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In 2011, the birth rate in Chechnya was again significantly higher than the Russian national average, said the local Ministry of Public Health (MPH). In parallel with the birth rate growth, doctors state decrease of infant mortality against previous years. Meanwhile, a number of local women complain of corruption at maternity hospitals; however, the MPH does not confirm this information.

On February 1, the South-Ossetian party plans to deliver five Georgian citizens detained for illegal crossing the border to its Georgian counterpart, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed by a source from the KGB (Committee for State Security) of South Ossetia.

More than 70 senators and 50 members of the lower house of the French Parliament have addressed their petition to the French Constitutional Board asking to cancel the recently adopted law on criminalization of genocide denial.

The Tver Court of Moscow has shortened down to six months the term of corrective works, earlier awarded to Dmitry Putenikhin, an activist "The Other Russia", for splashing water into the face of the prosecutor, said Ekaterina Ilyina, the press secretary of the court.

Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have visited the Azerbaijani prisoner of war kept in Nagorno-Karabakh, Shakhla Gakhramanova, the press secretary of the ICRC office in Azerbaijan, said today.

On January 30, over 50 persons gathered in Akhmad Kadyrov Avenue in Grozny with a demand to have their salary debts paid.

Today, in the evening, near the monument to fighters for the victory of Soviet Power in the Bratskiy Garden in Astrakhan, defenders of Article 31 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation have held their action. Despite the cold weather and strong wind, the action was attended not only by permanent participants, but by new people.

Public prosecutor's office of Rostov region sanctioned the indictment on the criminal case against Seiran Mkhitaryan, ex-Deputy Chief of operational detective unit of Department of Interior Affairs in Rostov-on-Don, and Armen Yegiazaryan, ex-Chief of operational detective unit of the same Department of Interior Affairs. The policemen are accused of extortion of a bribe to a sum of 1,5 million rubles.

Employees of government-financed organizations of Sochi complain that their management makes them get absentee ballots for the election of President of the Russian Federation. The management of organizations and territorial election committees (TEC) deny their involvement in bringing pressure on them.

A group of convicts in Georgia appealed to President of the USA Barack Obama asking him to help in release of political prisoners. Similar appeals were sent to President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso and Head of EU Mission in Georgia Philip Dimitrov.

A serviceman of a military unit located in the settlement of Balajary, Baku, died from wounding he got as a result of careless weapon handling, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan reported.

Adoption of the French Senate of the law on criminalizing the denial of genocides, including the Armenian genocide, will play a major role in the overall process of international recognition of that fact. The law will also have an impact on European politics in general. This opinion was announced by Armenian politicians and experts.

Today, the Saratov Garrison Military Court suspended consideration of the criminal case against soldier Andrei Popov, accused of desertion, who had earlier claimed that he had been kept in slavery Dagestan. At present, Andrei Popov is in hospital after undergoing of three operations.

Problem of residents of the village of Khrakh-Uba, one of the two dwelling settlements, which remained in the territory of Azerbaijan after the revision of the borders of the former Soviet Union, is not solved. This was reported by Arif Kerimov, the head of the Federal Lezgin National and Cultural Autonomy. According to Evgeny Kozmin, Consul of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Azerbaijan, residents of the village Uryan-Uba accepted Azerbaijani citizenship and continue to live in the village as citizens of Azerbaijan, and problems of residents of the village of Khrakh-Uba arose from the fact that almost all residents left the village.

In Moscow, the materials of the investigation into the case of the murder of anti-fascist Ilya Dzhaparidze were presented to parties for studying.

The capital of Armenia hosted a protest action against the transfer of the demolished kiosks from Abovyan Street to the territory of the park, located in the area of Mashtots Avenue.

Lance Corporal Khachatur Sarkisyan, a serviceman of a regular term, is suspected of murdering Pailak Shakhnazaryan, a regular term soldier, in an army unit of Nagorno-Karabakh. This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of Armenia.

Today, in Georgia, a group of prisoners of the Tbilisi women's colony stopped their hunger strike to protest against transfer of children under three years old to children's homes.

A resident of Karachay-Cherkessia, without waiting for trial on case of a road accident that killed his sister, stabbed with a knife a suspected perpetrator of the road accident. This was reported by the Investigatory Department of the Republic's Investigatory Committee.

Defence of Sergey Arakcheev, ex-officer of internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), who was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment in a colony for murdering three Chechen residents in January 2003, asks the General Prosecutor's Office to reopen the case, since new reasons for its reconsideration have appeared.