News

Svetlana Isaeva, chair of the Dagestan NGO named "Dagestan Mothers for Human Rights", has complained to the public prosecutor that inspectors refuse to check the data on whereabouts of kidnapped persons.

The European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg has passed a decision against the Republic of Armenia, having recognized illegality of Gagik Sarukhanyan's removal from elections.

The Investigatory Committee at the Ministry of Internal Affairs has stopped the criminal case opened in relation to journalist Manana Aslamazyan after the Constitutional court of the Russian Federation ruled on May 27 that the challenged legal provision was applied illegally and is non-constitutional.

On June 7, militiamen of the Moscow Region released 49 natives of Uzbekistan, who were violently detaining and forced to work by citizens of Azerbaijan.

The opening ceremony of the "Noah's Ark" First International Movie Festival to be held on June 13-19 in the capital of Chechnya will be visited by well-known American actors Mark Dacascos and Armand Assante.

The international economic forum under the motto "Abkhazia-2008. Investments, Prospects", organized by Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of Abkhazia with the help of the Republic's Government, will take place on June 17-21 in the sea report of Pitsunda.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have decided to continue negotiations on settling the Karabakh conflict within the OSCE Minsk Group, and later in June the co-chairs of the Group will visit the conflict region again.

On June 8, some 60 prisoners of women's colony in Tbilisi announced a hunger strike demanding revision of their verdicts.

Dmitri Oreshkin, a Russian political scientist, believes that the current presidents of Chechnya and Ingushetia are gainful for the Kremlin: Ramzan Kadyrov controls Chechnya, and Murat Zyazikov is loyal to the Russian leadership.

At the debate held on June 8 in Stepanakert on the topic "People's Diplomacy: Challenges and Opportunities", representatives of Karabakh NGOs and state structures registered a change in Azerbaijani tactics towards settling the Karabakh conflict.

Victoria Nuland, US Ambassador to NATO, asserts that Ukraine and Georgia, whose accession to NATO's Membership Action Plan was postponed till December, are not yet ready to become members of the Alliance.

In their essence, the amendment in the Electoral Code, recently approved by the Parliament of Azerbaijan, create no legal guarantees for eliminating the main problems on the road towards free and fair elections. This conclusion was made by the experts of the Election Monitoring Centre (EMC).

The bodies of three young men killed in the Hasavyurt District on June 7 as a result of a skirmish with militiamen in Dagestan have been identified. Two of them had been searched.

In the district of Vanatur of the Razdan city in Armenia, a hunger strike with a demand to release all political prisoners was launched by war veterans of the voluntary regiment Arshavir Bazinyan, Ashot Nersisyan, Norik Sarkisyan, Samvel Panosyan, Eduard Sarkisyan and widow Janet Nersisyan.

In Rostov-on-Don, ecology activists have started to bag subscriptions under a petition of townspeople to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev with an appeal to refrain from building new nuclear power plants.

Today, the capital of Georgia hosted the first sitting of the parliament of the new convocation elected on May 21. The sitting was attended by President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili and Catholicos Patriarch of all Georgia Elias the Second.

Tonight, Sochi will host the opening ceremony of the 21st "Kinotaurus" Open Russian Movie Festival. In total, the jury will choose among 14 films, 9 of them made by debutants.

Restoration of the railway in Abkhazia can take more than two months, said Sergey Shamba, head of the Abkhazian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when making comments on the statement of the Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation Anatoly Serdyukov that the units of the railway troops of Russia will leave the territory of Abkhazia within the nearest two months.

President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov has signed a new law on election of deputies to the Parliament of Chechnya, according to which the legislature will become unicameral.

Despite the doubts of its individual members, the United Opposition of Georgia sticks to its decision to boycott the work of the new parliament, which has appointed its first session on June 7.