News

A couple of hours prior to the opening ceremony of Vancouver Olympiad, held on February 12, the Georgian Olympic team suffered a tragic loss: at the morning training session Nodar Kumaritashvili, a sledge racer, crushed himself to death in an accident it was broke to death.

The government of Armenia has approved a bill "On Making Additions in the Law 'On International Treaties'", assuming Armenia's possibility to cancel international treaties prior they come into legal force.

On February 14, Kalmykia will mark the national spring holiday - Tsagan Sar (White Month). Traditionally, celebratory actions and molebens will be held in all the khuruls (monasteries and prayer houses) of the republic.

Residents of Chechnya report that they are demanded to pay tax on their domestic animals. According to their version, officials assert that President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov has personally ordered to take taxes on domestic cattle and poultry.

In Georgia, over fifty thousand families remain without electricity. On February 12, the cities of Poti and Kutaisi suffered from hurricane, when the wind reached 30 meters per second. Weather forecasters warn that today bad weather will cover the whole country.

The Project entitled "Place Where Generations Meet" (of the Programme "Dialogue Is Rendezvous Place"), executed by the Sholokhov Library - a branch of the Novocherkassk Central Library System - and supported by the Foundation "Memory, Responsibility and Future" (Germany) and the Federal State Institution (FSI) "Fund of Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation" (Moscow), assumes teaching old people in information technologies by volunteers.

Today, the Moscow City Court (MCC) has delayed the consideration of the rehabilitation claim lodged by Ruslan Musaev, one of the acquitted figurants in the case on the attempt on President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov committed back in May 2007.

Because of strong snowfalls and wire icing, electric power supplies are broken in the Buinaksk, Karabudakhkent and Sergokalin Districts of Dagestan. About nine thousand residents are still without electricity; they promise to restore supplies by February 15.

In the evening on Friday, February 12, the National Assembly of Azerbaijan with 92 votes for and 7 votes against approved the amendments to a number of legislation acts imposing restrictions on collection and dissemination of information.

Today, the consideration of the appeal complaint lodged by young bloggers' Emin Milli and Adnan Gadjizade was again postponed by the Baku Appeal Court.

The Meschanski District Court of the city of Moscow has accepted to consideration a claim from a resident of Makhachkala Shamil Sheikhov about protection of honour, dignity and business reputation and demand to collect compensation in the sum of 100 million roubles in equal halves from Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Chairman of LDPR (Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia) and vice-speaker of the State Duma of Russia, and from the editorial board of the newspaper "LDPR". The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about it by Mr Sheikhov himself.

The litigation on the case of Tsotne - the son of the first president of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia - will resume at the Tbilisi City Court on February 18 at 1:30 p.m., said his advocate Keti Bekauri.

The case of Einullah Fatullaev, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Real Azerbaijan", who was convicted in Azerbaijan, is causing many doubts and gives rise to worry for his life. This was stated by Andres Herkel, Rapporteur of the PACE Monitoring Committee.

President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov said that he is ready to remain the head of the republic until he is on demand in this position. His term as President of Chechnya expires in 2012.

Incessant armed conflict in Northern Caucasus; loss of satellite signal of Georgian TV Channel causing an international conflict; Baku and Yerevan restart talking about a new war for Nagorno-Karabakh, - look up these and other events in the review of the week of February 1-7, 2010, in Caucasian regions prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

The blog of the web designer Artemiy Lebedev, known for his use of obscene lexicon, causes no harm to public morals. This was the conclusion of the OVD (Interior Division) of the Tver District of Moscow, having studied his LiveJournal and refused the initiative group "Volgogradskiy Proryv" (Volgograd Breakthrough) to open a criminal case against Lebedev for his use of abusive expressions in his blog.

According to Zurab Nogaideli, ex-premier and leader of the oppositional "Movement for Fair Georgia", who visited Moscow on February 8-10 and signed during this visit a cooperation agreement with the "Edinaya Rossiya" Party, believes that restoration of Russian-Georgian relations is crucial for economic development of his country - to get Georgian goods back to the Russian market and give chance to Georgians to earn money and improve their social status.

In the opinion of Timur Khikmatov, head of the PR Department of the Ministry of Transports of the Russian Federation, if Georgia wants to resume air traffic with Russia, she should initiate negotiations at the level of state administrations. In his turn, Georgiy Dokuchava, head of the united transport organization of Georgia, believes that Russia should initiate negotiations, as it was Russia, who closed the air corridor in August 2008.

The former junior sergeant Alexander Sivyakov, who was convicted to four years of imprisonment for mockeries during his military service in the Chelyabinsk garrison over private soldier Andrei Sychov, recruited from Novocherkassk, Rostov Region, has been set free. Andrei Sychov's family believes that Sivyakov was too leniently punished.

The militia refused to ensure safety of the organizers of the rally on February 21 with the demand of fair trial on the case of the ex-militia major Alexei Dymovskiy, capital reform of the MIA and resignation of Vladimir Chernositov, head of the Novorossisk UVD (Interior Department). Vadim Karastelyov, an expert of the Novorossisk Committee of Human Rights (NCHR) and Dymovskiy's official representative, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that he was recommended at the UVD to hire private securities for this purpose.