All news

At today's sitting of the State Council the Russian President Dmitri Medvedev called his law enforcement bodies to immediately suppress any attempts of inciting ethnic enmity and riots. He also opposed the idea of setting up the Ministry for National Policy, but demanded from heads of Russian regions to "start working" towards counteracting the interethnic enmity.

On December 22, in the village of Chermen, Prigorodny District of North Ossetia, Zalina Elkhoroeva, 30, a resident of the city of Nazran (Ingushetia), was abducted. As reported by the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" in the statement that arrived to the editorial office of the "Caucasian Knot", this fact was announced by Zalina's father - Idris Elkhoroev.

The Chechen authorities are tightened the marriage rules for the republic's citizens. Now, young people willing to get married will have to present medical certificates about absence of severe diseases.

In December, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published a special report on murders of journalists in the world. The list lacks the names of three lost Dagestani journalists. According to the Glasnost Defence Foundation (GDF), their murders had to do with their professional activities.

Employees of the State Social Care Service of the Ministry of Labour and Social Matters Affairs have organized a protest action in Yerevan, in front of the building of the government, against mass layoff.

The mass fight in the village of Stepnoye between Cossacks and natives of the Caucasus burst out against the background of drinking alcohol, rather than on ethnic grounds. This was reported by the spokesman of the GUVD (Chief Interior Department) of the Stavropol Territory.

A criminal case on charges of embezzling about 6500 euros has been initiated against Alvaro Antonyan, head of the National Seismic Service of Armenia and Director of the Public Organization "Centre for Support of Programme of Seismic Risk Reduction".

Some 120 persons took part in another picket held in Makhachkala by former soldiers of the war in Afghanistan. At a later meeting with state officials veterans decided to postpone their hunger strike until a meeting with the president of the republic.

On December, 26, Aishat Magomedova, founder and permanent Head of a women's charitable hospital, died in one of the hospitals of Makhachkala after a long-lasting illness. She had been 66.

Arsen Abaikhanov, who knocked down, on July 25 in Karachay-Cherkessia, Bella Ksalova, a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, who died as a result of injuries received in the road accident, and was sentenced on November 10 to 3.3 years of imprisonment in colony, is still at large.

Today, residents of the resort city of Sochi, Krasnodar Territory, went out to hold another picket in protest against authorities' actions.

Today in Moscow, law enforcement officers and interior soldiers have prevented another nationalists' attempt to hold an unsanctioned rally in Manege Square.

The internally displaced persons living in Georgia sent a letter to Sozar Subari, the former Georgian Ombudsman and now the leader of the "Georgian Party", with a request to create a coordination office and a committee for protection of refugees' rights.

The Administrative Court of Armenia has accepted to consideration the suit lodged by a public association named "Ensuring Ecological Safety and Promotion of Democracy" against the Ministry of Nature Protection of Armenia.

The works by Salvador Dali from a private Italian collection are for the first time exhibited for the public at the Stavropol Territorial Museum of Fine Arts.

Agents of the FSB department for the Stavropol Territory blocked the channel of delivery of weapons from South Ossetia to the Stavropol Territory.

On December 24, Yerevan held an opening ceremony of the first Armenian Dolphinarium. Ecologists protest against its operation, believing that it is dangerous.

In the settlement of Adiyukh, located in the suburb of Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, a five-story 60-apartment house, where 29 families still live, is in emergency condition.

On December 24, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili opened a new resort in the village of Mestiya located in Svaneti. A new nearby airport for small aircrafts will service the new resort.

Currently, the agreement on extension of deployment of the Russian military base in Armenia, which was signed on August 20 during the visit of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to Yerevan, is pending at the Constitutional Court of Armenia.