News

Instead of the ruined Memorial of Glory, a monument to Georgian soldiers who perished during the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union (World War II) will be erected on the Poklonnaya Mount in Moscow. This was announced by Mikhail Khubutiya, a member of the Board of Guardians of the future monument, President of the Union of Georgians in Russia, who explained that the decision was made on February 2 at the first sitting of the working group on creation of the monument.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) plans to carry out a project "Minor Hothouse Farms" aimed to help people in Eastern Abkhazia who suffered in 1992-1993 Georgian-Abkhazian war, and to go on building and repairing apartment houses for refugees. Ana Povrzenic, regional manager of the NRC, told about it on February 1 when she met Sergey Shamba, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia, in Sukhumi.

Today, a trial of Peter Vince, founder of Andrei Sakharov Prize "For Journalism as a Deed", was held. Among others, editions from the Caucasus and journalists covering Caucasian topics were laureates, finalists and nominees of the Prize. The Moscow City Court has upheld the decision of the district court, which had sanctioned Mr Vince's arrest.

In Moscow, unidentified persons desecrated the improvised memorial installed by anti-fascists in the place, where lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova were assassinated - in the arch of White Chambers in Prechistenka.

Citizen of Egypt Mohmad Mohammad Shakhban, also known as "Safe Islam", who was liquidated in Dagestan, was the founder of the al-Qaeda network in Northern Caucasus and main organizer of the explosion on January 6 in Makhachkala. This was reported by the Department of the FSB (DFSB) for Dagestan.

Today in Sukhumi, Knuth Vollebek, Supreme Commissioner of the OSCE on National Minorities, and Indira Vardaniya, Minister of Education of Abkhazia, discussed the issues of teaching the Georgian language in schools of the Gali District and situation with Armenian schoolchildren.

On February 2, President of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity held a working meeting with representatives of subcontracting organizations. This time as well, the agenda comprised the issues of restoration rates and timely financing of construction projects. Mr Kokoity promised to take work-in-progress away from dishonest contractors. City dwellers, in their turn, continue complaining of the quality of erected houses, as well as schools, hospitals and kindergartens; residents of Tskhinvali need the infrastructure same as roofs over their heads.

The results of the blood and urine analyses of Einullah Fatullaev, imprisoned editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Real Azerbaijan", became known in Azerbaijan. In the end of 2009, a new charge of illegal drug storage was presented to him. Isakhan Ashurov, his advocate, treats the analyses results as ambiguous and demands an independent expert's appraisal.

Today, the City Court of Gali released five persons detained on Sunday, January 31, in Saberio village, Gali District of Abkhazia, for illegal crossing the Georgian-Abkhazian border.

Today, at 4:15 a.m., in the section Bronevaya-Ligovo of the St Petersburg-Vitebsk Department of the Oktiabr Railways an explosion took place and injured the operator of the rail car that ran at the moment on the track.

In Azerbaijan, in the context of the tragic incident on January 28 in an army unit, deployed in the Dashkesan District in the country's west, two officers are arrested: Major Valad Gurbanov, deputy commander of the battalion, and Senior Lieutenant Rustam Ahmedov, a platoon commander.

Today, Ferzullah Kakhrimanov, deputy head of the administration of the capital of Dagestan, said that following the order of Mayor of Makhachkala Said Amirov a decision was made not to increase the cost of trip tickets for drivers of fixed-route taxis of Makhachkala. Its price rate remains unchanged - 2800 roubles per month.

The State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition (SCPEC) has fined the pharmaceutical companies "ArmPharm", "PharmGoar" and "Degabaza Yerevan" by 500,000 drams each for untimely presentation to the commission of their justifications of increase of prices on some drugs.

According to Konstantin Kavtaradze, plenipotentiary ambassador of Georgia to Poland, who commented the situation with Georgian illegal immigrants, there will be no mass deportation of citizens of Georgia from Poland. He expects that 20 persons will be deported from Poland to Georgia on February 10.

The trial on the activist of the opposition and editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Armenian Time" Nikol Pashinyan was held with gross infringements. In particular, the equality of arms was not observed; no elements of the crime were presented. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about by Mikael Danielyan, a well-known human rights activist and head of the organization named "Helsinki Association".

Today, at the Basmanny Court of Moscow, Andrei Krasnenkov, representative of President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, and lawyers of the "Novaya Gazeta" refused to enter an amicable agreement on the claim on protection of Kadyrov's honour and dignity against the newspaper.

The law enforcement bodies of Chechnya have sent materials to Moscow for excitation of a criminal case against Liudmila Alekseeva, head of the oldest Russian human rights organization - Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) - for slandering Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.

A bit more than 24 hours after the last interview of the murdered Chechen human rights defender Natalia Estemirova appeared in the website of Ingush opposition "Ingushetiyaru.org", it was attacked with a huge force and finally deprived of any working capacity. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has learnt about it from Lydia Mikhalchenko, editor of the website.

As stated by Maksharip Aushev's brother Mussa, Rustam Dobriev, who was shot dead in Nazran on January 30, was not their relative, as asserted by federal masses media. Mussa is sure that this murder, like many others, was aimed at destabilizing the situation in Ingushetia.

Today at its regular session, the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria, which considers the case on the attack on Nalchik on October 13, 2005, agreed to the request of one of the defendants and released his advocate from the case.