News

Avto Beridze told journalists that first he had been threatened and then he had been offered a good job and privileges as a way of gaining him over.

The ruling circles in Azerbaijan are incensed over the report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international human rights organization, on the human rights situation in the country.

Speaking about the Georgian foreign policy, Mr Saakashvili declared, "Georgia will be neither pro-Russian nor pro-American. It will be pro-Georgian and European."

The open letter reads, "I would obviously be very glad to be able to meet you to discuss whether, and in what way, you can contribute to restore hope to the Chechens and dignity to Europe, with respect, at least, to more specifically humanitarian questions."

"There have been no incidents in which Russian peacekeeping units incurred losses in Abkhazia's Gali district," the ministry's press service reported.

"Ecological conditions in Chechnya today are very bad, which is a result of the hostilities," Aleksandr Cherkasov, an activist of the Human Rights Center "Memorial", said in Strasbourg.

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland announced it on January 27, while meeting with Ingush President Murat Zyazikov during a short visit to Ingushetia.

There are 12 thousand IDPs from the zone of the Georgian-Osetian conflict among them and 250 thousand IDPs from Abkhazia. 3 thousand refugees from Chechnya are living in Georgia today too.

Avto Beridze was detained not long before the action of protest which was to be held in Batumi by activists of the movement, who demand that Adjarian leader Aslan Abashidze should resign.

District police departments of Grozny plan to hold a joint action soon to deport Tajik Gypsies from the territory of the Chechen Republic.

At the end of 2003, the Shamayev father and son were detained by officers of Russian security agencies on the road leading to Molsovkhoz 15 and taken away in an unknown direction.

A local Tazbiyev was killed by officers of Russian security agencies in the course of the so called "address purges" in the village of Tsotsin-Yurt, Chechnya's Kurchaloy district, on January 26.

One of the versions concerns the January 27 developments in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict zone, when a skirmish happened between Georgian policemen and an Abkhazian criminal group of 10 people.

As reported by chairman of the Abkhazian State Security Service Givi Agrba, a quadripartite meeting took place on the border between Georgia and Abkhazia in connection with the January 27 developments in Georgia's Tsalendjikha district.

By now law-enforcement agencies have no information on the destiny of 25-year-old David Badjagua, the activist of the Georgina NGO Association of Young Political Scientists and Journalists abducted in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict zone.

To avoid such "incidents" from the direction of law enforcement agencies as the beatings of journalists covering the demonstration of the opposition on October 15 and 16, 2003, the Press Council has come up with a design of the uniform for journalists. The new clothes will allow members of "the forth power" to stand out in the crowd.

A group of human rights activists concerned with the problem of Meskhetian Turks in the Kuban region has issues a statement. The statement came in response to information published by RIA Novosti news agency, which quoted the Russian deputy interior minister, Colonel-General Aleksandr Chekalin, as saying, "Some 4 thousand Meskhetian Turks in Krasnodar Territory have become citizens of Russia."

Confidential circular letter #115, which started the genocide of the Cossacks, was signed by the Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee of RKP(b) (Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks) 85 years ago. Cossack squads and cadets drew up in Novocherkassk on January 24 in commemoration of that tragic date.

Actions devoted to the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire should be aimed at strengthening the country's might, preserving the Armenian Diaspora, and raising the nation's spirit.

Servicemen of the CIS Peacekeeping Forces (PKF) in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict did not take part in the incident that occurred in the Tsalendjikha district at about 1:30 Moscow time on January 27. This was reported at the CIS PKF headquarters.