News

The talks of Dmitri Medvedev with Ilham Aliev, which took place during Russian President's visit to Baku, ended with signing of two joint statements and a range of other documents. During negotiations it was decided that since January 1, 2010, the "Gazprom" will start buying Azerbaijani gas in the volume of 500 million cubic metres.

The prize for the best film in the contest programme "Prospect" of the 31st Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF-31), which passed on June 19-28 in the Russian capital, was awarded to the Georgian film "Conflict Zone" filmed by Director Vano Burduli.

The body of Gitikhma Dzhavatkhanov, a resident of Novaya Urada village, Kumtorkalin District of Dagestan, who was regarded as missing since June 27, was identified by his relatives in the Makhachkala morgue.

The delegation of Abkhazia will take part in the sixth round of Geneva debates on safety in Transcaucasia, planned to start on July 1. Tomorrow, on June 30, the Abkhazian delegation takes off for Geneva.

Today, the Court on Grave Crimes of Azerbaijan has held a preparatory session on the case of the explosion in "Abu-Bekr" Mosque on August 17, 2008, when a grenade was thrown into the mosque during the evening prayer, killing two and wounding 13 persons.

Today, the southwest region of Russia starts operative-strategic exercises "Kavkaz-2009", treated already by western media as a prologue to a new war against Georgia; Russian experts also tend to think so.

Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Corruption and Crime", who was beaten by unknown persons in the end of April, has died in Rostov-on-Don.

In Sochi, Evgeniy Tsapko, an officer of the Russian Army, announced a hunger strike in protest against the criminal case, opened against him and his colleagues under the articles of "Desertion" and "Self-willed escape from service". The case against Mr Tsapko was initiated after he demanded to enforce a court judgement on providing housing to him.

President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov has not regained consciousness yet. Doctors find his health condition grave, but observe positive dynamics.

Two Russian militiamen and an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Chechnya were wounded on June 28 in the evening in Gudermes, the second largest city of Chechnya, in a land mine explosion.

On June 27 in Makhachkala unidentified armed persons in civilian clothes detained and took away in some unknown place Gitikhma Dzhavatkhanov, 27, a resident of Novaya Urada village, Kumtorkalin District of Dagestan.

For the first time in many years, two countries of Southern Caucasus - Georgia and Armenia - have presented essential blocks of their films to the Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF-31), which takes place from June 19 to June 28.

This year in Armenia, as compared with 2008, price per 1 square meter of housing went down by 5 percent; the number of real estate transactions has reduced.

Congregate of Saint Echmiadzin, Archbishop Nerses Pozapalyan died on his 72nd year at the medical centre "Nairi" in the capital of Armenia. In February, he was attacked by a robber.

The health condition of President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov, who was wounded in the attempt on June 22, remains stably grave; however, a slight move for the better is observed.

Armenia is for the first time mentioned in the report of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) among the countries, where torture as applied to defendants and witnesses is a usual thing. The FIDH's report is based on monitoring of trials.

The Parliament of Georgia has approved former Prime Minister Grigol Mgaloblishvili to the position of Georgia's permanent representative at the NATO. The nominee was supported by 100 MPs at the quorum of 57, one deputy was against.

90,000 hectares are actually devastated in the Region, and 80,000 hectares have been treated against these insects. Now, additional 5.5 million were allocated from the regional budget to fight this calamity.

Ramzan Evkurov, driver of the President of Ingushetia, who was wounded as a result of the attempt on Yunus-Bek Evkurov on June 22, today has died in hospital, as reported by the reception office of the Republic's Clinical Hospital.

The police of Baku have prohibited a group of activists from a number of Islam-oriented Azerbaijani NGOs and political parties to hold a non-sanctioned protest action against the visit to the country of Israeli President Shimon Peres in front of the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Azerbaijan.