Residents of some mountain villages of Georgia are to vote in the parliamentary election not in one day, 2 November, but from 1 to 3 November.

The workshop was arranged and held by the public organization "Echo of War" and the World Organization Against Torture.

On October 28, 2003, a member of the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship, along with a delegation of displaced persons who had been excluded from the Migration Service's computer data base, visited the Ingush Interior Ministry's Migration Service Department.

The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), along with 400 observers accredited to monitor the parliamentary elections, held an hour manifestation in the center of Tbilisi yesterday in support of free and fair elections.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) set November 16 as a date of holding hearing on the merits regarding the case of Tengiz Asanidze, who is currently in custody in Batumi, the Ajarian Autonomous Republic.

On October 28, on the threshold of parliamentary elections in the Russian Federation and Krasnodar Territory, a survey of citizens with the purpose of working out mandates to the future deputies was conducted in front of the Central Kolkhoz Market of Krasnodar.

"The public authority heads are unlikely to have a perfect command of the Abkhazian language by January 1, 2007," said participants in a round table discussion at the Open Club of NGOs.

At the meeting which took place in Sukhum on October 29, Foreign Minister of Abkhazia Sergey Shamba noted that the republic still needed humanitarian projects, however, the priority and necessity of some of them should be discussed with the public.

At present, there are some 4,000 Chechen refugees in the Pankisi Gorge. Russia's Minister for Chechnya Stanislav Ilyasov conducted negotiations in Tbilisi over their return.

The statement reads, "We call on Ali Astamirov's abductors to make themselves known and to release him as soon as possible. We also call on President Putin to do everything possible to find Ali and obtain his release without putting his life in danger."

According to witnesses, the explosive hurled the truck with the servicemen and totally destroyed it, killing several soldiers.

"The closure of the UNHCR office in Sukhumi is caused by financial difficulties," said head of the UNHCR Field Office in Georgia Catherine Bertrand.

A group of armed men tried to attack leader of the National Movement opposition election bloc Mikhail Saakashvili in the Western Georgian town of Zugdidi yesterday. But Saakashvili's supporters and his bodyguards stopped the car which tried to break into the crowd surrounding Saakashvili in the center of Zugdidi.

David Berdzenishvili, leader of "Saakashvili ? National Movement" bloc, said on October 28 that the reason why he had refused to meet with OSCE observers was their behavior. On October 23, when the Interior Ministry?s forces broke up the opposition?s demonstration in Batumi, they "hid away", said Berdzenishvili.

The Institute of Peace and Democracy (Azerbaijan) keeps on informing of the unceasing persecutions of the opposition after the elections of October 15.

"Actually, we do not insist on humanitarian relief. We would manage to find jobs to earn some money if we were not counted every week by migration service employees," complains Zargan Ulubayeva, a woman from the "Sputnik" tent camp.

The protest demonstration ensued from the recent abduction of two locals, Dudurkayev brothers, by unknown enforcement agents.

"Rauf Arifoglu is known as one of the most fervent critics of the Azeri government. In light of his position and activities, it is very difficult to interpret his arrest unambiguously. It may be that the main reason for his arrest was to silence another strong critic of the Azeri government," reads the statement of Internews' Media Rights Institute on the arrest of "Yeni Musavat" editor-in-chief Rauf Arifoglu.

The information and analytical Internet agency "Caucasian Knot" publishes extracts from the letter of Leyla Yunus, director of the Institute of Peace and Democracy.

The proposal of Armen Rustamian, Chairman of the Armenian National Assembly's Foreign Relations Committee, to change a modus of negotiations for the Karabakh settlement is under discussion in Nagorny Karabakh.