkurov, President of the Republic of Ingushetia, said that his anticorruption actions have returned 14 million roubles back into the Republic's budget.

The participants of the roundtable, held at the Public Human Rights Centre of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic believe that the restriction of juries is related to the particular criminal case, which considers the events on October 13, 2005, in Kabardino-Balkaria.

The Olympic construction sites in Sochi are in awful condition, as Yuri Trutnev, head of the Ministry for Natural Resources and Environment Protection ("Minprirody"), stated at the sitting of the Federal Technical Inspection Committee ("Rostekhnadzor") on Friday, March 6.

The Gamblers' Association of the Southern Federal District (SFD) of Russia asks to postpone the deadline for closing their gambling facilities located outside particular areas from July 1, 2009, till the end of 2012 under the motive that the so-called "Azov-City" is not ready yet.

The explosion in Ingushetia on March 5, which killed bomb technicians and sappers from the FSB and militia, could be a sort of preparation of a huge terror act, and its aim, most likely, was to liquidate the best bomb technicians and sappers of the Republic, as law enforcement bodies assert.

During the visit of Adzharia's delegation to Azerbaijan, a preliminary agreement was reached to launch a direct flight Baku-Batumi by the start of the resort season.

The meeting on March 5 of Eduard Kokoity, President of South Ossetia, with the refugees living in North Ossetia, failed to meet their expectations. After his two-hour speech, President answered only seven questions of the audience.

Today, the members of the All-Russia NGO "Voice of Beslan" have lodged another complaint of theirs to the European Court on Human Rights in Strasbourg the next complaint against the state on behalf of the new initiative group consisting of 71 persons, as Ella Kesaeva, head of the NGO, has reported.

Today, the political association named "Alliance for Georgia", headed by Irakliy Alasaniya, has declared a start of the public plebiscite towards resignation of President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili. This was announced by Mr Alasaniya at a briefing in Tbilisi.

The General Prosecutor's Office has returned the case about the explosion of the "Neva-Express" Train for additional investigation. In the opinion of the Office, the investigation remained unfinished.

The authorities of Armenia find the Armenian part of the annual report on situation with human rights in the world presented on February 26 by the Department of State (DoS) of the USA unduly sharp and politically motivated.

The Centre of Islamic Medicine, opened on February 2, in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, where patients with psycho-neurological diseases are treated by reading ayats from Koran and according to Sunnah of Prophet Mohammed, has already cured one thousand persons, as the Republic's Muftiyat reports.