News

Azerbaijan?s ministry of communications will suspend re-transmission of the Russian television channel ?Rossiya? at 00:40 hrs local time on April 24. The Azeri authorities took this decision to prevent screening of ?Ararat?, the movie made by Canadian producer Atom Gegoyan.

The Chairman of the Accounts Chamber of the RF Sergey Stepashin claimed on April 18 in Grozny that Chechnya needs particular, ?breaking? decisions, for example, making a special economic zone.

A local antimonopoly committee fined the government of the republic half a million rubles for the attempt to redistribute a property of ?Vodokanal? in favour of people close to the authorities.

According to the words of the Armenian Minister of Defense Serzh Sarkisyan, this action will be extremely useful for the Armenian soldiers, since they have got things to learn from their NATO colleagues.

The Society ?Nord-Ost? unites people suffered in Moscow in October 2002 and invites victims of other acts of terrorism and ?antiterrorist operations? of the recent years in Russian towns to enter the organization for joint advocacy of interests.

The Moscow Helsinki Group makes a request to the mass media for paying rapt attention to this situation, as the broadest publicity is able to stop despotism of Krasnodar authorities.

The Transnational Radical Party has called for the Secretary-General of the United Nations as well the heads of the Member States of the United Nations to undertake all initiatives needed ?for study and subsequent realization of an Akhmadov?s plan to establish peace and democracy in Chechnya?.

Speaking at the military college?s anniversary ceremony in Baku on April 21, president Geidar Aliyev felt unwell twice.

?The Armenian Church has played an important role in Karabah conflict unleashing and now as before does not revise its stand?, the Head of the Spiritual Administration of Moslems of the Caucasus Sheyhulislam Allakhshukyur Pasha-zade declared.

In the early hours of April 18 Russian soldiers in three armored personnel carriers rounded up the houses of Mansur Dzhaubatyrov, 20, and his acquaintance Aslan, in Grozny. According to parents of the detained, the military forced the young men into an armored personnel carrier and took them away. The servicemen did not bother to introduce themselves or give reasons for the detention.

The Transnational Radical Party has called upon United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan and leaders of the UN member states to take all necessary initiatives for promoting the ?study and further implementation of Akhmadov?s plan to ensure peace and democracy in Chechnya?.

The inspection displayed that institutions obliged to provide addressed distribution of pensions, social and other payments to the people of Chechnya, not fully executed their functions.

In the new Criminal Code, which will come in force beginning from the August 1 of the current year, death penalty is substituted for life sentence.

?The outrage committed by unknown criminals in Moscow on April 17, without any doubts, has political nature, and it is pointed first of all against human ideas that Sergey Yushenkov hold", it is reported in the statement.

?The breaches are very serious, and they must be eliminated by the Russian government if we really want to secure a political solution of this lingering and painful conflict?, - a representative of the US delegation Michael Sautvik declared.

On April 16 judicial hearing of the case of Alikram Gumbatov, a leader of the Talish separatists, was resumed. A public prosecutor asked the Court to pass life sentence on the accused.

A new Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic has been appointed in Chechnya. Militia Colonel Ali Alkhanov became an appointee, was announced in the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Since 17 April Kazbich Chechenskii, a Chechen refugee, has been on hunger strike in the village of Duisi, in the Pankisi region of Georgia. The 43-year-old writer and commentator has set up a tent in the very centre of the village, demanding that he and other Chechens who sought refuge from the war in Georgia, should be allowed to move on to other countries.

The constant representative of the UN Program for Development in Russian Federation Stephan Vasilyev announced it while meeting with the President of Ingushetia on April 17 in Magas.

Tarry Davis underlined the European Council did not intend to be ?a substitution? for the OSCE in the question of settlement of conflict in Nagorny Karabah.