On January 15, the senior investigator of the Trusovsky District Prosecutor's Office of Astrakhan, Rashid Zhumgaliyev, brought a charge against Damir Batyrshin, former director general of Publishing House Media Prestizh Company, and Vladimir Nikonov, his deputy. The mentioned company published and distributed the Moskovsky Komsomolets in Astrakhan newspaper.

Chechen refugees living in the Bart tent camp in Karabulak, Ingushetia, were offered to leave the camp territory within 10 days.

President of Ingushetia Murat Zyazikov is going to Geneva to discuss issues concerning the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Ingushetia to Chechnya.

In particular, the second meeting of working groups on security issues and a policy within the Geneva Process is designed for late February. This meeting was to be held in Tbilisi as early as the autumn of 2003, but it did not take place. The first meeting was held in Sukhum in the summer of 2003.

The open letter to Doctor Leonid Roshal reads, "The statement "of an eye-witness" you made yesterday that the terrorists [in the Theatre Center] on Dubrovka provoked a storm of the theatre and the use of homicidal gas is comparable in its shamelessness with President Putin's statement that "the gas was innocuous"."

Executive Director of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights Aaron Rhodes addressed an open letter to Prosecutor of the Republic of Ingushetia Magamet Belkhoroev in connection with the abduction of Khamzat Osmaev, a popular physical therapy practitioner.

We call your attention to the response of Leonid Roshal to Irina Khakamada's statement concerning the investigation into the storm of the Theatre Center on Dubrovka.

The EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), Javier Solana, stated it at a press conference in Tbilisi on January 15.

Specific proposals concerning the forming of civil society institutions and environment which could help them to work more productively, as well as those concerning the development of interaction between authorities and civil society institutions were given at the presentation.

The court decided to extend detention terms for Azerbaijan oppositionists arrested in connection with the October mass riots in Baku. They will be held in custody for three more months.

Officers of Russian security agencies abducted two men during the January 10 "address purges" in the village of Prigorodnoye, the Grozny district.

A local was killed on January 12 in the village of Pervomayskaya, the Grozny (rural) district.

The prize will be presented to Russian peacemakers by Lord Judd, who is arriving from London especially for it.

Unknown people forced Iokobadze out of the car when he was going home from work. They started beating him, saying "you are the one who dislikes Abashidze".

On January 14, the central market of Grozny was blocked by policemen. They let nobody enter of leave the territory of the market.

"Ruslan Gelayev, extremists' and foreign mercenaries' group leader, is not among the ten bodies of militants destroyed last December by the federal forces. We have recently found them in the places of hostilities," Shamkhal Aliyev, chief of the search-and-rescue unit of the Dagestani Rescue Team of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, said on January 15 upon return to Makhachkala from the Tsuntinsky district.

According to the final official data, Saakashvili won 96.27% of the vote.

On January 12, Russian security agents abducted Khamzat Kh. Osmayev, 1954, in the village of Pliyevo, which is a municipal district of the Ingush town of Nazran.

They gathered at the restaurant "Krasnodar" to exchange opinions about possible ways of cooperation in an informal atmosphere.

"We remember how they came in and conducted searches 20 years ago. Everybody knew it was dangerous to read books as it could be a ground for imprisonment. Now they make it clear to the society that it is dangerous to read such books," says Aleksandr Podrabinek.