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In Georgia, torrential rains, hail and hurricane caused great damage in Kvarelsky and Gurjaani districts, in particular, villages of Balgodzhian, Tsitskanaantseri, Eniseli and Vazisubani. The elements destroyed about 30% of the harvest, vineyards and spring crops.

Co-chair of Pravozaschita NGO Gulnara Rustamova has informed today that families of the local residents Akhmed Akhmedov and Karib Vagabov, who were abducted on 8 May in Derbent, approached her with information about the detainees being assaulted.

In Azerbaijan, despite certain progress in the freedom of access to information, the situation remains unsatisfactory, said Khaled Agaliev, project coordinator of the Institute of Media Rights (IMR) on May 17, when presenting the progress report on the situation in Azerbaijan with the freedom of information.

In the end of last week, a meeting was held in Grozny dedicated to the outcomes of the work of the republic's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) for the first four months of this year. Minister Ruslan Alkhanov stated that relatives of the members of the armed underground are accomplices of their crimes; therefore, they should bear the same responsibility as militants.

The dispersal of the peaceful action of the "Azadlyg" (Freedom) Block and administrative arrests of its participants are rough violations of citizens' constitutional rights and freedoms. This opinion was expressed by Alesker Mamedli, an independent lawyer and an expert of the American NGO "IREX Pro Media", in his conversation with the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, when he made his comments on the arrest of the participants of the protest action held by the "Azadlyg" Block in Baku on May 15.

The NGO named "Residents of South Ossetia Against Genocide" will consider the claims submitted by residents of South Ossetia to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) after the August war of 2008 against Georgia and rejected by the Court. For almost 18 months this organization deals with similar complaints against Georgia in the Hague Court.

On May 15, Evgeniy Zakharov, a member of the initiative group in defence of the city-resort Sochi, held a picket in the Plane-Tree Alley in defence of the general-use green zone located near the "Philately" shop. From 3 to 6 p.m. he stood there with posters calling to protect the city-resort from developers and statements to stop the town-planning terrorism. As of May 15, the initiative group collected 4000 subscriptions demanding to remove the fence near the "Philately" and stop "destruction of the resort by illegal commercial constructions."

Vice-Premier Alexander Khloponin, Plenipotentiary of Russian President in the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), believes that Russia should form its attitude to the Caucasus as to country's strategic region.

The issue of potential appointment of Ombudsman in the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) may be raised at the nearest meeting of Russian President with human rights defenders to take place on May 19, said Valentin Gefter, a member of the Board at the President of the Russian Federation for Promotion of Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights. In his opinion, we need a certain concept on how to address the problem of human rights observance in Northern Caucasus; however, the idea of NCFD Ombudsman, according to his version, is under-formulated and under-discussed. Other human rights activists partly agree.

In the capital of North Ossetia, members of the initiative group "Electrozink. What we breathe in?" at the website "Odnoklassniki.Ru" are holding a picket trying to draw public attention to the court decision on suspending the work of the "Electrozink" Factory.

Igor Ivanchenko, head of public safety militia of the OVD (Interior Division) of the Arseniev City District, Primorski Krai, was put behind bars after a criminal case was opened against him under Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for excess of official powers in 2007, when he was sent to official service trip to Chechnya.

In session of the trial on the case of attack on Nalchik, the court dismissed the petition of the majority of defendants and their advocates on passing the case to the Supreme Court for the jury trial. The Court finds that the failure to form an objective and impartial panel of judges does not give the court grounds for granting this petition.

Resident of Staropromyslovsky district of the capital city of Chechnya, abducted by unidentified security forces members on the morning of 13 May was released the same evening. For hours, the young man was severely beaten and tortured. The MIA in Grozny refused to comment on this information.

Today in Georgia, the members of electoral administrations and employees of constituency and local electoral commissions all over the country simultaneously signed the Code of Ethics, having undertaken to strictly observe the electoral legislation at execution of their professional duties. In total, the document now has 48,064 signatories.

In the capital of Azerbaijan, 13 participants of today's protest action of the oppositional block "Azadlyg" were administratively punished late at night. Ten of them were sentenced to 7-10 days of administrative arrest, the rest three were fined.

Today, President of Russia Dmitri Medvedev has brought Vasily Golubev, his nominee to the post of local Governor, for consideration of the Legislative Assembly of the Rostov Region.

As reported by the MIA of Dagestan, at night on May 15 in Khasavyurt, Dagestan, unidentified persons opened automatic fire on a car and killed two persons.

In Tbilisi, the police did not allow the lawyers holding a rally to put their tent in front of the building of the Parliament. As reported by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent from the place of events, policemen arrived in several minutes after the lawyers started installing their tent and stopped their activities.

Today in capital of Azerbaijan, policemen prevented a protest action of the opposition and detained its participants.

Blogger Alaudin Dudko, known in the Internet under the nick ingushetiya_ru, is in Butyrka SIZO (pre-trial prison) as a suspect of storing drugs and explosives. Dudko treats it as provocation.