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In his interview with the Caucasian Knot correspondent, head of the Monitoring Group to Examine Pipeline Systems in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey Mais Gyulaliyev claimed that low quality pipes are used to construct the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeikhan oil pipeline.

The informal meeting between Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania and leader of the breakaway republic of South Osetia Eduard Kokoity that was much expected has not taken place. Mr Zhvania told journalists that "Mr Kokoity has a habit of changing plans at the last moment".

The New Year's storm of Grozny in the winter of 1994 became one of the most tragic pages of the first military campaign in Chechnya.

This decree grants a pardon to 54 convicts, including Sardar Gamidov, the former head of Azerbaijan's Tertersky district executive power and brother of ex-minister of foreign affairs Iskander Gamidov.

"Sessions of the Government, the Security Council, and the Interior Ministry are broadcast every day. Everybody claims we should fight hard against the abductors of people, but nothing happens in reality," an abducted man's close relative said.

Asked about Abkhazia's future, Sergey Bagapsh said that the Abkhazian people had already chosen the way of independence and were not going to turn off it.

Those members of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party (ADP)who took part in the municipal elections regardless of the party's decision to boycott the elections will be punished, ADP secretary for ideology Aydin Guliyev told the Caucasian Knot correspondent.

All arrangements for the action have almost been completed, officials of the Ingush Spiritual Administration of Moslems said.

Torture is a widely spread means of obtaining evidence in the system of the Azerbaijan Interior Ministry, and no police officer has been punished for it, human rights activist Leyla Yunus said.

"The rumors that the attack on the Anti-Drug Department is an anti-Kabardian action organized by Balkarians are very alarming," head of the Kabardino-Balkarian Human Rights Center Valery Khatazhukov said.

For the period of its activity, the "fast response group" in the staff of the Azerbaijan ombudsperson has inspected over 150 temporary detention isolators and revealed no fact of torture.

On December 23, at a closed session of the standing parliamentary commission on foreign relations, Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian submitted to the deputies the memorandum on mutual understanding "On the Commanders of the Multinational Division Forming a Part of the Stabilization Forces in Iraq and Resolution of Other Problems."

Today, officers of local and federal security agencies detained approximately 20 people during a joint "special operation" on the territory of the Rassvet refugee camp in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya, Ingushetia.

The Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (APFP) offers the opposition to participate in the 2005 parliamentary elections as a united bloc.

The Abkhazian Central Election Commission (CEC) has registered the initiative group to nominate Yakub Lakoba as a presidential candidate, Abkhazian CEC Chairman Batal Tabagua told the Caucasian Knot correspondent.

A presentation of the Group of Friendship Between Caucasian People, formed of six deputies of the parliament, has taken place in the building of the Georgian parliament today.

The municipal elections held in Azerbaijan did not meet international standards stated in the 1990 Copenhagen Document, the OSCE Office in Baku has announced in a press release.

The aim of the visit of Ms. Erturk to Ingushetia is to collect reliable information about the state of women in the republic and study the human rights situation in the region.

Though the Constitution and Azerbaijan legislation provide for freedom of speech and media, the government restricts these rights in practice, Freedom House stated in its annual survey.

Today, the Georgian Constitutional Court has satisfied a claim of the Georgian NGO Article 42 of the Constitution according to which a judge's decision to conduct search and seizure will be subject to appeal.