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Today, the Executive Committee of the Avar National Council has addressed an open letter to President of Dagestan Mukhu Aliev. The appeal makes emphasis on the situation with the Avars who live in Azerbaijan.

The Presidium of the Supreme Court of Russia has rejected the cassation presentation lodged by the General Prosecutor's Office on the murder case of the editor-in-chief of the Russian version of the Forbes Magazine Paul Khlebnikov. The case will go back to the prosecutor's office.

The Investigatory Committee at the Russian Prosecutor's Office has informed today about the completion of the investigation in relation to the persons accused of murdering the observer of the "Novaya Gazeta" Anna Politkovskaya.

Sources in South Ossetia assert that Georgia is hurriedly erecting fortifications in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone. The South-Ossetian part of the MCC (Mixed Control Commission) appeals to the peacekeepers and the OSCE to register these violations.

In Kalmykia, June 18 has been announced a day-off in honour of Buddha Shakyamuni's birthday. President of Kalmykia Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has signed a corresponding decree.

On June 19 in Washington, representatives of the US Helsinki Commission and Russian experts on the Northern Caucasus will speak to a briefing on aggravation of situation in Ingushetia.

On June 16 late at night, co-Rapporteurs of the PACE Monitoring Mission George Colombier and John Prescott had a meeting with Levon Ter-Petrosyan, the first president of Armenia. They discussed the fulfilment process of the PACE's Resolution No. 1609 and ways out of the internal political crisis in Armenia.

Andrei Nesterenko, and official spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, has stated today that phasing out the peacemaking operation in the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict zone will entail aggravation of the situation in the region.

In Azerbaijan, the health condition of journalist Emin Guseinov, who was exposed on June 14 to physical and moral pressure at a police station, remains grave. He is still unable to eat and drink anything but water, experiences strong pains in his head and dizziness, and cannot move by himself.

Soon a new website can appear on the Internet - an attempt of the command of the GRU's "Vostok" (East) battalion to break through the information blockade held against it by the authorities of Chechnya.

The Institute for Peace and Democracy has moved a demand to punish the policemen who thrashed on June 14th in the capital of Azerbaijan the journalists and human rights activist who celebrated the 80th birthday of Cuban revolutionary Ernesto (Che) Guevara.

Today is two years after arrest of Armand Babadzhanyan, editor-in-chief of the "Zhamanak-Yerevan" newspaper. A group of his colleagues, journalists and NGO representatives have held a protest action today in the capital of Armenia with a demand to release Mr Babadzhanyan.

Today, the Sochi Winter Theatre has held the official closing ceremony of the 19th "Kinotaurus" Russian Open Film Festival. The prize for the best feature film was given to the "Shultes" film by director-debutant Bakur Bakuradze. The monetary worth of the prize is 625,000 roubles.

Three frontier guards were killed and five more wounded in the Urus-Martan District of Chechnya, where militants attacked a motor column of the FSB Department.

On June 16, 2008, Adilgerey Omarov, an advocate from Dagestan, received a notification letter from Strasbourg saying that his claim about collecting 3 million euros from the Russian budget in favour of his client Gasan Baisultanov has been accepted for consideration by the European Court for Human Rights.

On June 13, about one hundred of parents of high school graduates who failed their test examination came to the building of the Parliament of Azerbaijan to express their protest against the new procedure of issuing certificates. A conflict burst out between the journalists who covered the action and law enforcement bodies.

The Parliament of Sweden (Riksdag) has refused to adopt a resolution to recognize the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Turkey during WW I to be an act of genocide.

The talks in Geneva on the new version of the report of the working group on Russia's accession to the WTO, planned for June 16, will pass without participation of Georgia.

One of the projects of the South Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, supported by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of Ukraine and the Russian Fund of Fundamental Researches, will deal with fighting pollution of the Azov Sea.

The authorities of Azerbaijan have no intention to make any more changes in the Electoral Code of the country.