It was arranged by the Stavropol State University jointly with the Russian Ministry of Education and the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation).

Officials of the Austrian, Czech, and German police announced at a news conference in Prague on October 24 they have jointly cracked down on an international gang smuggling people into Western Europe, mostly immigrants from Chechnya, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Yesterday, October 27, Georgian NGO representatives expressed their protest regarding the situation arisen in the Ajarian Autonomous Republic on the eve of the Georgian parliamentary elections scheduled for November 2.

The authorities consider him to be one of the organizers of the disorders in Baku that broke out just after the presidential elections of October 15.

He told it upon his return from Geneva, where he had attended the 79th session of the UN Human Rights Committee.

Human rights activists of the Memorial society, activists of the Saint Petersburg League of Anarchists and other members of the antiwar movement gave their speeches during the meeting.

The 5th congress of the Osetian people opened in Vladikavkaz on October 25. The organizer of it is the well-known public organization "Alanty Nikhas".

The International Scientific Conference "National Cultures in Modern World" was held at the Abkhazian Institute of Humanitarian Studies on October 22-24.

Bauddi Merjoev has a bad character in the Achkhoy-Martan district: district residents suspect that officers of the structure that is under command of Merjoev conduct illegal and ungrounded detentions and abductions of people, along with officers of Russian law-enforcement structures.

The fact-finding mission of the European Court on Human Rights is now scheduled to take place in Georgia and Russia at the beginning of 2004.

Chiaberashvili, who was released later, told he had gone in a taxi and had witnessed his driver's bribing a road police officer.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office announced that, during his short visit to Armenia, he had a thorough talk with the president of the county and the foreign minister, had effective meetings with a number of public organizations.

Information about a thousand of missing Chechens is to be delivered to the Ministry of Justice and send to regional human rights organizations this week.

Reports of Georgian media say a blast occurred in the backyard of the house of David Mumladze in Georgia's Zestaponi district this morning. Mr. Mumladze is a candidate MP for the United National Movement opposition election bloc.

According to Mr. Aliyev, the failure of the OSCE peacemaking mission in Nagorny Karabakh means that the time has come to settle the problem of this region independently by applying variants that presume the use of force.

David Berdzenishvili, one of the leaders of "Saakashvili ? National Movement" bloc, chairman of the Republican Party of Georgia and MP candidate for Batumi, was brutally beaten by supporters of Aslan Abashidze, president of the Ajarian Republic.

An attack on Arman Saakian's election headquarters was made on the night of October 23. The attacker savagely beat the headquarters staff.

The statement reads, "We are deeply indignant at the demonstrative detention of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, YUKOS Company president, made in Novosibirsk by instructions of the prosecutor general's office."

The international conference "Institution of the Commissioner for Human Rights in Subjects of Russia's South: Problems of Making, Experience of Interaction with Public Authorities, and Prospects of Development" was held in Astrakhan on October 16-17.

Though the authorities assure they are seeking after normalization of relations with all the mass media, regardless of their political orientation, pressure on opposition periodicals still goes on.