News

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.

Yuri Trutnev, Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation, believes that the claims put forward by ecologists in the context of preparation for 2014 Sochi Olympiad can undermine the image of Russia.

St-Petersburg was the venue of the first meeting of Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Serzh Sarkisyan and Ilham Aliev have agreed to continue negotiations on settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the basis of Madrid proposals.

Today, the Kuntsevo District Court of Moscow has stopped the operation of the website "Ingushetia.Ru", thus having satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor's Office of Ingushetia, which stuck to the opinion that the site was disseminating extremist information.

Javier Solana, High Commissioner of the European Union on Foreign Policy and Safety, has discussed the issues settling the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict with Abkhazian leaders.

Tigran Sarkisyan, former Chairman of the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia and nowadays the Prime Minister of the country, has lodged a claim on protection of his honour, dignity and professional reputation against Grant Bagratyan, leader of the oppositional non-parliamentary party "Azatyutyun" (Freedom), who was the prime minister of Armenia in 1993-1996.

During several recent days, in the Gudermes and Vedeno Districts of Chechnya, several burials have been detected. The authorities of Chechnya assert that all the casualties fell victims of extrajudicial executions of the militaries of the "Vostok" (East) battalion commanded by Sulim Yamadaev.

Javier Solana, High Commissioner of the European Union on Foreign Policy and Safety, who has arrived today to Tbilisi, has stated that he would not mediate the conflict between the opposition and the authorities of Georgia.

Three oppositional parties - the People's Front, Party of Citizens and Development and Liberal Party of Azerbaijan, united into the block named "Azadlyg", have officially declared their boycott of the presidential election appointed for October 15, 2008.

In Ingushetia, representatives of the opposition have made a decision to postpone for indefinite time the rallies in five dwelling settlements of Ingushetia, which were appointed for tomorrow, June 6.

The Central Electoral Commission of Georgia has promulgated the final totals of the parliamentary elections held May 21. Five parties will form the parliament of the country.

Dmitri Kozak, Minister for Regional Development of the Russian Federation, has stated that the final construction cost of all the objects erected for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympiad will be defined by the end of 2008 after finalizing the project and budget documentation.

On June 13-19, the city of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, will host the First International Film Festival under the name of "Noah's Ark". Preparation for the event is now especially fast.

The offer made by the "Gazprom" on gas purchase from Azerbaijan is a long-term deal based on the commercial European price. This news was made public on June 4 by Vasily Istratov, Russia's Ambassador to Baku, in a press conference.

The murder case of the "Novaya Gazeta" observer Anna Politkovskaya cannot be regarded as cleared. This was stated by Dmitri Muratov, editor-in-chief of the paper, who made his comments on the statement of inspector Vladimir Markin that by June 20 they plan to announce the end of the preliminary investigation of this crime.

After the parliamentary elections, Georgia faces a miserable situation in the sphere of human rights, which surely demands estimation, the National Defender of Georgia (Ombudsman) Sozar Subari has stated in today's press conference.

The Prosecutor's Office of Ingushetia treats the rallies planned for June 6 by the opposition of the Republic in several dwelling settlements as illegitimate and calls the residents "not to be on the bit of the offenders."