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Today at midday, the city of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, settlements of the Apsheron Peninsula, and adjacent cities of Khyrdalan and Sumgait, lost their electricity supplies. Traffic in Baku metro and railways was stopped. All state bodies, including the President's administration, got de-powered.

The international human rights organizations Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International, Civil Rights Defenders and Front Line have demanded from the Russian authorities to hold inquiry into the fact of detention of three human rights activist in Chechnya and bring those guilty to responsibility.

Militia General-Major Gregory Kulik, Head of the UVD (Interior Department) of the Astrakhan Region, has ordered to dismiss from office Militia Captain Kirsanov, a squadron commander of the Special Battalion (SB) of the Road Patrol Service (RPS)-1, his deputy Militia Captain Milov and Militia Lieutenant Colonel Barninkov, commander of the SB of the RPS-1. The order was caused by detention of the employees of Squadron 1 of the SB of the RPS-1 of the Astrakhan Regional STSI (State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, know in Russia as "GIBDD"), suspected of bribery.

The Frontier Department (FD) of the Russian FSB in South Ossetia has announced the reasons, which forced warrant officer Khripun to desert on December 21 from his post of frontier control. According to Colonel Dmitri Chikirov, deputy head of the above Department, Khripun's flight across the border was a provocation of Georgian special services.

In February, Thomas Hammarberg, Supreme Commissioner of the Council of Europe on Human Rights, will visit South Ossetia. One of the main topics will be debates on release of the Ossetians, considered as missing or detained by the Georgian party.

President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov has addressed members of illegal armed formations (IAFs) with an appeal to surrender in exchange for lenient administrative and criminal punishments.

Threats are arriving to mobile phones of the applicants for a rally in demand of a fair trial of Militia Major Alexei Dymovskiy. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent learnt about it from Vadim Karastelyov, an expert of the Novorossisk Committee of Human Rights (NCHR) and Dymovskiy's official representative.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has recalled, after his mother's appeal, his suits against Oleg Orlov, head of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", Liudmila Alekseeva, chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group, and a group of Moscow journalists. Alvi Karimov, Kadyrov's press secretary, denies that the mother asked to stop prosecution of human rights activists under Kadyrov's request.

On February 10, an extraordinary session of the National Assembly of Dagestan will take place to vote on Magomedsalam Magomedov, nominated by Russian President Medvedev to the post of the republic's president. It is expected that Alexander Khloponin, Mr Medvedev's plenipotentiary for the NCFD (North-Caucasian Federal District), will present the nominee.

Andres Herkel (Estonia) and Joseph Grekh (Malta), co-Rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for Azerbaijan, are now in this country. Today, they have met Eldar Azizov, chief executive of the city of Gyandzha.

A criminal case is opened in Volgograd against militiamen from a PPS (patrol and post service) squadron, who are suspected of beating a detainee. This is reported by the regional department of the ICPO (Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office).

In the opinion of Ibragim Yaganov, leader of the public organization "Khasse" of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), there is no threat to peace and accord; and what happens in the republic is a normal political process.

In Makhachkala, after the failure of the pump station on February 4, water is still absent in many houses, while communal services reload responsibility from one structure onto the other.

A criminal case has been initiated against an operative agent of Sochi UVD (Interior Department), who committed a road accident on February 6, as a result of which two elderly women were lost.

At the Supreme Court of Karelia, the state prosecution has demanded to sentence the main figurants in the case about mass disorders in the city of Kondopoga, natives of Chechnya and Dagestan, to imprisonment for the terms ranging from 6 to 22 years.

The Supreme Court (SC) of the Russian Federation has satisfied the statement of the General Public Prosecutor and recognized the so-called "Imarat Kavkaz" (Emirate of the Caucasus) to be an international terrorist organization and banned its activities in Russia.

As reported by the website of the Regional Department of the Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office, the court decided to arrest 2 out of 19 detained Astrakhan employees of the STSI (State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, known as "GIBDD"), while the arrest of other suspects is currently considered.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Chechnya refutes the fact of detention of Russian human rights activists. As reported by the press service of the Ministry, the Russian human rights defenders were not detained, but just brought to the Shali District OVD (Interior Division) for a check.

Today, President of Russia has brought his nominee - Magomedsalam Magomedov - in the National Assembly of Dagestan for approval to the post of the President of the republic.

The relatives of Maksharip Aushev, the Ingush oppositionist murdered in Kabardino-Balkaria, are dissatisfied with the course of inquiry and ask to transfer the case to the central machinery of the Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO) of the Russian Federation.