News

The teachers of the Astrakhan Regional "Centre of Children's Scientific and Technical Creativity", who demanded to cancel the order about reorganization of the "Centre of Children's Aesthetic Training", have stopped their hunger strike.

The Dutch city of Leiden hosted a meeting of the participants of the Georgian-Ossetian Civil Forum, where an appeal was adopted to the parties of the Geneva Consultations, asking to help in solving the problems of the peaceful population of Georgia and South Ossetia.

Ten oppositional parties of Georgia have made a joint statement asking the parliament not to adopt the new version of the national Constitution. The signatories believe that the hasty consideration of the bill has only one aim - granting guarantees to Mikhail Saakashvili that he will continue ruling the country as prime minister after the end of his presidency.

After the recent resonant terror acts committed in Russia, President Dmitri Medvedev has brought in a bill to the State Duma on amending the Russia's Criminal Code.

On July 19, the city of Nalchik hosted an opening ceremony of the youth tent camp "Caucasus-2020", located on the coast of the picturesque Kurortnoe Lake, where more than one thousand young men from all Russia - from Kamchatka to Kaliningrad - gathered.

In Tbilisi, a book was presented entitled "Russian Aggression in My Eyes", dedicated to the Russian-Georgian military conflict in August 2008.

The Board for Assisting to Development of Civil Society Institutes and Human Rights under Russian President sent an appeal to Russian leader asking to protect human rights activists, including the employees of the Human Rights Centre "Memorial", who work in Chechnya, against the threats pronounced by local president Ramzan Kadyrov, and ensure their normal working conditions.

According to a high-ranking source in power agencies of the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), one of the six women detained on July 12 in Makhachkala was going to come to Moscow in July and commit a terror act there.

In the village of Dikhazurga, Gal District, the burnt-down houses of local residents will be rebuilt in the near future. This became known today after the regular meeting within the mechanism for prevention and reaction to incidents held in the city of Gal.

Konstantin Biryulin, deputy director of the Russian Federal Service of Military-Technical Cooperation, has discussed, in the course of his visit to Yerevan, with the Armenian party the opportunity of creating joint military-technical facilities and of involvement of Armenian enterprises in the Russian-Belarusian Financial and Industrial Group "Defence Systems".

On July 19, residents of the Gegarkunik Region of Armenia held a protest action against construction of a Hydraulic Power Plant (HPP) in their district. The protesters blocked the Yerevan-Martuni Highway demanding not to start the construction.

The Malgobek District of Ingushetia continues building a residential settlement for the people who live in the territory of the landslide zone. The first resettlers move in back on June 4, but the process of building the infrastructure and laying down communications is not over yet.

One year after Natalia Estemirova's murder; forced eviction of Imereti residents from "Olympic" lands; start of ethnographic expedition of Russian bloggers to the Caucasus, - look these and other events in the review of the week of July 12-18, 2010, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

Eviction of residents is in full swing in the Imereti Lowland, a district of Sochi, where construction of the large Olympic Stadium is planned. However, because of inadequate, in the opinion of residents, compensations they continue protesting and bringing actions.

The draft of the new Constitution of Georgia was adopted by the majority of the members of the State Constitutional Commission: 44 votes were cast for the amendments, and only three members voted against.

Today, Telman Mamedov, Judge of the Kusar District Court of Azerbaijan, passed a verdict on the criminal case of Usman Garisov, a resident of Dagestan, accused of drug contraband and use. The convict was awarded four years of minimum security prison.

As reported by the press service of the KGB of South Ossetia, on July 18, six citizens of Georgia were detained by servicemen of the Frontier Department of the Russian FSB in South Ossetia for illegal border crossing in the Znaur District of this republic.

The main prize of the 7th International Film Festival "Golden Apricot" was awarded to the Turkish film director Rekha Erdem for his film "Space".

Ambulances are called to the teachers holding their protest hunger strike several times in day: three of them were offered hospitalization; the condition of one more protester causes special doctor's alarm - if sugar in his blood will drops by one point more, he is under threat of coma. Despite it, none of the 19 persons who take part in the hunger strike is going to stop the action.

An extraordinary session of the government and parliament of South Ossetia made a decision to announce July 20 the mourning day on the victims of the bus falling in to the abyss from the Trans-Caucasian Highway (know as "Transkam") on July 18.