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Russian special agencies are engaged in searching the four relatives of the widow of the assassinated Ingush oppositionist Maksharip Aushev, who disappeared in the end of last December in St Petersburg. However, so far, nothing is known about their whereabouts, a source in power agencies said.

As reported by Sergey Kucheruk, head of the GUVD (Interior Department) of the Krasnodar Territory, the second criminal case was opened against former Militia Major from Novorossisk Alexei Dymovskiy; this time, as he said, - under Article 303 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - forgery. Mr Kucheruk gave no details, but promised that more criminal cases will follow.

Activists of civil society made a statement calling the Russian authorities to stop the practice of persecuting the religious community of Jehovah's Witnesses and other "non-title" religious communities in Russia and protect believers against illegal oppressions.

The Belarusian Company "Triple" has given up its plans of building a biathlon complex in Sochi for Olympiad-2014. As reported by the "Gazprom" and "Sochi-2014" Organizing Committee, the reason of demarche was Russia's refusal to grant export oil discounts to Belarus.

Today in Vladikavkaz, members of the initiative group "Electrozink. What do we breathe in?" have held another picket with a demand to decommission the "Electrozink" metallurgy factory.

Vakhtang Tsugba, Military Commissar (MC) of Abkhazia, rejects statements about forced recruitment of young Georgian nationals to the Abkhazian army. This was stated by Mr Tsugba in the context of the information disseminated by Georgian sources that an Abkhazian soldier Lekso Bzhaniya asked for political asylum in Georgia complaining of his violent recruitment.

Hieromonk Phillip (Ryabykh), deputy head of the Department of Foreign Church Relations, believes that the reaction to his words, which caused misunderstanding in Azerbaijan about three temples of the Moscow Patriarchy working in Armenia, including one in Nagorno-Karabakh, is obviously "exaggerated".

On Friday, January 15, the Prefecture of the Central Administrative District of Moscow allowed human rights activists to hold two pickets on January 19, the first anniversary of murders of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova.

Members of Chechen NGOs report violations of citizens' rights and facts of extortion by employees of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate (known in Russia as "GIBDD"). They note that the problem is especially topical at the road police posts located in the administrative borders with Ossetia and Dagestan.

As reported by Elkhan Polukhov, press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Azerbaijan, the embassy of Azerbaijan to Russia has sent a note of protest to Russia's MFA in the context of the statement made by the vice-speaker of the State Duma Vladimir Zhirinovsky about possible recognition by Moscow of independence of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The street named in honour of Dzhokhar Dudaev in Riga will be renamed in 2010, said Nil Ushakov, Mayor of the Latvian capital. In his opinion, the street should bear a neutral name.

The Dutch Internet edition named "De Dagelijksestandaard" has dismissed one of its journalists for denying the fact of the genocide of Armenians by Ottoman Turkey and for his qualification of 1915 events as deportation.

A suit to be lodged to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the context of a breach of the Constitution of the Russian Federation as regards the freedom of worship. The pretext was the oppression of Jehovah's Witnesses by law enforcement bodies of the South federal District (SFD). This was stated by Gregory Martynov, press secretary of the administrative centre of this religious organization.

On Thursday, January 14, the embassies of the USA and Norway in Baku made a joint statement in the context of the incident with their employees on January 12 in the village of Bananyar, Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic (NAR) of Azerbaijan.

On January 14, the Coalition in Support of Civil Society in Azerbaijan held debates in the office of the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS) on the problems of NGOs. The debate points were in the problems of NGO registration and the latest changes in the legislation, enabling to restrain the activity of the civil society. According to Intigam Aliev, chairman of the Society of Legal Education, the civil society of Azerbaijan, actually deprived of any international support, should rely on its own forces.

Armenian pogroms in Baku in January 1990 are among most convincing arguments of impossibility for Nagorno-Karabakh to be a part of Azerbaijan. This is stated in the comment of the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nagorno-Karabakh on the 20th anniversary of these events, which deserve, in the opinion of Irina Grigoryan, head of the Stepanakert Resource Centre, their official estimation. Azerbaijanis believe that Armenian pogroms in Baku were provoked by Soviet special agencies.

Today, the centre of Makhachkala is again blocked by KamAZ trucks; traffic is absolutely blocked in the vicinity of the central square, which houses the buildings of the President's Administration and the Government of Dagestan, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, FSB and the Supreme Court of the republic.

Residents of Ingushetia Salambek Dzakhkiev and Maksharip Khidriev, accused of blowing up the "Neva-Express" train in 2007, have been acquitted under the article of "terrorism". The court found them guilty of illegal circulation of explosives.

Imam Yaraliev, a candidate to the post of Mayor of Derbent, former public prosecutor of Dagestan and currently the head of the Suleiman-Stalskiy District, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the letter with his signature disseminated by mass media and addressed to President Dmitri Medvedev, asking to support Saigidgusen Magomedov, head of the Department of the Federal Exchequer for Dagestan, to the post of the President of Dagestan was a provocation.

Election of a new Ombudsman should take place soon in Ingushetia, but the date was not appointed. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent learnt about it from Shamsudin Mogushkov, chair of the committee for legislation, law, order and security.