News

On May 6, the centre of Elista, the capital of Kalmykia, was the venue of celebrations dated to the four-year anniversary of the first issue of the "Elista Panorama" newspaper; the event grew into a spontaneous rally.

Today, the Ulyanovsk Regional Court has upheld the decision of the City Court of Dimitrovgrad to reject to apply the early conditional release to former colonel Yuri Budanov who is serving his ten years' term for murdering Elza Kungaeva, a resident of Chechnya.

The court has added two months to the term of pre-trial custody of Ararat Zurabyan, leader of the oppositional Armenian All-National Movement, as Karen Karapetyan, a member of the Movement Board, has informed.

Leaders of human rights and other public organizations of Chechnya are concerned with slow rates of de-mining the territory. They also are dissatisfied with the intention of the Russian Ministry for Emergencies to finance mine clearing in Serbia and forget about mines in Chechnya.

Maxim Shevchenko, a member of the Public Chamber and head of the Centre for Strategic Researches of Religion and Politics in Modern World, has treated the judicial decision on the claim of the Ministry of Property and Land Relations of Dagestan against the Regional Public Foundation "Charitable Women's Hospital" to be a tragedy and disaster.

Valery Giorgobiani, a candidate for majority deputy in the Tsager Constituency of Georgia from the party in power United National Movement, has refused to take part in the elections after his compromising audio record was made public.

The French city of Nancy (Department of Meurthe and Moselle) has hosted a protest rally against deportation of illegal migrants from Chechnya. About 150 persons took part in the event.

Tonight, at about 7:30-8:30 p.m. local time, employees of the Special Investigatory Group of the State Office of the Public Prosecutor of Armenia made a sanctioned search in the office of the opposition party "Homeland and Honour".

On May 5, in one of the mosques of the Pliev Municipal District in Ingushetia, a number of mosque parishioners were detained.

Following the visit of the Mission of the UNESCO and IUCN, the local Prosecutor's Office has started its own check in the Maikop District of Adygea in the territory of the World Natural Heritage "Zapadny Kavkaz" (Western Caucasus); the check may last till the end of May.

Despite the authorities' assurances about no-break electricity supply in Makhachkala, certain districts of Dagestan capital have no electricity for some days already. City dwellers are again ready to go out for protest actions.

Today, the European Commission has announced allocation of two million euros to Georgia as support to preparation of the parliamentary elections to be held on May 21.

Valery Giorgobiani, a candidate for a majority deputy from the party in power of Georgia - the United National Movement - is blackmailing people. This was stated today by Kakha Kukava, one of the leaders of the Conservative Party and a member of the United Opposition, in a press conference, having made public an audio record of the sitting held in the administration of the Tsager District.

Tina Khidasheli, one of the leaders of the oppositional Republican Party of Georgia, asserts that nothing special is taking place in Abkhazia today, and the situation is deliberately stirred up by Georgian authorities before the elections.

Zaurbek Bolataev, a resident of the city of Beslan (North Ossetia), has addressed human rights organizations of the country for help because of criminal prosecution of his son Nikolai Bolataev, a student of the Novosibirsk Higher Military Command School.

Today, the first-instance court of the Yerevan community Kentron-Nork-Marash has ruled to extend by two months the custody term of Alexander Arzumanyan, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and head of the pre-election office of Ter-Petrosyan.

Today, Georgia has served a note to Russia informing the Russian party about its exit from the antiaircraft defence cooperation agreement.

The Georgian "Imedi" TV Company has resumed its technical broadcasting. Now, the TV Channel, which stopped its operation last December, is putting movies on air. Information programs are planned from June on.

According to Ramiz Mekhtiyev, head of the Azeri president's administration, the allocation by the USA of more than 3 million dollars for supporting election in Azerbaijan in October 2008 is an interference by USA into the internal affairs of Azerbaijan.

Tinatin Khidasheli, one of the leaders of the "Republican Party" and a majority candidate to deputies from Saburtalin district in Georgia, claims that members of the youth wing of her party have been threatened while she is under permanent watch.