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"The fact that the getting of official grants by human rights and ecological organizations is equated to the maintenance of "dubious interests" gives away the way of thinking typical for the State Security Committee (KGB) when any connection with the West is taken as something illegal," reads the statement by the Russian Movement for Human Rights.

Mikhail Trepashkin, a former Federal Security Service officer, has been sentenced to 4.6 years in a settlement on a trumped-up charge. His lawyers and a human rights activist speak about that.

Igor Akhba, Abkhazia's envoy in Russia, noted that the referendum conducted in 1999 showed that the majority of the Abkhazian population was for its independence.

Russia is ready to explain the real situation in Chechnya to all interested countries and organizations and "is doing it patiently," the Foreign Ministry's spokesman said.

Spokesman for the regional headquarters on the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus Ilya Shabalkin emphasized that "there is no any intensification of the rebel activity, several gangs numbering from five to ten people have been revealed and operations to liquidate them are being conducted now."

Several people were injured in the attack. They cut with splinters of smashed panes. An investigation in the incident has been launched.

Chairperson of Helsinki Citizens' Assembly National Committee of Azerbaijan Arzu Abdullayeva has made an appeal to international organization concerning the issue of granting political refugee status and asylum in a third country to two Armenian turncoats, Artur Apresian and Roman Terian.

Negotiations on Nagorny Karabakh are held within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group now, and it completely suits the Armenian side, said Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian.

Participants in the conference "Karabakh: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" believe that "Azerbaijan has a right to liberate occupied territories by military means as nobody asked for permission to occupy a part of the country."

Azerbaijan authorities plan to pardon Alikram Gumbatov on one condition. He will have to leave Azerbaijan for the Netherlands and reunite with his family in this country after his release.

Abkhazian Prime Minister Raul Khadzhimba has turned down the offer by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to reunite with Georgia, which the Georgian leader addressed to the Abkhazians and the Osetins.

The alleged reason for this large-scale mopping up operation was that four Russian policemen's dead bodies were discovered on the outskirts of Chernorechye in the evening of May 24.

Preventive punishment against Aramazd Zakarian, a member of the political council of the opposition party Republic, and Zhora Sapeian, head of the Talin regional branch, has been completely annulled, a source at the Armenian general prosecutor's office reported.

The Georgian side will also appoint its envoy, and both the men will solve current questions between the meetings of the delegations on security mechanisms.

Khalit Tagirov, who submitted documents for the registration as a candidate in the Chechen presidential election on May 25, refused to be a participant in the presidential race today.

The hunger strike had an extremely negative effect on the eyesight of Suren Sureniants and he had to stop the action of protest in six days after its beginning in order to avoid further complications, the opposition leader's lawyer said.

"If Sukhumi realizes and understands that the people who were evicted from Abkhazia have the right to go back to the graves of their loved ones and to their homes, then there will never be war again," the speaker of the Georgian parliament said.

The armored personnel carrier (APC) moving at the head of a military convoy of four cars and five APCs with Russian soldiers was blown up and then fired from automatic rifles.

Representatives of the Russian Federal Migration Service promised to pay a $500 reward to every refugee who would persuade 10 families of IDPs to voluntarily leave for the Chechen Republic.

"We are ready to consider any models for the structure of the state, taking into account the interests of the Osetins and Abkhazians to ensure their future," Mikhail Saakashvili said.