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High concentration of dust in the air has become one of the most acute problems for residents of the capital of South Ossetia, after they started replacing underground utilities. City authorities lack cleaning equipment to combat the dust; while local residents have to put on respiratory masks.

On May 28, the Office of the Ombudsman of Georgia published a list of 152 persons detained during the May protest actions, found in 17 IVSs (temporary isolation facilities) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), located both in Tbilisi and in regions of the country.

Today, a protest rally against the violence of the ruling regime was held in Tbilisi, in front of the Parliament of Georgia, where on May 26 the police dispersed the opposition rally.

Today, Azerbaijan marks its Day of the Republic - on May 28, 1918, the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic (ADR) was proclaimed, which was the first republic in the Muslim world.

Two construction workers from Uzbekistan suffered in Krasnaya Polyana in Sochi. A shell explosion tore away an arm of one of them and caused minor injuries to the other.

At its session held on Friday, the oppositional Public Chamber of Azerbaijan made a decision to hold a new rally on June 19.

In Georgia, the Tbilisi City Court has sentenced Vakhtang Maisuradze and Georgi Lapiashvili, who were detained on May 27 on suspicion that they threw chocolate at Mikhail Saakashvili, when the latter was in the theatre. Maisuradze was sentenced to three months in jail; Lapiashvili was fined by 300 US dollars.

Asiyat (Julia) Babaeva, a resident of the town of Raduzhnoe, Tyumen Region, informed the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that her husband Umalat Babaev, a native of Dagestan, from yesterday did not answer telephone calls; and his whereabouts are unknown. Along with him, Samur Kurbanov, a friend of the family, also disappeared.

As reported by Arsen Babayan, press secretary of the Criminal-Executive Department of the Armenian Ministry of Justice, Nikol Pashinyan, a supporter of the Armenian opposition and editor-in-chief of the "Aikakan Zhamanak", was released under the May 27 amnesty.

Leaders of three Norwegian human rights organizations - the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, the Rafto Foundation and the Foundation for the Human Rights House - sent a letter to the Norwegian Crown Prince Hokon Magnus asking him to abandon his trip to Azerbaijan to participate in the International Exhibition and Conference "Caspian Oil and Gas" to be held on June 6-7 in Baku. According to human rights advocates, by his visit Prince Hokon will express "undeserved recognition of President Aliev's regime."

The complaint, prepared by the Committee Against Torture, was forwarded to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg on behalf of 75 applicants from Chechnya. They include both close relatives of the casualties and the persons who were seriously injured as a result of the missile attack and bombing of the village of Elistanzhi, Vedeno District of the Chechen Republic, by Russian Air Forces on October 7, 1999.

The Azerbaijani journalist Einullah Fatullaev, who spent over 4 years in prison, and who was released on May 26, intends to continue his professional activities.

The Ambassadors to Georgia of the United States and the European Union - John Bass and Philip Dimitrov, respectively, - believe that the crackdown at night on May 26 of the unsanctioned rally of the "People's Assembly" was carried out legally; however, riot policemen were applying disproportionate force to the situation.

Today, Sergey Evloev, 19, a resident of Makhachkala, who had stated earlier that he was abducted by local law enforcers, turned for help to the commission under the President of Dagestan engaged in assisting the persons, who have decided to stop their terrorist and extremist activities, in adapting to peaceful life.

Susanna Dudieva, leader of the "Beslan Mothers", has moved a version that the murder of the National Poet of North Ossetia-Alania Shamil Dzhigkaev was caused by his poem critical of pilgrims from Chechnya and Ingushetia. However, the Ingush authorities called on not to make hasty conclusions.

Today, on May 27, Sasun Mikaelyan, one of the most famous commanders of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, was set free from the penal institution "Prisoners' Hospital".

A non-governmental organization "Grass Roots" filed an application of holding a picket in defense of convicted human rights activist Pavel Cherevatov in Krasnodar. The Mayor's office refused granting the application. The organizers consider this refusal groundless and do not give up their plans of holding the action of protest.

According to the version of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, Minister of Public Health of North Osetia has inflicted damage on the budget to a sum of one million rubles.

One of the leaders of the "Georgian Party" Levan Gachechiladze is sure that there were much more victims of the dispersal of the oppositionists' meeting in Tbilisi than it was officially reported.

On May 31 - the Day of Smoking-Quitting - activists of the "Young Guard" will appear in gas masks and offer all the wishing volunteers to give blood samples for determination of the level of carbon monoxide (CO) in the organism.