News

The character of explosion at the derailing accident of the "Neva-Express" train, which happened last night, on November 27, in the border of the Tver and Novgorod Regions, reminds the blowing up of the same train in August, 2007.

Armenia stands for peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict by negotiations, but at the same time it will not admit any encroachment on Nagorno-Karabakh and is ready to react to it in the toughest way possible. This was stated by President Serzh Sargsyan at the 12th congress of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, where he is the chairman.

A spokesman of the Movement Against Illegal Migration (MAIM) has published in his blog a statement on behalf of the nationalist grouping named "Combat 18", in which the latter takes responsibility for blowing up the "Neva-Express" train.

Journalism requires freedom even in aspects of counteracting and preventing terrorism; it should not be an instrument of authorities' propaganda. This was stated by Yuri Kazakov, former head of the state inspectorate for defence of the freedom of the press, and now an expert of the Fund in Defence of Glasnost and member of the Public Board on Complaints on Press, at the recent roundtable held in Moscow.

The National Assembly of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) has made a statement that "the latest developments in settlement of the Karabakh conflict evidence an obvious non-constructive Azerbaijani position."

Participation of Azerbaijan in the contest "Eurovision-2010" is officially confirmed, as reported by Adil Kerimli, chairman of the Azerbaijani delegation to the "Eurovision" contest.

President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov and the leader of militants of Northern Caucasus Doku Umarov are in the 2009 list of 500 most influential Moslems of the world compiled by the Prince Al-Valid ben Talyalya American Centre of Moslem-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) at the Georgetown University.

On Friday, November 27, at 9:34 p.m. Moscow time, at the railway section Alyoshinka-Uglovka in the Novgorod Region, an accident with the passenger train No. 166 Moscow-St Petersburg ("Neva-Express") took place, as a result of which four train cars got derailed and at least 25 persons were lost.

The Centre of Monitoring of Elections and Training in Democracy (CEM&TD) has promulgated its progress report on monitoring outcomes of the stage of candidates' nomination and registration during the campaign of municipal elections in Azerbaijan appointed on December 23. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that the monitoring outcomes were presented at the press conference on November 26 at the Baku Media Centre.

The Rostov Region is in the lead by the unemployment level among all Russian mining territories. This was stated on November 26 by Lydia Tkachenko, head of the department of the state service for population employment of the Rostov Region, speaking to the Supervisory Board for Development of Mining Territories.

On Thursday, November 26, the Yasamal District Court of Baku, chaired by Khagani Tagiev, started litigation under the claim lodged by Ramil Usubov, Azerbaijani Interior Minister, against Eyub Kerimov, editor of the newspaper "Femida-007".

The body of Eduard Gurtskaya, a citizen of Georgia and a refugee from Abkhazia, who was killed in Moscow by a militiaman, will be brought to Tbilisi, as reported by the press service of the Ministry for Refugees' Matters and Accommodation.

At least two relic tree varieties of the Sochi National Park are under threat of extinction as a result of construction of the combined road Adler-Krasnaya Polyana in the Krasnodar Territory within the preparation for Olympiad-2014. This was stated by Andrei Rudomakha, coordinator of the Ecological Watch for Northern Caucasus.

The Office has revealed that almost 6 million roubles, raised for the victims of the war in South Ossetia, were spent not to the purpose.

On Thursday, November 26, the Committee of the Council of Europe Against Torture and Inhuman Treatment, promulgated a report on the outcomes of the visit of its special mission to Azerbaijan in December 2008. The document deals with the cases of violence applied by the prison personnel against life-long prisoners.

The Russian party is not interested in any information about the last year's was in South Ossetia. This was stated by General-Lieutenant Anatoly Barankevich, ex-secretary of the Security Council of South Ossetia, at the roundtable "South Ossetia. War. Peace. Uncertainty" dated to the 20th anniversary of the start of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict.

Russian media and Chechen society believe that President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov will be appointed to the news post of high official in charge of the situation in the whole Northern Caucasus.

In the context of the complaint submitted by the candidate for the President of Abkhazia Raul Khadzhimba, Batal Tabagua, Chairman of Central Electoral Commission (CEC), made an official statement, running that there are no grounds to state that administrative resource are used during the elections.

The Prosecutor's Office of the Krasnodar Territory is inspecting the pharmaceutical entities-retailers of medical products for availability of the necessary drugs and facts of unjustified excessively high prices on medicines.

In Armenia, psychological pressure is the most widespread form of violence applied to women; sexual, physical and economic forms of violence are also widespread. This was stated on November 25 by Gene Sargizova, head of the UN programme "Against Gender Violence in South Caucasus".