News

In the Kizilyurt District of Dagestan and in the city of Derbent the recent downpours have flooded more than 500 houses. Because of incessant rains, in a number of villages of the Sergokalin District, rivers have overflowed the banks and flooded power substations, transmission lines and transformers.

Mayor of Elista Radiy Burulov has offered himself to local members of the "Edinaya Rossiya" Party as a candidate to the post of Kalmykia's Premier. Mr Burulov said that he would like to share the power in the republic among the Prime Minister and the President and offered the latter to deal exclusively with political matters and not to interfere with operation of the government.

The new law on gambling business in Batumi will be discussed at the autumn session of the parliament of Georgia. According to the bill, all the hotels with more that 100 rooms will be exempted for 10 years from the annual license fee, which in Batumi makes 250,000 laris.

The believing Moslems of Chechnya celebrated their Uraza-Bairam ('Id al-Fitr) yesterday, on September 21. Like in recent years, the celebrations in the republic passed later than in other Russian regions and other Moslem countries. The believers blame local clergy for these discrepancies and doubt the reason of their actions.

In total, 238 contracts to the sum of 481.8 billion roubles have been signed at the 8th International Investment Forum in Sochi. The organizers of the Forum report that the majority of them were signed by representatives of the Krasnodar Territory, which will accumulate more than two thirds of the total involved investments.

Reshad Gasanov, Judge of the Azizbek District Court of Baku, has refused to replace the imprisonment of Ganimat Zakhidov, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Azadlyg" (Freedom) for a more lenient punishment, not related to deprivation of liberty. The respective petition of Zakhidov's advocates was considered on September 18 at the travel session of the court held at Penitentiary Establishment No. 17, where the editor-in-chief is serving his term.

Four militiamen have suffered today from a shelling of an UAZ patrol car in central Nazran, as reported by sources in law enforcement bodies of Ingushetia. The victims were hospitalized.

School No. 1 in Beslan, where terrorists 5 years ago took children as hostages, should become a memorial complex of the federal value; and its conservation should be done for the funds of the Russian Federation. This is the opinion of Ella Kesaeva, head of the All-Russian Public Organization "Voice of Beslan".

The farewell ceremony to Ismail Bostanov, Deputy Head of the Spiritual Department of Moslems of Karachai-Circassia and Stavropol Territory, who perished in an attempt on him committed on September 20, was held in his native village of Znamenskoe. Bostanov's murder was committed on the final day of the sacred Moslem month of Ramadan. The culprits could not be found hot on the trail.

The criminal case against journalist Besik Pipiya, head of the representative office of the RIA "Novosti" in Tbilisi, has been stopped because of absence of crime attributes. This was reported by Mr Pipiya himself and his advocate Levan Buadze.

Relatives of Nariman Mamedyarov, who disappeared on September 10 in Makhachkala, had planned to send him out of the republic. Fizuli Asaliev, Mamedyarov's stepbrother, said about it to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. According to his story, in September they expected that Mamedyarov's recognizance not to leave would be lifted.

Russian frontier patrol ship "Novorossisk" has reached the coast of Abkhazia and immediately started its on duty mission of guarding the marine border of this breakaway republic.

Today, at about 2 a.m., near the city of Kizilyurt, some 60 kilometres off Makhachkala, eight freight-cars of a cargo train loaded with pipes and building materials went off the track because the railway was flooded. No victims are reported.

The situation in Ingushetia should not and cannot be a barrier to potential investors, President Yunus-Bek Evkurov believes; during the International Investment Forum in Sochi he guaranteed safety to the companies, which want to work in the territory of this North-Caucasian region.

The Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO) of Russia has reported solving the murder of Senior Justice Advisor Maksud Maksudov, Deputy Public Prosecutor of Makhachkala for supervising law enforcement in corrective-labour establishments.

Development of armed conflict in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan; outcomes of the next round of Geneva consultations on conflict settlement in Transcaucasia; resonant trials in the regions of Northern and Southern Caucasus; events in economy, culture and sports, – look up these and other events in the review of the week of September 14-20 in the Caucasian regions prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

At the Sochi Investment Forum, Russian regions have signed contracts to the total sum of about 481 billion roubles. As reported by the organizers of the Forum, almost two thirds of all the investments will go to the Krasnodar Territory.

This year, the Uraza-Bairam ('Id al-Fitr) holiday that marks the end of the Moslem sacred fasting month of Ramadan falls on Sunday, September 20. The authorities of the republics of Northern Caucasus have declared days-off for the time of the holiday.

Today, a number of Georgian media placed information that businessman Boris Berezovsky secretly visited Tbilisi in September. The authorities deny this fact.

The ceremony of signing the agreement with the Volkswagen Automobile Concern on general partnership with the Olympic and Paralympic Games of 2014 took place at the Investment Forum in Sochi on September 18. The agreement was signed by Dmitri Chernyshenko, President of the Organizing Committee "Sochi-2014" and Dithmar Korcevka, Director General of the Company "Volkswagen Group Rus".