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As stated to journalists by Bekor Papazyan, executive director of the Fund of National Competitiveness, in spite of the growth of the number of tourists visiting Armenia, no progress is observed in the sphere of quality of services and variety of tours. High hotel prices were mentioned by him as one of the problems.

Today, President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili signed a decree to pardon 211 prisoners. 29 other inmates will have their terms shortened.

The figurants in the murder case of Magomedgadji Abashilov, director of the GTRK (State Television and Radio Company) "Dagestan", have their freedom restriction regime changed: they were released from the SIZO (investigatory detention facility) under recognizance not to leave.

Dadzhimurad Suleimanov, chairman of the territorial electoral commission (TEC) of the Novolak District of Dagestan, who was wounded in the evening on August 27, has died in hospital, a source from the local Ministry of Internal Affairs has reported today.

An explosion happened in Mindeli coalmine, located in the Georgian city of Tkibuli, and killed three and wounded seven miners, the city authorities have reported.

Today at night bodies of a man and a woman with traces of violent death were found in the Chegem District of Kabardino-Balkaria.

As reported by a source in the local MIA, in the evening on August 26, in one of the streets of the city of Kizilyurt, unidentified persons opened a heavy and chaotic fire. As a result, two persons were lost, and one more was wounded.

The Investigatory Department of the ICPO (Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office of Russia) for the Chechen Republic has initiated a criminal case against former major of the MIA of the Komi Republic Mikhail Evseyev, suspected of beating peaceful residents of Chechnya during his official voyage to the republic in 2004, a source from the Department has reported.

At today's session, the deputies of the Tbilisi City Council - Sakrebulo - refused to put the issue to stop eviction of refugees from office buildings in the capital of Georgia and the problem of street traders on their official agenda.

Isa, one of the brothers of Sulim Yamadaev, ex-commander of the "Vostok" battalion, who was killed in Dubai, has declared today that his reconciliation with President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov was a good-will gesture by Kadyrov, not based on any preconditions.

Reforms in the spheres of human rights and democracy are crucial for Armenia; and the country has its active civil society, ready to address these fundamental issues, says Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State, in her letter to Armenian human rights defenders.

The foreigners who visit Abkhazia and South Ossetia without permit of Georgian authorities will be exposed to criminal liability, once they appear in the territory of Georgia. This was stated today by Shota Utiashvili, official spokesman of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Georgia. Today, it became known that citizens of Russia and Armenia are already behind bars in Georgia for illegal border crossing.

Employees of the Centre for Spiritual and Moral Education and Development of Chechnya and activists of the Patriotic Club "Ramzan" have held an action in the Chechen capital under the motto "Woman in Islam", by telling girls and women in the streets of Grozny how they should dress and behave according to norms of Islam. Local residents express ambiguous attitude to the action.

The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" and the "Civil Assistance" Committee are organizing a free-of-charge hospitalization of Makhmud Ahmedov, 14, who partially lost hearing after beating by militiamen in Dagestan, and his mother Aishat Guseinova in Moscow clinics. The "Civil Assistance" Committee has opened an account for donations aimed to treat the child.

The resident of the Grozny District of Chechnya, a relative of the owner of the house, where militant Khamzat Shemilev was killed on August 21, was kidnapped by power agents and kept in custody for about 24 hours. They demanded him "to confess" that he was Shemilev's helper; otherwise they threatened to kill him and announce that he was a terrorist-suicide bomber. This was reported by the head of one of local human rights NGOs.

In Batayurt village in Dagestan a car was shelled, and a militia master sergeant was wounded.

On August 25, President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, together with Deputy of the Russian State Duma Adam Delimkhanov, visited the commemoration ceremony in the Yamadaevs house in Gudermes. As local observers believe, Kadyrov's and Delimkhanov's presence at the mourning ceremony in the house of the Yamadaev clan indicates the final reconciliation of the parties in conflict.

The federal centre should put an end to the campaign unleashed in Chechnya, where women are forced to observe Islamic instructions of clothes. This was the topic of the statement of the international Human Rights Watch (HRW), which arrived to the office of the "Caucasian Knot".

Rashid Aliev, an Azerbaijani scientist-physicist, recently released from custody in Iran, has declared at a press conference on August 25 that when he was in the prison of the Iranian special service ETTELAT, he permanently felt the support organized in Azerbaijan in his defence.

Three days before their kidnapping in Dagestan, Abubakar Rizvanov and Timur (Suleiman) Kurbanmagomedov, employees of the Media Centre "Khuda-Media", noticed that they were shadowed; the young men managed to make a video of the cars, which - as they thought - were pursuing them.