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At present, the academic week in Chechen schools will begin with the Russian and Chechen anthems. This was reported by the Republic's Ministry of Education. Officials emphasize that the innovation is aimed at increasing patriotism among school children and educating them in respect to the state attributes. Principals of Chechen schools express ambivalent attitudes towards the new direction of the leaders.

The court sentenced Captain Akop Manukyan, the main defendant in the case of the death of Officer Artak Nazaryan, to 10 years of imprisonment. Three other defendants in the case Senior Lieutenant Vaagn Airapetyan, soldiers Adibek Ovannisyan and Mkhitar Mkhitaryan were sentenced to 4 years of imprisonment, and soldier Arutik Kirakosyan to 3 years of imprisonment.

Yuri Ushkov, the chief architect of the Architecture and City Planning Department of the Administration of Pyatigorsk, and his son are suspected of taking and mediation in taking bribes, the Investigatory Department for the Stavropol Territory of the Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) has reported.

In the Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) "Resorts of Northern Caucasus", investigators revealed an embezzlement of budget funds in the amount of 275.3 million roubles, and in connection with that fact, a criminal case was instituted on the grounds of fraud. This was reported by the press service of the Investigatory Department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA).

The Russia's MIA has documented - in the course of the audit 25 episodes of stealing money from the Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) "Rosselkhozbank" (Russian Agricultural Bank) in the sum of over 5.5 billion roubles; the thefts were committed by two bosses of a major agro-industrial complex of the Krasnodar Territory; a criminal case on the fact of a fraud has been opened against them, the Russia's MIA reports.

Today, the Cassation Court of Armenia has cancelled earlier decision to the court on the claim of the advocates of four young activists of the oppositional party "Armenian National Congress" (ANC), sentenced to imprisonment for hooliganism, and returned the case to the Court of Appeal for a new investigation.

At night on May 7, an opposition activist and blogger Nilufer Magerramova fell down from the balcony of an apartment in the Azerbaijani city of Mingachevir, where she lived with her parents.

Today, the Buinaksk City Court has ruled to arrest for a month three residents of Buinaksk, in whose houses explosions occurred on May 6, said the lawyer Zulfiya Isagadjieva.

Today in Baku, from morning people are visiting the memorial to those who perished in the struggle for the defence of the territorial integrity and independence of Azerbaijan; in memory of those who perished 21 years ago during the fights in the city of Shusha in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Karabakh Liberation Organization held a political action at the memorial and burned down the flag of Armenia.

Today, the National Assembly of Azerbaijan has adopted the act of amnesty, which is dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the late President Geidar Aliev. According to the authorities' data, the amnesty will affect 9000 persons, of whom, 2000 persons will be exempted from further serving their prison sentences. Representatives of the civil society of Azerbaijan question the validity of those numbers and expressed their disappointment with the fact that the amnesty did not affect political prisoners and "prisoners of conscience".

The Azerbaijani authorities should immediately halt the campaign of forced evictions of Baku residents and demolition of houses in the Azerbaijan's capital. This was declared by the human rights organization "Human Rights Watch" (HRW). The human rights defenders also demanded that the government should provide fair compensation to the evicted people.

The protest action in the form of art picket in support of defendants in the case on riots in Bolotnaya Square was held near the building of the Krasnodar Mayoralty. Artist Eldar Ganeev, the initiator of the protest action, was detained and brought to the police station.

On May 6, Zarema Bagautdinova from the Dagestani regional organization "Pravozaschita" (Advocacy) was detained by policemen when she tried to make a video record with her mobile phone of the search conducted in a house of a female resident of Buinaksk. This was told to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by Aisha Selimkhanova, a staff member of the organization "Pravozaschita".

Nikolai Cherniavskiy, an activist of the "Left-Wing Front", who was arrested on May 6 after a rally to demand freedom for political prisoners in Volgograd, is back at large.

On May 6, fire-fighters liquidated a fire of an outbuilding in the territory of the household of the Porfiriev family in Amurskaya Street in Astrakhan. According to Regina Porfirieva, the cause of the fire was arson.

The advocates of Yusup Temerkhanov, who was today convicted by the court for killing the former Colonel Yuri Budanov and sentenced to 15 years in a high security colony and 1.5 years of restricted freedom, have appealed against the verdict of guilty. In their turn, the prosecutors and the victims said they were satisfied with the verdict and consider it legitimate.

In Azerbaijan, since May 3, two mobile operators - the Azercell and the Bakcell - stopped, at the same time, providing free-of-charge services to subscribers of social networks on the Internet. The decision was explained by technical reasons; however, civil society activists and individual Internet users see a political subtext in it - the restriction on the access to the Facebook was introduced on the threshold of the presidential election upcoming in October 2013.

The authorities of South Ossetia have handed over to the Georgian party 12 persons detained for crossing the administrative border, the Georgia's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has reported today.

Today, the Zamoskvoretskiy District Court of Moscow has appointed on May 24 the consideration of the applications lodged by the International Society "Memorial" and the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" and challenging the actions of the Moscow Prosecutor's Office when inspecting the above organizations.

The investigation into the criminal case against Ivan Gerter, ex-Chairman of the Government of Kabardino-Balkaria, accused of fraud, has been completed. This was reported by the Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF).