News

Anna Politkovskaya's colleagues from the "Novaya Gazeta" have progressed a lot in their investigation and found it necessary to tell the story. "We have identified the customers of the murder," Vyacheslav Izmailov, a former officer of the Russian Army, now a journalist of the newspaper engaged in the investigation, says.

A scandalous case about crimes committed on motives of national hatred is investigated by the Public Prosecutor's Office of the South-West District of Moscow: a young skinhead has confessed of murdering 37 persons, including Caucasian natives.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received and delivered to the State Office of Public Prosecutor the documents on extradition of Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoj accused by the British authorities of murdering FSB ex-officer Alexander Litvinenko.

One of the five mosques closed by the authorities in August 2004 has reopened in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, in the "Aleksandrovka" dwelling district.

In Azerbaijan, the satirical web site Tinsoмbeti.com was hacked and blocked. People at the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Security are sure that the hacker's attack was undertaken under the command of Azerbaijani authorities who are resolutely and regularly criticising the web site.

Today, the NGOs of the Republic of South Ossetia have disseminated their Appeal to International Community. The Appeal was sent to the United Nations, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), OSCE, NATO, and European NGOs and public organizations.

At the NGO Resource Centre (RC) of Stepanakert, a meeting took place of the leaders of NGOs of Nagorny Karabakh with Batal Kobakhiya and Liana Kvarcheliya, representatives of the Centre for Humanitarian Programmes of Abkhazia.

In the city of Stavropol, in the evening of May 24, a mass fight burst out near one of the casinos, in which, by different sources, from 100 to 300 young people took part. As a result of the fight, Gilani Ataev, a 2-year law student of the Modern Humanities Academy, was killed.

Azerbaijan is negotiating with Turkey on construction of a branch line from the basic Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway. The branch will run to the Turkish city of Igdyr and further to the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic (NAR).

Sardar Alibeili, editor-in-chief of the Azerbaijani Nota Bene newspaper, has applied for political asylum in Russia and lodged a respective petition to the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Azerbaijan.

In the course of the meetings in Yerevan and Baku, the co-chairmen of the Minsk OSCE Group Bernard Fussier and Yuri Merzlyakov have discussed the basic principles of Karabakh settlement with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The press service of the authorities of South Ossetia has disseminated a statement that "because of the sharply aggravated situation in the conflict zone, a consultative meeting should have taken place in Tskhinval today of co-chairmen of the South Ossetian and Georgian parts of the Mixed Control Commission (MCC) Boris Chochiev and Merab Antadze."

Tonight, the Ossetian party has opened fire in the direction of Georgian villages located in the Grand Liakhva Gorge.

The protest actions against by arrest of Nadir Mekhdi Garabagi took place in Dzhulfa, Iran, and in Tabriz, the largest city of South Azerbaijan.

Litigation on the case of Farkhad Aliev, former Minister for Economic Development of Azerbaijan, is conducted with serious violations and in fact in closed regime.

Another citizen of Armenia, Ashot Tigranyan, 30, was murdered in Moscow.

The proceedings on Ulman's case continued in Rostov-on-Don. Only one of the four defendants - Alexei Perelevskiy - has appeared at the courtroom.

Ramil Ahmetgaliev explained that the pretext of charges against Dzutsev should be sought in the general tendency "to cut oxygen" to NGOs and activists.

Shakhvaled Chobanoglu, Chief Editor of the newspaper "Real Azerbaijan," said that he made this decision in protest against attacks of the authorities.

European Court in Strasbourg sent a notification that the complaint on the fact of death of Rasul Tsakoev, resident of Kabardino-Balkaria, was accepted to consideration.