Kavkaz

The PACE hears one of the most controversial reports in its history Mikhail Zygar. European lawmakers hear a report on CIA secret prisons – and Chechnya; The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has heard a report on CIA secret prisons in Europe.

With the George W Bush administration under pressure to close the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Pakistan is readying to step in to help its ally in the “war on the terror”.

The Venezuelan president is visiting Russia, apparently shopping for hardware to boost its military against the USA. Vladimir Putin welcomed Hugo Chavez for talks at the presidential retreat outside Moscow, saying economic affairs and military-technical co-operation were on the agenda.

There’s an odd myth about Gordon Brown. His views on the war in Iraq are said to be unknown. Whether the myth is put out by Brownites to hint that change is imminent or by wishful thinkers on both left and right who desperately hope for a new Downing Street …

According to sources from Ingushetia, on Tuesday morning of June 26, a mobile squad of Mujahideen attacked a base of Russian occupation gang the so-called “reconnaissance squad”.

He was always a heavy drinker, but until his health problems got bad in the mid-1990s he could usually hold his liquor. The real problem was that he was a man of action who didn’t have an idea in his head.

The authorities of Russia are planning, under pretext of getting ready for possible 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, large-scale construction projects in the immediate proximity to the borders of a World Heritage Object – the “West Caucasus” reserve – and in its buffer zone.

The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas Movement, has released a recording of captured zionist serviceman Gilad Shalit asking his government to accept his captors’ demands and to set free Palestinian prisoners in return for his freedom.

Ishmael Haniya, premier of the PA caretaker government, on Tuesday affirmed that the Israeli policy of Premier Ehud Olmert aimed at driving a wedge in Palestinian national lines.

At least 10 people have died and thousands have fled their homes as a powerful tropical cyclone brought torrential rains and high winds to Pakistan’s Arabian sea coast.