According to Russian media, Saturday morning kuffar from police closed the border with Chechnya in Dagestan’s Novolak district, explaining it by a “special operation” in the nearby village of Baytarki in Nozhay-Yurt district of Chechnya.

According to KC’s source in the command of the Armed Forces of the Caucasus Emirate, 9 Muḥarram 1429 in the afternoon (17 January 2008), a spetsnaz (special force) team of invaders was attacked in the Vedeno gorge in the Wilayah of Nokhchicho (Ichkeria).

Russia’s Muslims are beginning to change the way they talk about the relationship between their religious community and their country, a shift that reflects their own growing self-confidence but one that frightens many ethnic Russians who see it as a threat to their own status.

The Russian Far East is “drifting away” from the rest of the country, according to an investigation carried out by Nezavisimaya gazeta – Regiony, and the Kremlin’s much-ballyhooed program intended to reverse that process may in fact be making it worse.

Even though Vladimir Putin’s designated successor says few senior officials even know what demography is, changes in the number of 18-year-olds over the next few years will impose severe constraints on the Russian government and may force it to reduce the size of its armed forces.

SOFIA – Bulgaria’s Sofia airport was temporarily evacuated and flights suspended for over an hour on Sunday, after a bomb threat which proved a hoax, police said.

BANJSKA, Serbia – The plum brandy flowed freely at polling station No. 9 in Banjska, northern Kosovo, as Serbs voted for a new president.

BEIRUT – Lebanon’s presidential election was postponed from Monday to February 11, the parliament speaker said on Sunday, announcing the 13th delay of a vote blocked by the country’s political crisis.

TBILISI – Georgia and Russia pledged to repair their tattered relationship on Sunday after Mikhail Saakashvili was sworn in as Georgian president, the first concrete sign of an improvement.

GAZA – Gaza’s main power plant began shutting down on Sunday due to a fuel shortage caused by Israel’s closure of the Hamas-controlled territory’s borders, a move taken in response to Palestinian rocket attacks.