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The first nationwide cultural contest of Ossetian beer is over in the republic. Out of 500 participants the winner was chosen - Elena Margieva, a resident of Zmeiskaya village, who received her prize money of 50,000 roubles.

On October 29, the Parliament of Kabardino-Balkaria passed the final wording of the republic's law, restricting the retail sale of spirits.

As reported on October 29 by President of Dagestan Magomedsalam Magomedov at the regular session of the Republic's Parliament, it would not be possible to send all the wishing local Moslems to the Hajj.

Four children from the Khashagulgov family are missing their school in Karabulak for a week already. Their mother Pyatimat says that she received threats addressed to her family.

Today a powerful explosive device was neutralized by Chechen law enforcers in the Staropromyslovsky District of Grozny. The republic's MIA asserts that the location of the hideout with a fougasse was shown by a local resident detained on suspicion of helping militants.

Vyacheslav Kireev, advocate of Dmitri Ufimtsev, convicted member of the neo-Nazi grouping called "White Wolves", was pleased that his client was not sentenced to life-long imprisonment and believes that the verdict was passed in line with the law.

On October 28, an explosion of a land mine in the foothill Urus-Martan District of Chechnya killed a soldier from Interior Troops of the Russian MIA; another one was seriously wounded.

Two protesting groups at a time - refugees and street traders - are holding their actions near the building of Tbilisi City Council. The former group is demanding solution of their housing problems, while the latter one protests against the ban on street trading.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, the memory action "Return of Names" of victims of 1937-1938 political repressions in Moscow was organized by the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".

The Supreme Court of the Chechen Republic has started considering the criminal case opened against two militiamen accused of killing two persons.

This week the Parliament of Georgia began considering the bill, aimed to address the problem of conspiracy between doctors and pharmaceutical companies, when a doctor is bribed to prescribe medications of a certain company with which he or she has a secret contract.

Journalist Einullah Fatullaev, who is kept in the Baku SIZO (pre-trial prison), and his colleagues who support him at large have stopped their joint hunger strike, because the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan had fixed the date of the plenary session on Fatullaev's case.

Law enforcement bodies of Georgia have arrested 20 persons on suspicion of spying in favour of Russia.

Nikita Tikhonov, who is accused of resonant murders, has confessed of trading in arms but still rejects the main charges - of murdering lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova.

A meeting of memory was held on October, 28, the day of the 68-th anniversary of the beginning of mass prisoner transfer of peaceful residents of Stalingrad (now bearing the name of Volgorgad) to the fascist concentration camps, near a small memorial at the place of a former camp of compulsory confinement No 205 in the territory of the settlement of Gorkovsky, Volgograd region.

Telman Mustafayev, a nineteen-year-old soldier of Azerbaijani army, was killed on October, 28, as a result of violation of cease-fire regime in the zone of Karabakh confrontation. Azerbaijani party blames the Armenian one for that.

The prohibition of kidnapping brides recently established in Chechnya has been violated. On October, 28, a nineteen-year-old young man kidnapped a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl for marriage. The kidnapper may be sentenced to imprisonment and his family will possibly be fined for one million rubles. Commenting on the incident local residents express an opinion that the custom of kidnapping brides will hardly be eradicated in the republic.

Relatives of two residents of Ingushetia worry about absence of information about whereabouts of their relatives, who disappeared in Rostov-on-Don and Voronezh Region on October 27. This is stated in the message of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" that arrived to the office of the "Caucasian Knot".

The Buryat journalists Tatiana Stetsura and Nadezhda Nizovkina, who had written about the deportation of Chechens and Ingushes and later were accused of extremism, rejected their appointed advocates and decided to self-defend at the trial, According to Nadir Fatov, a rights defender from Moscow, the case against the journalists is an experiment, in which the FSB refers any criticism of the authorities to Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (inciting hatred against a social group).

At the disposition of Russian frontier troops in Yerevan, two guards from Russia were found dead. Earlier, the press service of the Armenian Police had mistakenly treated them as contract servicemen from the Russian military base stationed in Armenia.