News

Today in Baku, a commercial agreement was signed between the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and the National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) on purchase of Azerbaijani natural gas.

Public organizations of Stavropol are busy preparing a referendum on accession of the Territory to Belarus; now, people sign-in in support of the referendum. On January 15-26, pickets will be held in five public places of the city.

Human rights activist Anastasia Denisova is suspected of breaking author's rights, admitted, under the version of inspectors, through use of counterfeit software. A criminal case has been initiated against her; while Denisova herself believes that this is persecution connected with the activities of the NGO "ETnIKA", headed by her.

According to the decision of the Constitutional Court (CC) of Armenia passed in the closed session the Armenian-Turkish Protocols were found conformant with the Constitution.

The Prosecutor's Office of Moscow has cancelled the decision to refuse to initiate on demand of the President of Chechnya a criminal case against journalists of "Novaya Gazeta", who stated in their articles Ramzan Kadyrov's violations of human rights. Earlier, the Inquiry Department refused the initiate a case against "Novaya Gazeta".

Imam Nazim Magomedov, 38, was knifed dead today in the morning in Buglen village, Buinaksk District of Dagestan, when he went out of the mosque.

Today, after Andrei Krasnenkov, Ramzan Kadyrov's lawyer, presented at the Court session an opinion to the respondents' complaint, the consideration of the cassation complaints lodged by Kadyrov and Oleg Orlov, head of the HRC "Memorial", against the decision of the Tver Court was postponed.

Vasily Boiko, chair of the board of directors of the Company "Your Financial Trustee", accused of swindling land plots in Moscow vicinities, asks power agencies to protect him from militants of Northern Caucasus. Mr Boiko and his lawyers sent their application to the FSB after a publication in an extremists' website that he owes one million roubles to militants' leader Doku Umarov for information about the killer of Moscow priest Daniil Sysoev.

Last year, power agencies 15 times introduced the counterterrorist operation (CTO) regime in different localities of Dagestan, in addition to many operations of counteracting terrorism and extremism. This is supported by analysis of the archives of the "Caucasian Knot" and open sources.

In Adygea, Adyg society is indignant with the dispersal by militiamen on the New Year night in Maikop, the republic's capital, of the collective national dance Adyge Dzhegu. The social movement named "Adyge Khasse" is going to lodge a claim on this suppressive action.

Aggravation of situation in Dagestan; attempts to launch Russia-Georgia air flights and failure of a meeting on incident prevention in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone, - look up these and other events in the review of the week of January 4-10, 2010, in Caucasian regions prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

Residents of the Imereti Lowland in Sochi complain of contamination of the environmental and noises, which exceed the standards, emitted and generated by the three factories belonging to the State Corporation "Olympstroy." According to local citizens, the factories of high hazard degree were placed on the lands initially allocated for an ornithological park.

The Dagestan Department of the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has called the local branch of the "Edinaya Rossiya" Party not to break the Russian law on mass media and the Constitution and to provide the journalists of the weekly named "Chernovik" (Blueprint) about the members of the political board of the regional branch. According to Magomed Magomedov, a journalist of the edition, this decision of the Dagestan MoJ is unprecedented.

The City Court of Tbilisi has ruled to release General Kobaladze, accused of an attempt to overthrow the state power during the mutiny at the military base in Mukhrovani, right in the courtroom. The prosecutor had asked to imprison him for 12 years for a wilful military mutiny and for 1.6 years for illegal arm bearing.

Magomed Gadjiev, a resident of Makhachkala, who was beaten by militiamen and is now at the Republic's Traumatology Hospital with plural body bruises, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent today that the inspector wants him to change evidences.

Today in Krasnodar, militiamen conducted a search in the apartment of Anastasia Denisova, a member of the Coordination Board of the Youth Human Rights Movement, leader of the organization "ETnIKA", active participant of the Movement "GROZA" and employee of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial". It was stated that the search was conducted under a special operation of checking the conformity of actual residents to those registered in the apartment in the context of a terror threat.

On January 11, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Azerbaijan approved the final totals of the elections on December 23, 2009 to the country's local government bodies.

Not far from Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, militiamen opened fire on a suspicious car, when its driver did not react to demand to stop. The car blew up and three suspected militants inside were dead.

Should the Russian justice fail to cancel the outcomes of the October 11 elections in Astrakhan, Oleg Shein, Deputy of Russian State Duma and a candidate for the post of Mayor of Astrakhan at the elections, is going to address his complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

Residents of a number of small settlements located in the Staropromyslovskiy District of Chechen capital report about the check of their passports held there. There were no detainees, however, local residents got worried.