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At about 9 p.m. on January 25, Kabardino-Balkarian police officers encircled a five-story communal house in the suburbs of the republican capital, Nalchik. Members of the extremist jamaat (society) Yarmuk are reported to be hiding in it.

Chechen authorities and law enforcers deny their involvement in the happening, and Maskhadov's relatives (as well as many people in Chechnya) are convinced that the abduction was organized by officers of the Chechen presidential security service.

On January 24, the Georgian and South Osetian co-chairmen of the Combined Control Commission for the Resolution of the Georgian-Osetian Conflict came to an agreement concerning the exchange of hostages.

Ambassador Stephan Minikes pointed to some positive moments. In particular, he mentioned the fact that the Azerbaijan Central Election Commission dismissed several people for violations committed during the municipal election.

The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) expresses its deep concern for the fate and whereabouts of Makhmut Magomadov who was detained by a group of camouflaged gunmen in Grozny on 20 January.

Members of the local branch of the Russian Communist Party along with their supporters unveiled a memorial board with a bas-relief of Stalin on the square in front of the Makhachkala station on January 20.

Being already an aged man, Saday Nazarov returned to Azerbaijan on January 11 after he had lived as an emigrant for 10 years in Czechia, where he had refugee status. The professor took on trust the authorities' statements about national reconciliation and resolution of the problem of political prisoners.

An extraordinary meeting of the Combined Control Commission for the Resolution of the Georgian-Osetian Conflict is being held in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Osetia. The meeting was arranged because the problem with hostages taken from both sides was to be settled immediately.

In the time of Aslan Maskhadov, Magomed Magomadov headed a group of investigators in the Chechen prosecutor's office engaged in investigations of cases connected with kidnappings.

Beslan residents who suffered in the terror attack have been picketing the Kavkaz federal rout for the second day. "Our children lie in graves, and we'll lie here until Dzasokhov (president of North Osetia - editor's note) goes away," picketers said to a Caucasian Knot correspondent.

Russian soldiers purposefully extrude people from mountainous districts of Chechnya.

People who suffered in the terror attack in Beslan school 1 started a picket at about 10 a.m. on the Rostov-Baku road entering Beslan, North Osetia.

This morning, South Osetian law enforcers blocked the road Tskhinval-Dzhava going along Georgian villages.

Sarmat Parastayev, a brother of director of the Center for Humanitarian Studies Alan Parastayev taken to the Gudushuari medical center in Tbilisi, Georgia, has reported that Alan was beaten by officers of the South Osetian Interior Ministry.

Some time ago, the Arabian media reported that the United States was going to attack Iran from three directions: from Iraq, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasian Knot correspondent has turned to Azerbaijan political scientists for comments on the issue.

Today, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) have addressed an open letter to President Putin on the kidnappings of Aslan Maskhadov's relatives by Chechen enforcement agencies.

Vladimir Suvorov and Zezag Usmanova, the defense of Zara Murtazaliyeva - a resident of Chechnya convicted by the Moscow City Court on January 17, are extremely dissatisfied with the court decision. The court sentenced the 22-year-old student from Chechnya to 9 years' imprisonment.

Director of the Center for Humanitarian Studies Alan Parastayev supposes that political motives are behind his beating by officers of the South Osetian Interior Ministry on December 30, 2004.

In the latest report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) lays strictures on actions of the Azerbaijan authorities and mentions numerous violations of human rights.

The special operation in the office of the Information Center of the Council of NGOs, which is situated in Nazran, Ingushetia, was conducted on January 12. A group of military men in masks armed with automatic rifles and light machine-guns rushed into the flat in the center of Nazran the organization rented as an office.