News

People in Chechnya have differently perceived the news that the special battalions "Vostok" (East) and "Zapad" (West) subordinate to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff (GRU) of the Russian Ministry of Defence will be disbanded. Although many residents treated these subdivisions negatively enough, others believe that the battalions were dissolved to please President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov.

The total area of the land plots in Sochi bought out for construction of 2014 Olympic objects can be reduced. A group of Deputies from "Edinaya Rossiya" (United Russia) faction has brought in a bill to the State Duma, under which the state can take, till January 1, 2014, the land plots owned by Sochi citizens into restricted use for construction of Olympic objects.

We, FIDH member and partner organizations express our support to human rights defenders and to civil society representatives working in Georgia, and share their concerns about human rights violations and shortcomings in Georgia.

The battalions "Zapad" (West) and "Vostok" (East) of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division of the Russian Ministry of Defence, deployed in the territory of Chechnya, are transformed into motorized rifle companies.

The world economic crisis has affected the real estate market of Armenia and the sector of raw materials of the country. Prices on copper and molybdenum, extracted and exported by the country, have gone down.

The Ministry of Health of Russia has denied the proposal of Chechen leaders to set up in the republic s special laboratory for genetic examination of unidentified bodies.

Today, North Ossetia parts with the victims of the terror act committed on November 6 in Vladikavkaz. The mourning was announced in the republic.

The First Southern Venture Fair has presented innovations from Rostov-on-Don, Novocherkassk, Taganrog, Volgodonsk, Shakhty, Volgograd, Stavropol, Makhachkala and Elista. They covered the sectors of construction, medicine and medical equipment, telecommunications, information technologies and chemical industry.

Armenia has started its programme of returning internally displaced persons to their permanent residences, where their houses and apartments had been damaged or ruined during the Karabakh conflict in 1992-1994.

In Chechnya, tenants of House 2/1 in Putin Avenue of Grozny, asked by city authorities to abandon their apartments, wrote an open letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev asking him for help.

The Company "Russian Railways" (RRs) is ready to take part in construction of the Iran-Armenia railway in the capacity of project contractor, should Armenia, Iran and Russia agree on the project terms, as Vladimir Yakunin, President of the RRs, told journalists.

The law enforcement bodies of North Ossetia have declared that, under preliminary data, the woman-suicide bomber who accomplished the terror act in Vladikavkaz on November 6 was a native of Ingushetia, aged 45.

This year, 8,000 pilgrims from Dagestan will make their way to Mecca, although the application had been for 15,000 persons. First of all, the priority is given to those who have never made the Hajj.

Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against Russian aggression, The New York Times reports.

The Panel on Civil Cases of the Supreme Court of Ingushetia has cancelled the decision of the Nazran District Court on recognition of the interview of businessman Musa Keligov placed in the website "Ingushetia.Ru" to be of extremist nature and sent the case to new consideration.

Representatives of the Ingush opposition - Maksharip Aushev, Magomed Khazbiev and Musa Pliev, who had a meeting on November 3 with the new President of Ingushetia, believe that Yunus-Bek Evkurov is capable to change the situation in the republic for the better.

Immediately after blowing up of the "Gazel" taxi in Vladikavkaz, the Ingushes, who tried to drive through the "Chermen Circle" in the border of Ingushetia and North Ossetia, faced problems, Magomed Mutsolgov, leader of the Ingush Human Rights Organization "Mashr", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

From now on, Georgia will host permanent protest actions. It will be a new wave of protest; its aim being in peacefully changing the power in the country. This is the topic of the "United Opposition's Action Plan", which was distributed among the participants of the protest action in front of the parliament in Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi. Next time, the opposition will rally on November 23 near the building of the "Imedi" TV Company.

Today, the opposition rally in Georgia attracted "about ten thousand persons: this is the capacity of the square in front of the Government Palace in Tbilisi; it is all packed by people, and the crowd does not decrease," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent quotes his contact - Emil Adelkhanov, member of the Board of the NGO "Caucasian Institute", who is in the place of events.

According to the latest data, as a result of explosion of a fixed-route taxi in the centre of Vladikavkaz, in the square in front of the "Druzhba" movie theatre and marketplace "Globus", committed on November 6, 12 persons were lost and 38 more were wounded to different gravity.