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The Basmanny Court of Moscow has extended by 3.5 months the custody of Nikita Tikhonov, accused of killing advocate Stanislav Markelov and journalists Anastasia Baburova.

The former employee of the UVD (Interior Department) of Novorossisk Alexei Dymovskiy, in whose relation a criminal case was opened, was summoned today for interrogation to the prosecutor's office, but he asked there to postpone the investigatory action.

As stated by Shafig Pshikhachev, plenipotentiary of the Moslems' Coordination Centre of Northern Caucasus (MCC NC) located in Moscow, Northern Caucasus faces the need to liquidate the illiteracy displayed in perversed understanding of the Koran and principles of Islam. This was announced at the press conference held in Russian capital on the outcomes of the year.

A jobless Volgograd invalid of 56 spent half a year to prove his right to his unemployment benefit. Finally he succeeded in the court with legal support of the Ombudsman for the Volgograd Region.

Today, upon the end of judicial pleadings in Novgorod at the trial on the first attack on the "Neva-Express" train in 2007, a break was announced till January 11, 2010, when the defendants will have their last plea.

In their open letter, parents of the ten persons who fell victim on March 1, 2008, during disorders in Yerevan accuse the country's ruling coalition and the members of the interim parliamentary commission of complicity to the crime and of an attempt to hide the circumstance of the events and blanch over the assassins.

Ms Dobrieva, a relative of assassinated oppositionist Maksharip Aushev, has addressed human rights activists for help in searching her brothers and nephews, who disappeared in St Petersburg. She has filed respective applications to the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" in Nazran (Ingushetia) and Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization "Mashr".

Ivona Kalishewska, an employee of the Polish edition "Kaukaz.net", asserts that the recent attempt of refugees from Georgia and Chechnya, accommodated in Polish refugee centres, to cross the German border had nothing to do with their "hard residence conditions" in Poland.

The law enforcement bodies of St Petersburg know nothing about disappearance in their city of relatives of the human rights activist from Ingushetia Maksharip Aushev, who was shot dead in October. The missing persons are Ali Dzhaniev, a brother of Maksharip's widow, and her uncle - Yusup and Yunus Dobriev. The latter was well-known among St Petersburg Moslems for his humanitarian activity.

One of extremist websites has placed photos of cut-off heads of Murat Dokushukin and Albert Shebzukhov, assassinated in November in Kabardino-Balkaria. Militants say that the casualties were snooping members of the armed underground.

Eduard Sharmazanov, press secretary of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia has condemned the October 27 attack on young opposition activists, treating as unacceptable any attempt of human rights violation. Oppositionists, in the turn, accuse the authorities.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has signed a number of laws changing the territorial jurisdiction of terrorists and allowing consideration of "terrorist" cases by juries.

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.