News

The process of receiving citizens' applications to compensate for housing and property lost in the course of military operations in Chechnya has lasted for two years, and almost everyone eligible for compensation has already filed required documents.

"Six years ago we weren't able to allow ourselves even to dream of Karabakh's being outside Azerbaijan, but today we speak about it freely," Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian said.

The sitting of the Supreme Court set for today did not take place because a representative of the Central Election Commission (CEC) was absent.

On October 12-14, Russian soldiers conducted a large-scale purge with arrests of people and general searches in houses of locals in the village of Noviye Atagi, Chechnya's Shali district.

The Georgian Interior Ministry is known to have issued a statement it is ready to give Russia lists of Chechen refugees living in the Pankissi Gorge. Chechen refuges are ready to stage mass rallies and turn to the European Court of Human Rights in case the Azerbaijan authorities follow Georgia?s example, human rights activist Mairbek Taramov said.

Two alternative meetings were held in the center of Sukhum today. One of them was staged by people supporting Sergey Bagapsh, the presidential candidate for the opposition, and the other one was in favor of Raul Khadzhimba, the presidential candidate backed up by the present authorities.

The experts are expected to examine the Azerbaijan side's honoring the fourth paragraph of the IMF agreement, stipulating obligations concerning the monetary regime and general obligations of the IMF member countries, and to discuss forecasts concerning Azerbaijan's 2005 state budget and the issue of the rise in home prices for energy resources.

The wave of racial hatred must be immediately stopped. Otherwise it will bury us all.

Presidential candidate Sergey Bagapsh believes that "the Abkhazian people usually convene a national gathering in a very complicated situation."

In the course of the ongoing TV debates between presidential candidates in the Unites States, John Kerry said in particular that Azerbaijan "should be thrown under a bus."

People supporting Raul Khadzhimba gathered at his election headquarters and directed their steps towards the Abkhazian parliament with slogans "Khadzhimba is our president" and "CEC decisions are illegal". They are intended to stay there until a legal decision is made.

Up to now no department has been able to give the exact number of people killed, injured or gone missing.

Two suspected rebels were killed and another one was detained during a special operation to destroy suspected members of illegal armed units conducted in Nazran by officers of the FSB (Federal Security Service) Department in Ingushetia.

No one suffered in the explosion that occurred not far from Sergey Bagapsh's headquarters last night, a source in the State Security Service told the Caucasian Knot correspondent.

"Azerbaijan extradites people accused of political crimes and terrorism to Arabian and Central Asian countries. Over 30 terrorist suspects were extradited last year," said human rights activist Eldar Zeinalov.

Raul Khadzhimba, a candidate for the Abkhazian presidency, lodged a complaint in the Abkhazian Supreme Court on October 7 concerning the illegality of the Central Election Commission's decision of October 6, 2004 providing for repeated voting in the Gali district on October 17.

Chief of the Turkish Armed Forces' General Staff Army General Hilmi Ozkok announced it during a meeting with Azerbaijan Defense Minister Safar Abiyev in Ankara.

The book, published by the Memorial Society and Caucasian Knot Internet media outlet, unites works of Chechen school children devoted to the past and the present of Chechnya and based on the authors' personal experience.

"Jerzy Jaskiernia's report on Armenia, which will be submitted to the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), doesn't represent the situation in the country," Vardan Pogosian, chairman of the Democracy non-governmental organization said.

The Abkhazian president believes the Central Election Commission's decision does not comply with the legislation.