News

Today at night after interrogation, Russian militaries have released four residents of Sakorintlo village, Kaspsk District, bordering on South Ossetia. According to the detainees, Russian soldiers detained them, when they crossed the conventional border while pasturing their cattle.

Tonight, a bomb in a wooden box was found in a children's playground in a dwelling district of the city of Stavropol. The bomb was neutralized by a robot-sapper.

Liquidation of the "al-Qaeda" coordinator in Dagestan; self-explosion of a suicide bomber and political consequences of the resonant terror act in Ingushetia; opening of a micro-district in Tskhinvali, built by Moscow and vision by South-Ossetian President Kokoity of the future of his republic; "exit to sea" of the Abkhazian-Georgian conflict at the background of detention of ships in the Abkhazian sea zone; agreement on movement towards open Armenian-Turkish border - look up these and other events in the review of the week of August 31 - September 6 in the Caucasian regions prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

The Russian version of the GQ magazine was published without the article "Vladimir Putin - Obscure Ascent to Power", which is present in its American version. The article by Scott Anderson deals with the investigation of terror acts in Russia in the end of 1990s and is based on the interview with Mikhail Trepashkin, a former agent of Russian special services, who told the American journalist about involvement of the FSB in the explosions of apartment houses in Moscow and Buinaksk.

The interim parliamentary commission, which was set up for studying the events on March 1, 2008, in Yerevan has made a decision to visit one of the warehouses of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) with the aim to check the facts presented in the report of the Fact-Finding Group about the events that on that the army warehouse was issuing military uniform to oligarchs' bodyguards.

"Ruined Mosques" - this was the topic of the roundtable held on September 7 at the Baku Media Centre on the initiative of the Centre in Defence of the Freedom of Worship and Religion (DEVAMM.) Demolition of three mosques, while in 2009 Baku was proclaimed the capital of the Islamic culture, is discrediting Azerbaijan before the Muslim world - this was the leitmotif of the roundtable.

Oppositionist Tigran Arakelyan, 18, kept in custody since July 5, has announced today that he refuses from medical held, and starting September 10 will go on termless dry hunger strike.

Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner of the Council of Europe (CE) for Human Rights, arrives in Grozny. Leaders of human rights organizations of the republic hope to discuss at their meeting with Mr Hammarberg a lot of serious issues, including the problem of safety of the NGO employees who work in the region.

The Georgian Ombudsman Sozar Subari and leaders of oppositional parties of Georgia are against early relief of the four police officers, who had been sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment each for murdering a bank employee Sandro Girgvliani in early 2006.

In Chechnya, the issue of the new uniform for Grozny schools is still very hot. Pupils' parents assert that the new uniform is imposed by bureaucrats and express their extreme discontent with the quality and cost of the schoolchildren's clothes.

The dissemination in Makhachkala of leaflets with the threat of blood feud against members of "Dagestan illegal armed formations (IAFs)" was done by the persons who know the situation in Dagestan quite well. This was stated by Gadjimurad Kamalov, publisher of the Dagestan weekly named "Chernovik" (Blueprint) and director general of the LLC "Freedom of Speech" (Makhachkala).

On September 3, certain strangers, who presented themselves as tax inspectors, came to the registration addresses of Oleg Orlov, chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", and Alexander Cherkasov, a member of Board, and tried to find out details of their life.

The report of the Secretary General of the United Nations "Situation with Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees from Abkhazia in Georgia" states that now Georgia keeps over 293 thousand IDPs (internally displaced persons).

Georgia has received fines from the company – owner of the ship "Buket", which was detained in the neutral waters, and released the citizens of Azerbaijan who were onboard.

The heads of three international organizations – Article 19, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and International Pen Committee (IPC) – have addressed their open letter to President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev, asking him to ensure the supremacy of law at the trial of young bloggers Adnan Gadjizade and Emin Milli, and calling him to stop suppression of the freedom of speech in Azerbaijan.

The delegation of Russia at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) may suspend its work, if the autumn session will see the majority of delegates support deprivation of its vote on the issue of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Khadishat Chebieva, a resident of Ingushetia, is afraid for the life of her son, who was kidnapped, as she asserts, by employees of some power agencies.

Georgiy Tsagareishvili, a Georgian MP, asserts that already for more than a week up to 10 prisoners, who serve their terms in the Second Rustavi Prison, are holding their hunger strike. However, the Ministry for Punishment Enforcement, Probation and Legal Aid, denies this information.

Aram Gabrielyan, head of the Environment Department of the Ministry for Nature Protection of Armenia, said that construction of small Hydroelectric Power Plants (HPPs) breaks the ecological balance and results in appearance of problems in the environment.