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The press release on the occasion reads that the draft suggests increasing pressure on Russia in such issues as human rights, a situation in Chechnya, media freedom, and cooperation in the cause of preservation of the environment.

A journalist's disappearance has been reported by the consul of the US Embassy. He turned to the Moscow police asking for help overnight.

Russian President's Commission on Human Rights is preparing materials on the problems of people displaced from the Chechen Republic to Ingushetia and will hand these documents over to the President.

Greenpeace Russia won in the Russian Supreme Court the suit to abolish the part of the resolution of the Russian Government by which it withdrew 33,222 hectares of land from the Sochi National Park (including 11,000 hectares of land of the reserved zone, where any economic activity is prohibited) and gave it to the Sochi All-Republican National Natural Reserve.

We call your attention to the statement by Nikolay Khramov, secretary of the Russian Radicals movement, member of the Transnational Radical Party General Council, in connection with the 6 February terrorist act in the Moscow metro.

"The Union of Chechen Journalists expresses a stern protest against the informational war started by some Russian politicians through the central media against the Chechen people," reads the statement.

"We consider the hasty conclusions and accusations, which are exacerbating people's grief and suffering and provoking ethnic hatred and aggression in our society, to be blasphemy," reads the statement.

Gunmen attacked a group of Russian army servicemen in Grozny and blew up an armored vehicle in Achkhoy-Martan on February 9, leaving two servicemen killed and two injured.

The Karabakh problem is territorial only in the sense that Azerbaijan has no legal or historic claims on Nagorny Karabakh, said Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian.

The organization is the winner in the Commonwealth nomination, which supposes the assessment of the nominees' activity in the field of preservation and development of national traditions.

On 8 February, refugees from Chechnya blocked a railway in the Austrian town of Gmuend for several hours as a sign of protest against possible deportation.

Federal Security Service (FSB) deputy director Vyacheslav Ushakov suggested studying the experience of the United States. The United States drafted a national patriotic platform after the notorious terrorist act of September 11 and afterwards enacted it into law.

The main demands of the oppositionists are: to speed up the investigation into the disturbances of 15-16 October and the handover of criminal cases to courts, and to hold the court hearings in large rooms, in the presence of the local and foreign mass media; and to oblige the authorities to fulfill all the recommendations by the Council of Europe and OSCE concerning human rights following the election of the new Azerbaijan president.

Participants opposed the closure of refugee camps planned for March 1. Over 200 refugees took part in the action. They still name lack of security guarantees in Chechnya as the main reason for them not to return.

The statement reads, in particular, "The European parliamentarians' initiative should be considered solely as a vivid demonstration of their distrust of Moscow's policy in Chechnya."

The statement reads, in particular, "Only a resolute change in the policy of the Russian leadership can bring peace and serenity to the Russian people."

A company commander, Mamitov Viktor, 1981, was killed as a result of the fire. The incident is under investigation now.

The authors believe the readers are given a chance to feel as participants in the honest and thorough discussion on the situation in the Caucasian region.

46 civilians, including women and old people, were shot dead in the course of the police operation in the village of Noviye Aldy on 4 February 2000. 10 more people, including a one-year-old child, were shot down in residential areas of Grozny adjacent to the village.

Inmates are fed 3 times a day, with the Chechen Labor Ministry and the International Committee of the Red Cross supplying the full complement of foodstuffs.