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Activists of such NGOs as the Chechen Mothers for Peace association, the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship, the Victor Popkov Center, and the Committee for Antiwar Actions took part in the seminar.

Yuri Luzhkov came to Batumi together with Garry Luchanski, a well-known businessman

"Both the parties have taken no active steps after the Georgian president's ultimatum expired. However raised units have not been withdrawn form their stands," Adjarian Interior Minister Djemal Gogitidze said.

"The president cannot deliver ultimatums to his own people in his own country, and even more so to the leader who is not appointed and dismissed by the president," Abashidze said in his interview with Russian journalists in Batumi on March 15.

The high turnout at the polling stations in the Chechen Republic, despite the almost complete absence of voters, was due to election commission employees casting ballots they had filled in beforehand. This was privately confirmed by workers at the voting sites.

"We are going where it is peaceful and calm. There is no peace here," some refugees told journalists at Adjaria's administrative border.

"A state of emergency and a curfew have been introduced," the leader of the Adjarian autonomy, Aslan Abashidze, said to Russian journalists in Batumi on March 15.

"I am not going to order troops in Adjaria and think that the use of military force is inadmissible," Mikhail Saakashvili said.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili made a statement late in the evening on March 14 in which he gave Aslan Abashidze 24 hours for unconditional fulfillment of the requirement that the Adjarian leader should secure freedom of movement for the head of the Georgian state on the territory of the autonomy.

The students demanded the release of the Medical College dental student who, according to them, had been taken just from the school by unknown armed men on March 11.

Abu al-Walid, a notorious Chechen field commander of Arab origin, announced that Russia was threatened with a new series of terrorist acts if that one who would be elected new president advocated the war in Chechnya.

The motorcade carrying the president, the interior minister and other officials was stopped at a checkpoint on the Adjarian border.

Asya Gogunkova told she had been contesting her dismissal as the deputy head of the State Trade Inspection of the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria for three years already.

A press conference was held at the Center for the Protection of Human Rights on March 11. It focused on the situation that has arisen at the republican Kabalkteleradio company, which has broadcasted no programs in the Kabardian and Balkarian languages since January.

The Caucasian Knot correspondent learnt about it from the Group's Karabakh coordinator.

Mikhail Trepashkin, a former officer of special services and known lawyer, was arrested in October 2003. He was charged with disclosing state secrets.

The training for journalists and NGO activists was devoted to the work of the mass media in a pre-election period.

The police detained Yevgeny Frumkin, Elena Batenkova, and Mikhail Kriger, who protested against the war in Chechnya. They were conveyed to the Tverskoye police department.

On the night of March 11, Khavani Usmanova, a 51-year-old local, was detained by Russian security agents in the course of "address purges" in Gudermes.

The situation in the republic is still "extremely difficult", said the head of the delegation, Rudolf Bindig.