"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.

"At the conjuncture that is in Armenia now, when laws do not work, the institution of the ombudsman can function only if it is supported by independent press; but there is no independent press in Armenia today," said chairman of the Union "National Self-Determination" Paruyr Ayrikian.

Such data were published yesterday by Kheda Saratova, director of the independent press center in Grozny, and journalist Aleksandr Mnatsakanian.

The Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers should pay attention to the human rights situation in the Chechen Republic.

Baku's executive power head Gajibala Abutalybov addressed the letter to Musavat party leader Isa Gambar in which he demanded that the party left its headquarters at the address: 3 Prospect Azerbaijan before November 1, 2003.

The participants of the action protested against inaccurate voter lists and claimed these very lists provided a basis for the elections to be falsified.

The Russian non-government analytical center "Council for National Strategy" has prepared a document concerning future aspects of Georgia's federalization. The Georgian State Security Council considers this document to be another unofficial work, which does not present a stance of the Russian government.

110 people were set free earlier, after negotiations of human rights activists with the Interior Minister Ramil Usubov and Prosecutor General Zakir Garalov.

Deputy prosecutor of the republic Aleksandr Nikitin denied information that Russian security agencies were involved in the abductions.

Ingush President Murad Zyazikov reported it to Vladimir Putin.

According to a source closely connected with the entourage of Aslan Maskhadov, there is no and has never been such a general in the Ichkerian Armed Forces.

Students of the Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University met members of the independent nonpolitical international organization "Amnesty International" last Thursday.