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Robert Mahony, deputy director of the international Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), has named the decision of President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov to recall his claims to the "Novaya Gazeta" and Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" the first small step towards liquidation of the frightening effect against journalists in Russia.

At night on February 15, in the city cemetery of Azov, Rostov Region, unidentified persons made a rout. In more than 30 tombs of one of the sections, where only veterans of World War II are buried, monuments and tombstones were ruined or damaged.

Russia tries to change the format of the Minsk OSCE Group and is interested to set up a parallel intermediary format in the Karabakh process. This is the opinion of David Shakhnazaryan, a member of the oppositional Armenian National Congress and former chairman of the local KGB.

In Tskhinvali, on February 18, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of South Ossetia arrested Fatima Margieva, editor of the newspaper "Position". She went on hunger strike and plans to continue it until all the circumstances of her detention and the criminal case opened against her last year on the fact of illegal keeping arms are clarified.

Dagestan plans to set up a school of bloggers. The initiative belongs to the information-analytical centre of the local Ministry on Youth's Matters. The main mission of the school is proclaimed as "creation of positive information" about the republic.

In the capital of Georgia, teachers of history considered the ways of bringing up tolerance in pupils in the multinational and multi-confessional society. The seminar was held within the project "Building up tolerance through historical education". Over 50 persons from different regions, representing various ethnic and religious communities of Georgia, were present.

An action in defence of voters' rights was held in Sochi. Its participants - candidates for the City Assembly, businessmen and members of public organizations - voiced for free elections, against arbitrariness of local bureaucrats and pressure of the executive authorities on undesirable candidates.

Last night, in the Gregebil District of Dagestan, unidentified persons shelled, from the side of a large forest, the control-defence post on the "Red Bridge", as a result of which two law enforcers who were on duty at the post were killed, and a local resident also suffered.

The nationalist Nikita Tikhonov, accused of murdering lawyer Stanislav Markelov, was transferred from SIZO (pre-trial prison) "Lefortovo", where he was kept since April 2009, to SIZO "Matrosskaya Tishina".

On February 18, General-Colonel Arkadiy Edelev, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, who was in charge of Northern Caucasus, was dismissed. The corresponding decree was signed by President Dmitri Medvedev, who had promised at the sitting of the MIA Collegium to reshuffle the ministerial cadre. Sources in the Kremlin report that Edelev may pass over to work for the office of the plenipotentiary representative at the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) and head the Chief Department of the MIA for the NCFD, which Mr Medvedev suggested to create.

In Stavropol, repair works aimed to restore water supply to a kindergarten, school, medical institutions and private houses in the Tashly District are over. The water delivery is resumed.

On Thursday, February 18, the Tbilisi City Court started considering the case of the son of the ex-president of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia - Tsotne, accused of an attempt of deliberate murder.

Makhachkala has opened an exhibition "Northern Caucasus - on Road of Changes" showing works of photographers from Dagestan, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Chechnya and other regions. After Makhachkala, the exhibition will go to Nazran, Grozny and Vladikavkaz.

Three soldiers of the Azerbaijani Army were lost and one more wounded as a result of the skirmishes that burst out in the contact line of the Karabakh conflict zone. This was reported on February 18 by Eldar Sabirogly, head of the press service of Ministry of Defence of Azerbaijan. The Karabakh party refutes the data about the victims and the incident as such.

The Chechen Republic sees the climate of fear and lacks any criticism of the authorities. This was stated today at the press conference by Joan Svinson and Lord Frank Judd, members of the Group on Human Rights of the UK Parliament, who visited Checnya.

The advocates of the former militiaman Alexei Dymovskiy, who had placed in the Internet his video appeal to Vladimir Putin, believe that the inspector's decision to appoint a psychological-psychiatric examination of their client is an instrument of pressure on Dymovskiy.

Zulfagar Heyirkhabar, a reporter of the news agency "Salamnews", who was beaten yesterday, on February 18, when he was making a report in Baku about gas explosion in cafe "Karvan", told about the details of the incident at today's press conference held in the office of the Institute of Reporter's Freedom and Safety (IRFS).

The annual report of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) "Attacks on Press in 2009: Armenia" asserts that Armenian authorities continue to control most of the media, while private TV Companies belong to those politicians and businessmen who have close ties with the authorities; manifestations of violence against journalists continue.

The Russian Federation has lost two more cases at the European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR) on complaints of residents of Chechnya on disappearances of their relatives. The statement of the ECtHR prescribes that Moscow shall pay out 120,000 to the applicants, plus legal costs.

Today, Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, was the venue of a youth protest action in defence of the rights of Elmin Badalov, a student of the Azerbaijani State Oil Academy (ASOA), who was dismissed from the higher school after his publication in the press of an article about corruption in the academy. Bosses of the ASOA assert that the young man was dismissed for poor progress in training.