News

Nature continues to inflict damage on the residents of North Caucasus; new unrest in the Karabakh conflict zone; new evidence in the case of murder of human rights activist Estemirova; Abkhazia walks out of Geneva discussions, South Ossetia threatens to follow suit - read all this in the "Caucasian Knot" review of main events in the Caucasus during the week of June 21 - 27, 2010.

Tariel Mulukhov (Oniani), born in Georgia, accused of kidnapping in Russia considers the case file containing materials on the actions incriminating him as framed and refuses to give evidence in court.

Tsotne Ghamsakhurdia, the son of the first Georgian president Zviad Ghamsakhurdia, who is in prison now, has resumed his hunger strike, reports lawyer Keti Bekauri.

Astrakhan oblast governor Alexander Zhilkin has moved an idea to make grasshoppers, which inflicted serious damage on southern Russia regions, a good business.

Georgian President Michail Saakashvili has stated at the sitting of the National Security Council that Georgia is prepared to start wide-scale negotiations on normalizing bilateral relations without any preconditions.

The freedom of expression in Azerbaijan is limited, considerable improvements are needed in the country. As reported by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, this is what is said in the report of Thomas Hammarberg, CU commissioner on human rights, placed on June 29 at the Council of Europe sight.

Blogger Emin Milli (Abdullaev) who serves his term in prison in Azerbaijan has been temporarily released from prison for attending on June 29 the funeral of his father Pasha Abdullaev who died last night.

On June 28, seven unidentified persons in camouflage clothes, threatening with their automatic guns, kidnapped a resident of the village of Arshty, Sunzhen district of Ingushetia, reports a source at the republic's law enforcement agency today.

Re-election of local self-government bodies may only influence the elections under the majority system, it has no effect whatsoever on the proportional system. This has been stated to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by Georgy Mchedlidze, secretary of the Georgian central election commission.

Grigol Vashadze, Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, is not a citizen of the Russian Federation any more, as announced today by his deputy David Dzhalagania at the press conference.

A criminal case has been initiated in Krasnodar Krai against a member of a precinct election commission with casting vote, suspected of falsification of election documents during the election of Timashevsk district council on March 14.

Journalists of the "Trialeti" TV company intend to file a complaint to the Georgian General Prosecutor's Office and the MoI in connection with pressure exerted on journalists, says Lado Bichashvili, producer of the TV channel information service.

Edward Mironov and Zaur Tokhov, two defendants in Kabardino-Balkaria in the case of militants' attack on Nalchik in October 2005, are not going to be expelled from the court room, despite the prosecution request.

Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council, had arrived today to Kabardino-Balkaria where he met with the republic's leadership, state functionaries and public representatives. During the meeting they discussed problems of the North Caucasus economy, in particular, those of distant pastures.

On June 27, at 5 p.m., Sochi residents held an action of protest on the Tsvetnoi Boulevard against the third leg of the Kurortny Avenue alternate road which, in their opinion, had been designed with gross violations of SNiP by architects from St-Petersburg.

A criminal case has been initiated against Sergei Molchanski, vice-governor of Archangelsk oblast. The functionary is suspected of abuse of power in spending the money allocated for repairing a school in South Ossetia.

Today, the North Ossetia supreme court has sentenced Ruslan Surkhoyev, resident of Ingushetia, to 11 years of high-security prison for kidnapping militiamen and teenagers.

Dmitri Novikov, former judge of Khosta district court, Krasnodar Krai, is accused of organizing embezzling of 17 plots of "Olympic" land in Sochi. According to his lawyer, Novikov himself accused other judges of the crime.

As reported by Magomed Ismailov, deputy minister of internal affairs of the republic, as a result of a special operation conducted in the Karabudakhkent District of Dagestan, one of militants' leaders was liquidated.

Head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov is the second president-blogger from the NCFD (North-Caucasian Federal District). Since June 25, he opened his blog in the Livejournal.