Kavkaz News

GROZNY About 90 Chechens living in Georgia have requested refugee status since January to allow them to return to Chechnya, the head of the Russian republic’s migration department said Tuesday. “Our department has received about 90 applications from Georgian residents requesting visas and other documentation to return to Russia. These …

Russia launched fresh counter-terrorist operations in at least three districts of Chechnya on Friday just over a week after it ended a similar mission across the whole region, news agencies reported. Chechnya’s pro-Kremlin leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, last week declared victory in a war against rebels after the Kremlin lifted security …

MOSCOW, April 24 The upcoming NATO military drills in Georgia will help increase the Georgian army’s combat preparedness and interoperability with the alliance, Deputy Prime Minister Georgi Baramidze said Friday. “These will be mainly command post exercises. Of course, hardware will be used, but not tanks or long-range artillery,” Russia’s …

TBILISI, April 24 A crowd of opposition activists gathered outside a restaurant where President Mikheil Saakashvili was eating, forcing him to abandon his dinner, as protests continued on the streets of Tbilisi. The incident on Thursday evening came hours after opposition leaders pledged to block the president’s movements in the …

TBILISI, April 22 The Georgian opposition is beefing up its protests in the country’s capital as supporters began arriving on Wednesday in Tbilisi from other Georgian regions. Meanwhile, the opposition has erected around 140 wooden jail cells along Tbilisi’s central street to symbolize Georgia having turned into a police state. …

ASTANA  – Kazakhstan will not take part in NATO-led military exercises in Georgia in May, the Kazakh defense minister said on Tuesday. Kazakhstan was earlier scheduled to take part in the Cooperative Longbow/Cooperative Lancer-2009 command-and-staff exercise, which Russia has criticized as unhelpful in the wake of last summer’s armed conflict …

MOSCOW  – The pro-Russian breakaway region of South Ossetia has detained several observers from the OSCE for illegally crossing the Georgian-South Ossetian border, a separatist official told Reuters on Tuesday. “OSCE representatives were detained on South Ossetian territory for illegal border crossing,” Irina Gagloyeva said, without giving further details. She …

Tbilisi, Georgia – About 20,000 demonstrators Friday kept up the pressure on Georgia’s president to resign, with some pelting his residence with cabbages and carrots on a second day of protests. President Mikheil Saakashvili rejected their demands and called for talks. The crowd was smaller than on Thursday, a national …

Georgia is bracing for a second day of mass protests as the opposition vows to increase pressure on President Mikheil Saakashvili to resign. In the biggest protest against his rule since an August war with Russia, at least 60,000 opposition supporters rallied in Tbilisi on Thursday demanding Saakashvili leave office …

Tens of thousands of Georgian opposition supporters have taken to the streets of the capital, Tbilisi, pressing for the resignation of President Mikheil Saakashvili. Former close allies of the president addressed a large rally near Georgia’s parliament Thursday as protesters rallied in the capital and in other cities. The protesters …