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Because of strong snowfalls and wire icing, electric power supplies are broken in the Buinaksk, Karabudakhkent and Sergokalin Districts of Dagestan. About nine thousand residents are still without electricity; they promise to restore supplies by February 15.

In the evening on Friday, February 12, the National Assembly of Azerbaijan with 92 votes for and 7 votes against approved the amendments to a number of legislation acts imposing restrictions on collection and dissemination of information.

Today, the consideration of the appeal complaint lodged by young bloggers' Emin Milli and Adnan Gadjizade was again postponed by the Baku Appeal Court.

The Meschanski District Court of the city of Moscow has accepted to consideration a claim from a resident of Makhachkala Shamil Sheikhov about protection of honour, dignity and business reputation and demand to collect compensation in the sum of 100 million roubles in equal halves from Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Chairman of LDPR (Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia) and vice-speaker of the State Duma of Russia, and from the editorial board of the newspaper "LDPR". The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about it by Mr Sheikhov himself.

The litigation on the case of Tsotne - the son of the first president of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia - will resume at the Tbilisi City Court on February 18 at 1:30 p.m., said his advocate Keti Bekauri.

The case of Einullah Fatullaev, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Real Azerbaijan", who was convicted in Azerbaijan, is causing many doubts and gives rise to worry for his life. This was stated by Andres Herkel, Rapporteur of the PACE Monitoring Committee.

President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov said that he is ready to remain the head of the republic until he is on demand in this position. His term as President of Chechnya expires in 2012.

The blog of the web designer Artemiy Lebedev, known for his use of obscene lexicon, causes no harm to public morals. This was the conclusion of the OVD (Interior Division) of the Tver District of Moscow, having studied his LiveJournal and refused the initiative group "Volgogradskiy Proryv" (Volgograd Breakthrough) to open a criminal case against Lebedev for his use of abusive expressions in his blog.

According to Zurab Nogaideli, ex-premier and leader of the oppositional "Movement for Fair Georgia", who visited Moscow on February 8-10 and signed during this visit a cooperation agreement with the "Edinaya Rossiya" Party, believes that restoration of Russian-Georgian relations is crucial for economic development of his country - to get Georgian goods back to the Russian market and give chance to Georgians to earn money and improve their social status.

In the opinion of Timur Khikmatov, head of the PR Department of the Ministry of Transports of the Russian Federation, if Georgia wants to resume air traffic with Russia, she should initiate negotiations at the level of state administrations. In his turn, Georgiy Dokuchava, head of the united transport organization of Georgia, believes that Russia should initiate negotiations, as it was Russia, who closed the air corridor in August 2008.

The former junior sergeant Alexander Sivyakov, who was convicted to four years of imprisonment for mockeries during his military service in the Chelyabinsk garrison over private soldier Andrei Sychov, recruited from Novocherkassk, Rostov Region, has been set free. Andrei Sychov's family believes that Sivyakov was too leniently punished.

The militia refused to ensure safety of the organizers of the rally on February 21 with the demand of fair trial on the case of the ex-militia major Alexei Dymovskiy, capital reform of the MIA and resignation of Vladimir Chernositov, head of the Novorossisk UVD (Interior Department). Vadim Karastelyov, an expert of the Novorossisk Committee of Human Rights (NCHR) and Dymovskiy's official representative, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that he was recommended at the UVD to hire private securities for this purpose.

Media recollect about the situation in Northern Caucasus only another resonant murder there, while the local society has got accustomed to murders and no longer perceive them as tragedy. This was stated by Galina Arapova, Director of the Centre in Defence of Media's Rights, in her interview to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, who added that this should not be the case.

The UVD of Novorossisk and SIZO (pre-trial facility) of Krasnodar are thoroughly studying the publications in mass media about Militia Major Alexei Dymovskiy; the latter entity is even printing out them and takes measures to improve the custody conditions of detainees there. This was reported by Vadim Karastelyov, an expert of the Novorossisk Committee of Human Rights (NCHR) and Alexei Dymovskiy's official representative.

A criminal case has been opened in Karachai-Circassia against the militia major on the fact of beating a detainee, who subsequently died.

Today, Kheda Saratova, head of the Information-Analytical Agency "Objective", has left the United Mobile Group (UMG) of human rights activists, engaged in tracing the situation in the Chechen Republic and investigating the crimes against local residents. Kheda's statement about quitting the UMG was a complete surprise for some of her colleagues.

On February 8, upon expiry of imprisonment, Sardar Alibeili, editor-in-chief of the "Nota" newspaper, was set free. He served his term in minimum security colony No. 14. Mr Alibeili has stated that he will continue his journalistic activities and writing about the problems "of public concern."

Valery Gaevskiy, Governor of the Stavropol Territory, has introduced the post of the Ombudsperson in charge of children's rights. This was reported by the press service of the Governor. Svetlana Adamenko, earlier deputy minister of education of the Territory, was appointed to the post.

In Chechnya, the law enforcer, who shot dead his two colleagues in summer of 2009, when he took them for militants, will face justice. He is under threat of a criminal punishment in the form of imprisonment for up to seven years.

On February 9, the Kirov District Court of Astrakhan authorized arrest of 7 out of 19 servicemen of the local battalion of the Road-Post Service (RPS), suspected of regular extorting bribes from motorists. Now, 11 of them are in custody (four inspectors were taken to the SIZO (pre-trial facility) on February 8 and 7).