News

In the statement addressed to the Russian Embassy and the Armenian Foreign Ministry, the NGOs expressed their indignation at the skinheads' attack on an Armenian boy in Kostroma, whom they tried to burn.

Nugzar Paliani, mayor of the largest city in Western Georgia, Kutaisi, resigned yesterday, April 23. He announced it himself at a session of the Kutaisi legislative assembly.

On April 13, at about noon, officers of the FSB (Federal Security Service) department in the Republic of Kalmykia detained a certain Nakayev (b.1976) in a hotel situated in the heart of Elista by. A high-capacity explosive assembly was found on him.

"The terror against participants in opposition rallies is being executed in Armenia today by Robert Kocharian's order," Viktor Dallakian, a leader of the Armenian opposition and secretary of the opposition parliamentary faction Justice, said.

Only 86 people have left the tent camp Satsita for the last 10 days.

The Russian Justice Ministry has denied media reports that Lecha Islamov, a Chechen field commander, died a violent death in a prison hospital.

Mikhail Saakashvili has denied information spread by the head of Georgia's Adjarian autonomy, Aslan Abashidze, on April 22 that the Georgian leadership have plans of physical destruction of Abashidze.

The center was created and operates in fact, but it is not a juridical person because the Kabardino-Balkarian department of justice hampers the registration by all means.

Ashot Manucharian, the outstanding Armenian politician and member of the political council of the Armenian Union of Socialist Forces and Intellectuals, was savagely beaten by three unknown people near the office of the Forum of Intellectuals Council of Elders on April 22.

"We hope that the Chechen issue in the UN Commission on Human Rights has been closed once and for all", Russian deputy foreign minister Yuri Fedotov said to a press-conference in RIA Novosti.

Natalia Vutova, representative of the Council of Europe Secretary General in Armenia, said that the draft law conflicted with the European Convention on Human Rights and a number of other international documents.

"I warned Aslan Abashidze about the terrorist act two days ago and advised him to reinforce his bodyguard," the chairwoman of the League of People's Defense said.

The Chechen regional department of the Russian Ministry for Press, TV, Radio Broadcasting, and Mass Media issued an official warning to the editorial staff of the independent social and political newspaper Chechen Society on April 19.

Nino Burdjanadze is a deputy for the city of Kutaisi.

Two unknown men shot and killed two Russian soldiers and wounded a third on April 20 in the outskirts of Nazran, Ingushetia's largest town.

Magomed Khambiyev, a Chechen separatist leader and former "interior minister of Ichkeria," who surrendered in early March, said all his subordinates have surrendered their arms and have turned themselves in to the law enforcement agencies.

Head of the Department for Protection and Study of Monuments, the Ministry for Education, Culture and Sports of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), Slava Sargsyan categorically disagreed with the statement of Azerbaijani Milli Majlis Speaker Murtuz Aleskerov that the cultural monuments in the town of Shushi, in particular, the fortification of the town, are allegedly destroyed by the NKR authorities.

Information about the death of Abu al-Walid in Chechen mountains appeared in the Arab press on April 16.

Aram Sargsian announced that the opposition invited people to the decisive meeting, which will be held on April 27. "All Armenians must gather here that day," he said.

A unique press conference devoted to the problem of Chechen refugees occurred in Moscow, Russia, on April 20. Organized by the Independent Press Center, it was titled "Bound westward: what makes refugees seek emigration? What prevents them from going back to Chechnya?"