News

Lekso Bzhaniya, 18, a soldier of the Abkhazian armed forces, left his military unit without permit and addressed for refuge to the government of Georgia. The young man said that he had been forced into the Abkhazian army and expressed his readiness to serve in Georgia.

Today, Ziyavdin Dapaev, a resident of Makhachkala and a follower of Turkish religious scholar Said Nursi, whose writings under the general title "Risale-i-Nur" (Letters of Light) were judicially banned in Russia in 2007, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that he was summoned for interrogation to the FSB Department for Dagestan.

The Armenian National Congress (ANC) would not recognize the outcomes of the additional election to the National Assembly of Armenia held on January 10 and intends to challenge its outcomes.

Soon it will be possible to cross the Georgian-South-Ossetian administrative border only with the ID translated into Russian; however, this measure will touch only the residents of the village of Perevi. This was stated by Boris Chochiev, plenipotentiary of President of South Ossetia for post-conflict settlement.

The United Circassian Information Internet Resource, devoted to the All-Russia Census to be held on October 14-25, 2010. The project is aimed at restoration of the united historical ethnic notion (ethnicon) - a "Circassian" - for all sub-ethnic groups of the Circassian nation.

Today, 24 citizens of Georgia were deported from Poland to Georgia by a special Warsaw-Tbilisi charter flight. Among them, there are also participants of the December incident with the train in Poland, when a group of citizens of the Russian Federation and Georgia, who claimed for refugee status, illegally occupied seats in a train and demanded to bring them to Strasbourg.

Russian human rights defenders, politicians and public figures ask Moscow authorities to set up a memorial sign in the place of the fatal attack on lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova.

On January 11, President of Georgia named three candidates for the post of the chairman of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC). He made his choice out of 14 nominees, moved by public and nongovernmental organizations at a meeting with him to Batumi.

Now, 5 districts of Dagestan with population of 215,000 are with no gas supplies after the terror act on the Mozdok-Kazimagomed gas main.

The edition "Sketches on History of Countries of Southern Caucasus" was written by joint efforts of scientists from Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. The monograph contains data on history of each of the three countries from the most ancient times till 1921.

Today in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, practically all drivers of fixed-route taxis have failed to start working. They express their protest against the authorities' statements that the tariff increase from 8 to 10 roubles per trip was illegal. The drivers addressed the Prosecutor's Office of North Ossetia asking for help in clearing out the situation.

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.