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Manana Archvadze-Gamsakhurdia - the widow of the first president of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia - complains of pressure on her family and asks political asylum in Germany. This is the way she tries to help to release her son Tsotne Gamsakhurdia, who is kept in pre-trial custody on charges of a murder attempt and illegal firearm storage.

The investigatory bodies of the Krasnodar Territory accuse Alexei Dymovskiy, former employee of the Novorossisk UVD (Interior Department), under the article "swindle through abuse of service position."

Rizvan Isaev, Deputy of the Russian State Duma from Dagestan, has categorically refuted the information that he had signed an appeal of a group of MPs from Dagestan to Yuri Chaika, General Public Prosecutor, asking to take measures against "armed groups commanded by state officials." Mr Isaev treated the incident as "provocation".

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of the Russian Federation has accused Georgia of unwillingness to address issues of direct Moscow-Tbilisi flights.

Today, the republic marks the Memory Day on the occasion of the 66th anniversary of deportation of Kalmyks accused of treason. They were not just exiled, but spread over the vast Siberia - from the very north to the Far East and Kazakhstan. Almost half of all deported Kalmyks died in exile. Practically every family has whom to commemorate: their relatives perished either on the way or in exile - far from homeland.

Ella Kesaeva, head of the All-Russia Public Organization "Voice of Beslan", moved a proposal at the reporting-election Congress of Human Rights Defenders in Moscow to address the Council of Federation and State Duma with a request to pass a law on the status of terror act victims. The Congress unanimously upheld the offer.

Supply of electric power to refugees from South Ossetia, living in Skra village, Gori District (Eastern Georgia), will be resumed only after they pay their debts to the "Telasi" electricity distribution company. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed about it at the press service of the company.

Enver Mamedov, head of the division for supervising investigation of crimes of the Prosecutor's Office of Dagestan, has instructed the public prosecutor of Khasavyurt to receive Mamatkhan Baisultanov, who had complained that the investigation of the execution of his son and pregnant daughter-in-law, committed in 2006, is protracted.

Today, in the Dagestan village of Kakashura, Karabudakhken District, a crowd of about 500 persons strong has set the household of Boris Nasrutdinov, son of the owner of the local poultry farm, on fire. Yesterday, on December 25, a conflict with the use of firearms burst out because of Boris.

On December 25 at 10:45 p.m. Moscow time, three thousand residents of the Imereti Bay and "Rossiya" State Farm, Adler District of Sochi, where Olympic objects are built, are again without electricity.

Mansur Musaev, a former resident of Grozny, has informed the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the work is now underway in Germany on a documentary book, describing in details the practice of arrests and torture of detainees in Chechnya.

Any act of pardon or amnesty should be welcomed from the viewpoint of humanism; however, the today's President's pardon has not solved the problem of political prisoners in Azerbaijan. This was stated by Emin Guseinov, Director of the Institute of Reporters' Freedom and Safety (IRFS), in his comments on the order of the head of Azerbaijan.

Many people who come to Poland from Caucasian republics have no grounds to claim for the status of refugees, as Ivona Kalishewska, an employee of the Polish edition "Kaukaz.net" believes.

The war on corruption in Ingushetia is a failure because of "dishonesty and indecency" of certain judges, President Yunus-Bek Evkurov has stated. At the same time, Vladimir Ustinov, Plenipotentiary of Russian President in the Southern Federal District (SFD), praises the efforts of the President of Ingushetia who "actively works with the population" and treats him as a positive example of how to act in order to make the "state power work for the society."

On December 26, in Batumi, journalists of the oppositional channel TV-25 will present documents to the Ombudsman of Georgia Georgiy Tugushi, on the basis of which they will try to write off their debt, which threatens to stop the channel. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about it by Merab Merkviladze, owner and director of the TV company.

Today, in Srednie Achaluki village, Malgobek District of Ingushetia, power agents have conducted a non-sanctioned search. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about it by Leila Tochieva, the owner of the searched house.

One of the candidates to the post of Mayor of the city of Derbent, former public prosecutor of Dagestan and now the head of the Suleiman-Stalskiy District Imam Yaraliev has expressed his satisfaction with the decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Dagestan (RD), according to which the outcomes of the election in Derbent were nullified.

Today, the Institute of Media Rights (IMR) has presented its 2009 report on the situation with the freedom of expression in Azerbaijan, which notes that the situation with the freedom of speech in the country "remains poor, and Azerbaijan is behind many countries by this indicator," as Leila Madatli, the IMR's spokesperson, said at the presentation of the report in the Baku Media Centre.

Armen Arutyunyan, Ombudsman of Armenia has presented his extraordinary public report "Ensuring Fair Litigation in the Republic of Armenia", where the abnormal operation of the judiciary was treated as a "systemic problem."

As reported by Minister Aram Arutyunyan, the checks conducted by his Ministry of Nature Protection this year have revealed over 700 violations in the spheres of fauna and flora protection, protection and use of water bodies and illegal felling. As a result of the checks, the Ministry has returned 118.4 million drams back to the state budget.