News

This very day 65 years ago, on February 23, 1944, deportation of Chechens and Ingushes began. Then, during several days practically all the population of the then Checheno-Ingushetian Republic was deported by Stalin's regime out to Kazakhstan and Middle Asia, charged with complicity to Hitlerites.

At the rally held today in Krasnodar, over 200 persons moved a demand to the authorities to stop campaigning for return of the historical name - Ekaterinodar - back to the city.

Today, the second time within 24 hours, the counterterrorist operation regime was announced in the capital of Dagestan. It is already the fourth counterterrorist operation in the territory of Republic in February.

On February 19, several hundreds of believers came to the Tbilisi International Airport to welcome back Catholicos Patriarch of All Georgia Elias the Second who returned from Germany after medical treatment.

On February 21, the oppositional Armenian National Congress (ANC) officially addressed Armenian Ombudsman Armen Arutyunyan with a request to challenge at the Constitutional Court the decree of the President of Armenia on introduction of the state of emergency in Yerevan starting March 1, 2008.

Vice-Premier of Georgia Giorgiy Baramidze has called all the political forces of the country to consolidation in the face of possible new intervention of Russia.

Today, starting from 5 a.m., three streets - Makhmudova, Mursalova and Khizroeva - in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, have been blocked by numerous armed law enforcement agents and armoured troop-carriers with decocooned machine guns.

On February 20, the Republic's government adopted the regulations on organization of fairs in the territory of North Ossetia. In the opinion of the Ministry of Economy, fairs can help to counteract the implications of the global crisis.

Residents of the settlement of Molodyozhny, Astrakhan Region, where houses were repeatedly set on fire in the last week, are leaving their apartments and move to safer locations. Many of them take away their children to relatives. All this time, they live in constant fear for lives their family members.

As of today, the project of installing several windmills in Kalmykia has been suspended for a while because of financial difficulties. However, the authorities of Kalmykia plan to make everything possible, even under current force-majeure circumstances, to make a successful launch of the Kalmyk Wind Power Plant.

The Moscow Regional Military Court has returned the murder case of Anna Politkovskaya, observer of the "Novaya Gazeta", back to the Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO) of the Russian Federation for reinvestigation.

The experts interrogated by the "Caucasian Knot" diverge in their opinions on how much lawful the decision is to replace a jury for a panel of judges in the case on attack on Nalchik.

The problem of defending journalists in Russia needs addressing at the top level. This was stated on February 19 by Miklos Harasti, OSCE representative on freedom of mass media.

The current trials of oppositionists, and behaviour of judges and prosecutors are evident confirmations that there are plenty of falsifications in materials of the cases related to events on March 1, 2008, in Yerevan, as human rights activist Mikael Danielyan, Chairman of the Helsinki Association, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The Supreme Court (SC) of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR) has upheld the petition lodged by Olga Chibinyova, head of the group of accuser, asking to cancel trial by jury of the criminal case on events in Nalchik on October 13, 2005. The Court ruled to send the case to the Chairman of the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria for appointing a panel of three professional judges to consider the case.

The current phase of the mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the Republic of South Ossetia, which started on January 28, has basically the form of distributing footwear and clothes among those who need them.

The verdict of acquittal passed by the jury on Anna Politkovskaya's murder case has stemmed out from the unpersuasive position of the investigation, as the Human Rights Centre "Memorial" has stated.

After prosecutor's inspections held amidst the academic year, 21 children's educational establishments of the Krasnodar Territory preferred to get closed for capital repairs.

Late in the evening on February 19, Peter Semnebi, special EU representative in South Caucasus, who is now in Yerevan, had a meeting with Alexander Arzumanyan, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, one of the defendants in the resonant "Case of Seven".

Leila Yunus, Director of the Azerbaijani Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD), has sent letters to the Yasamal District Court and the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan asking to hold the process against her, starting on March 2, in a large courtroom. She also insists on video recording of the hearings.