News

March 23, 2004 13:34

• Command-and-staff exercises begin in Armenia

  In accordance with the plan of the exercises, mobilization reserves will be called up on the first day for the purpose of personnel replacement.

March 23, 2004 13:17

• Complaint lodged by Movement for Human Rights, lost by Moscow City Court

  A complaint lodged by the Movement for Human Rights with the Moscow City Court in connection with the case on the hostage taking on Dubrovka was expected to be considered on March 24, but court officials "confessed they had lost the complaint," head of the movement Lev Ponomarev said to the Ekho Moskvy Radio.

March 23, 2004 12:01

• Iskra Morokhia found dead in Gali district

  The dead body of Iskra Morokhia, an officer of the Security Service of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia in exile, was found on March 18 with multiple bullet wounds in the village of Chuburkhindzh, Abkhazia's Gali district.

March 23, 2004 11:57

• South Osetia makes efforts to set free Marek Dudayev

  On March 17, chief of the Georgian State Security Ministry's investigatory department Mr Gviniashvili announced they had no evidence of Dudayev's involvement in the terrorist act. Nevertheless Marek Dudayev is still in the hands of the Georgian law-enforcement agencies.

March 22, 2004 18:28

• Renewal of blockade threatens Adjaria

  As expected, the escalation of tensions between Batumi and Tbilisi has not eased.

March 22, 2004 18:06

• Aslan Abashidze does not hurry to lift state of emergency in Adjaria

  The Adjarian leader insists that the period for the preliminary voter registration before the parliamentary elections of March 28 be extended.

March 22, 2004 17:14

• Ingush refugees return to North Osetia

  The action for refugees' return to the "zone closed for the Ingushetians" is conducted under the aegis of the Office of the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the Resolution of the Osetian-Ingush Conflict.

March 22, 2004 16:26

• Taliban fighters extradited from Guantanamo base to Russia, not allowed to meet relatives

  Mothers of captive Taliban fighters extradited from the Guantanamo base, the US, to their native land turned for help to the sub-delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the Northern Caucasus on March 18, asking to visit their imprisoned sons in Pyatigorsk, where they are being held. They said their sons were subjected to beatings there.

March 22, 2004 15:38

• Ethnic Osetins from Georgia's Akhmetsky district strive to resettle to South Osetia

  A group of Osetins living in the Akhmetsky district of Georgia arrived in South Osetia on March 18 to meet with authorities there.

March 22, 2004 14:55

• European Union provides up to 1 million euros in grants for Georgian NGOs

  There are three priority areas to be financed under the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) microprojects programme: support to the rule of law and the fight against corruption; the fight against torture; and combating discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities.

March 22, 2004 14:05

• Police official killed in Chechnya's Achkhoy-Martan district

  Unknown people shot down Chersi Gatayev, deputy chief of the Achkhoy-Martan district police department, and his driver on March 19.

March 22, 2004 13:36

• Process of paying compensations for lost housing and property in Chechnya to be accelerated

  "1,654 residents of the Chechen Republic have got compensations for lost housing and property for the last six months. Another 4 thousand people are expected to get compensations till the end of March," chairman of the Chechen governmental committee for compensation payments and displaced persons Abubakar Baybatirov said in his interview with the Caucasian Knot correspondent on March 20.

March 22, 2004 12:36

• EU special representative for South Caucasus to arrive in Yerevan on March 23

  During his visit, which will last till March 27, Heikki Talvitie will meet with the Armenian political leadership.

March 22, 2004 12:25

• Yeni Musavat newspaper journalists stop hunger strike

  On March 19, five contributors to the Yeni Musavat newspaper suspended the hunger strike they had started on March 15. "The editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Rauf Arifoglu, who is held in Bailovsky Investigatory Isolation Ward No 1, addressed an appeal to the hunger strikers, asking them to stop it," reported Yeni Musavat deputy editor-in-chief Gabil Abbasoglu.

March 22, 2004 11:32

• New NGO to help displaced persons in Stavropol region

  The founders see the main task of the organization in providing moral, legal and financial assistance to displaced persons and socially vulnerable residents of the Stavropol region.

March 20, 2004 17:46

• Picket against war in Chechnya held in Moscow despite authorities' ban

  An antiwar picket banned by the authorities was held on Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow on March 18, at 5:30 p.m.

March 20, 2004 16:13

• Mass action of protest in Ingushetia

  Representatives of unidentified security agencies have abducted and taken away in an unknown direction over 20 residents of Ingushetia since the beginning of the year. On March 19, relatives and friends of abducted and missing people, who have been driven to despair by the unsuccessful search, staged a spontaneous action of protest on the outskirts of Nazran.

March 20, 2004 14:58

• Murderer of Armenian officer to receive scholarship

  Nadyr Aliyev, an Azerbaijan businessman and leader of the Organization of National Unity, has decided to grant a scholarship to Ramil Safarov, the Azerbaijan officer who killed his Armenian colleague, Gurgen Margarian, in Budapest on February 19, 2004.

March 20, 2004 14:42

• State official sues Business Express weekly

  On March 15, the trial in the case of Artashes Bakhshian, a member of the Armenian State Commission on Protection of Economic Competition, versus the Business Express weekly started at the court of first instance of Yerevan's Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun Communes.

March 20, 2004 13:39

• Two people killed in skirmish in Grozny

  On March 17, officers of Akhmad Kadyrov's security service opened fire in the center of Grozny, near the Fashion House. Two people - a teenager and a woman - who turned out to be near the scene were killed as a result.