News

The National Centre of Assessments and Examinations has published statistics on the most demanded departments chosen by high school entrants in Georgia in this academic year. The most popular departments are of business and economy, law, international relations, sociology and information technologies. Only 0.8 percent of all the entrants plan to apply to pedagogical departments.

In Makhachkala, employees of Dagestan law-enforcement agencies and inspectors of the Chief Investigatory department on the North-Caucasian and Southern Federal Districts are investigating the murder of Ahmed Magomedov, head of the UVD (Interior Department) of Makhachkala.

On February 5, Volgograd hosted a sitting on safe neutralization of environmentally hazardous substances. A microbiological preparation named "Bioglauconite", created by Volgograd scientists, was presented to the audience.

Residents of the Mineralovodskiy District of the Stavropol Territory stand in defence of the mineral source, located in the place, where local authorities plan to build a landfill for domestic wastes. People are afraid that garbage from the whole vicinity will be brought here.

Today in the morning, the Rostov Musical Theatre hosted a solemn opening of the All-Russian educational action "Healthy Hearts". The aim of the action is to draw attention of people to their health, in particular, to vascular diseases.

On February 5, activists of Georgian oppositional parties held a march of protest with a demand to release political prisoners. They stuck posters to the wall of buildings in the Rustaveli Avenue with photos of political prisoners.

In Nagorno-Karabakh, the first in the region's history feature film about the Karabakh War - "House which Shot" - was made. It is planned that it will launch the cycle of feature films based on real facts.

The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan has defined the winner of the tender, held on designing, building and further development of the Zoological Park, intended to house endangered animal species. The German-Turkish company will build a zoo in the territory of more than 200 hectares.

Four persons, including two children, suffered in Batumi, when two floors of the 14-storey building, which is in construction, cracked down at night on February 4.

When the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) mission was in Sochi, Red Book trees were still cut down along the joint road Adler-Krasnaya Polyana. This is stated by the Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus.

The phthisiology service in Karachai-Circassia is in a pitiable condition. It is recognized by Khusei Kurdanov, Minister of Public Health. He marks that conditions in the republic's TB clinic are below all sanitary standards.

All the building and communication works for commissioning of the cottage settlement of 507 houses in the Malgobek District of Ingushetia for resettled residents of the landslide zones will be over this month and the houses will be turn-key ready, said President Yunus-Bek Evkurov.

The Human Rights Centre of the World Russian People's Council has expressed its indignation with the "continuing acts of vandalism against Prayer Crosses installed in the territory of Adygea."

The agreement on mutual visa-free travels between citizens of South Ossetia and Russia will be in force since March 2010. This was stated by Murat Dzhioev, Minister of Foreign Affairs of South Ossetia.

The consideration of the appeal complaint filed by young bloggers Emin Milli and Adnan Gadjizade was again postponed by the Baku Appeal Court today. The reason was a strong snowfall that prevented their transportation to the trial.

Snowfalls and wire icing in the north of Dagestan crushed down power line supports made of reinforced concrete. Ten thousand residents remain without electric power, while specialists promise to completely restore supplies by February 8-9.

The prosecution has demanded to sentence Sergey Hadzhikurbanov, who was acquitted in Anna Politkovskaya's murder case but accused of extorting 350,000 US dollars from the main prosecution's witness in this case, to 10 years of imprisonment.

On the eve of the 10th anniversary of "zachistka" (clean-up) in the Chechen village named Novye Aldy, where 56 peaceful residents were murdered on February 5, 2000, Moscow hosted a press conference dedicated to the anniversary of those tragic events. During the event a documentary entitled "Aldy. With No Limitation Period", based on video evidences and video documents, was demonstrated.

Chechen ecologists plan to hold a broad-scale operation in the districts of the republic scale operation "Clean Water", aimed to prevent pollution of water bodies. The responsibility for observance of the nature protection legislation will be assigned to heads of municipal formations.

On February 3, the Yasamal District Court of Baku satisfied the claim of Ramil Usubov, head of the MIA of Azerbaijan, to Eyub Kerimov, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Themis-007".