News

Ulman's advocate Roman Krzhechkovskiy insists on an additional psychological examination of the defendants. He has lodged a respective petition today to the North-Caucasian Regional Military Court in Rostov-on-Don.

The leadership of Chechnya has categorically disapproved the initiative of the European Parliament to send a commission to the Chechen Republic for studying the situation in the region. This was declared by Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov.

On March 30, at 7 p.m., in the city of Elista (Kalmykia), at office of the Kalmyk Republic's Branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), unknown persons attacked Vitaly Shulenin, editor of the "Leninskiy Puts" (Lenin's Way) opposition newspaper of the Kalmyk Republic's Branch (KRB) of the CPRF.

This week, the plenipotentiary envoy of the Russian president to the South Federal District (SFD) has discussed with Moslems of Krasnodar Territory the issue of building a mosque for the parishioners from Sochi and Krasnodar, where the authorities have been unable to allocate land for the mosque cannot for more than ten years.

In Azerbaijan, a group of inmates of the Gobustan closed prison continue their hunger strike commenced on Monday, March 26.

Today Azerbaijan marks the Memory Day of the victims of genocide against Azerbaijanis who perished during the events of March-April of 1918.

Poultry mortality cases registered in a number of districts of Krasnodar Territory have nothing to do with the bird's flu infection.

The Pyatigorsk City Court has re-qualified the offences committed by Anton (Abdullah) Stepanenko, former imam of Pyatigorsk mosque, and Andrei Grudin, another convict in the case, from Article 163 of the Criminal Code (CC) of the Russian Federation (extortion) to Article 330 (arbitrariness).

At night of March 12, several villages of Kodor Gorge were bombarded by Russian helicopters, Paul Felgengauer, an independent military observer, asserts. The expert thinks that Abkhazia and Georgia have actually no aircrafts capable to fly in darkness.

Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who had covered events in Chechnya and was killed in Moscow last October, has been posthumously awarded with UNESCO Prize for freedom of press.

In London, a meeting took place of entrepreneur Boris Berezovskiy with representatives of law enforcement bodies of Russia and Great Britain, where Mr. Berezovskiy gave evidence to Russian investigators on the murder case of Alexander Litvinenko, former Russian FSB (Federal Security Bureau) officer.

Yesterday, the international organization Human Rights Watch published a report entitled "Guantanamo Stigma," dealing with the fate of former Guantanamo prisoners, among them - Rasul Kudaev, a resident of Kabardino-Balkaria.

At the process dealing with accusation of "OMON" (Special Militia) fighters of application of violence in the children's summer camp "Druzhba" (Friendship) in Sochi (Krasnodar Territory), the victims' party has lodged a petition on elimination of violations in the indictment.

Russia is calling Tbilisi to give up its plans of legitimizing the alternative government in South Ossetia and to take a constructive stand concerning development of the negotiation process on Georgian-Ossetian settlement.

Krasnodar Territory has introduced the quarantine regime because of avian (bird) flue.

Yesterday, the PACE Monitoring Committee held a discussion of Azerbaijan's liabilities before this international body.

"After all the years of out studies of torture cases, we now have got an idea why they exist in Russia. However, we have no answer to the question how often tortures are applied to people," with these words Igor Kalyapin, chairman of the Nizhniy Novgorod regional public organization "Committee against Tortures," started his press conference in Moscow.

Last night, in the centre of Nalchik, capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, Radik Bappinaev, member of jama'at "Yarmuk," who was in international search from spring 2005, was killed in the course of a clash with militia patrol.

On February 28, the Committee against Tortures held a joint sitting with the power structures of the Chechen parliament.

Additional militia forced are deployed in the district centre of Sergokala of the Sergokalinskiy District with the aim to prevent possible mass disorders that may be organized by supporters of Ali Kadiev, head of Municipal Formation (MF) "The Sergokalinskiy District," and Gasan Gasanov, head of MF "The Sergokala Settlement."