Chechnya’s supreme court on Monday sentenced a Turkish man to 23 years in prison for carrying out attacks against civilians, police and Russian soldiers in the restive Caucasus state, Interfax reported.
Popularity: 4% [?]
March 14, 2007
The first group of haj pilgrims from Dagestan Republic, located in the Russian Northern Caucasus, departed for Saudi Arabia on Monday through Iran.
Popularity: 2% [?]
December 11, 2006
Chechen surgeon Khassan Baiev, who treated many Chechens and Russians in the conflict between Russia and Chechnya, is visiting Japan for the first time to give lectures across the country on the suffering of children in the hostilities.
Popularity: 2% [?]
November 21, 2006Russian Federal Security Service has detained two Uzbeks belonging to the international religious extremist organization Hezb-e Tahrir, RIA-Novosti reports.
Popularity: 3% [?]
November 15, 2006The Azeri Prosecutor General’s Office has initiated a criminal case following last week’s publication of an article in the Senet newspaper insulting the Prophet Muhammad, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported quoting Azeri First Deputy Prosecutor General Rustam Usubov.
Popularity: 1% [?]
A jury in southern Russia acquitted a man being retried for an apartment building blast in 1999 that killed 64 people and led to Moscow’s renewed military campaign in Chechnya, The Associated Press news agency reports quoting a statement by a court spokesman.
Popularity: 2% [?]
The radio-controlled land mine exploded late Friday while the military vehicle was moving near the village of Berkart-Yurt on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Grozny, the regional branch of Russia’s Interior Ministry said in a statement. The blast wounded two soldiers and damaged the vehicle, it said.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Russia’s Central Muslim Board Chairman Talgat Tajuddin has urged Palestinian and Israeli secular leaders and clergy to sign a 40-year peace deal, with Russian religious leaders posing as guarantors, Interfax news agency reports.
Popularity: 2% [?]
November 7, 2006Russia’s top Muslim cleric has agreed to help the wife and Durban-based parents of abducted Israeli soldier, Ehud Goldwasser, find out if he is still alive, Daily Online reported.
The family recently met the head of the Council of Muftis in Russia, Sheikh Ravil Gaynutdin at his office in Moscow and appealed to him for help.
Hezbollah militants kidnapped Goldwasser and fellow soldier Eldad Regev on July 12 in a cross border raid into Israel. Their capture sparked a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in which thousands of tons of artillery were lobbed both ways across the border. The war eventually ended in a United Nations-brokered ceasefire.
Ehud Goldwasser spent his formative years in Durban, where his parents, Miki and Shlomo, still live. They have returned temporarily to Israel as the base for their endeavours to find him and secure his release.
The Goldwassers handed the mufti a Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) card for Ehud.
“I don’t dare ask you to work toward their release, which of course is our deepest wish,†Miki Goldwasser told Gaynutdin.
“In the initial stage, we will settle for a sign from someone reliable who can confirm to us that the boys are alive.†The appeal echoes a similar call the family made a few weeks ago to the South African government.
She said the family was not pinning its hopes on the mufti.
He promised to use all his connections to bring a swift end to the abductions, but did not go as far as to say he would initiate a meeting with Hezbollah. But he did say he would gladly speak to any member who approached him.
“Islam is a religion that demands the preservation of the honour, health and welfare of prisoners,†he told them.
“We are greatly saddened that there are those among us who claim that suicide is a religious act that is rewarded,†he added.
The meeting took place at the initiative of Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar who praised the good relationship between Muslims and Jews in Russia. However, there have been some anti-Semitic incidents, most notably a bloody knife attack at a Moscow synagogue earlier this year.
Russia and Israel are celebrating 15 years of renewed diplomatic relations. Israel views Russia as a potentially valuable mediator in relations with the Arab world and Iran. One in six Israelis comes from the former Soviet Union.
Relations between the two countries were cut when the Soviet Union threw its support behind Arab states, after the 1967 Six Day War. They were only restored under Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.
Popularity: 1% [?]
October 27, 2006Israel’s prime minister on Sunday downplayed the Russian foreign minister’s comments that it was “unrealistic†to demand that Hamas immediately recognize Israel and disarm, the Associated Press news agency reports.
The demands have been made by Israel and the so-called Quartet of international Mideast negotiators, to which Russia belongs.
On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Hamas, which leads the Palestinian government and is sworn to Israel’s destruction, should be given more time to accept these demands.
“In the end, the policy will be set by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,†an Israeli government official quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as telling the Cabinet at its weekly session.
In the meantime, Olmert said, “there is no change in the principles laid down by the Quartet and Russia,†according to the official who took part in the meeting.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss policy with the media.
Meanwhile, one Palestinian was killed and 15 were wounded Sunday in a battle with Israeli forces in the West Bank town of Tamoun, witnesses and Palestinian security officials said. Israeli troops were there to arrest an Islamic Jihad militant.
Also Sunday, a Palestinian security officer allied with moderate President Mahmoud Abbas’
Fatah faction was killed in internal Palestinian violence in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said.
Since Hamas took over the Palestinian government last spring, Western powers and Israel have imposed crushing international sanctions in an effort to pressure Hamas to accept the Quartet’s demands. So far, the Islamic militant group has remain unbowed, even though the sanctions have rendered it unable to pay 165,000 civil servants who provide for one-third of Palestinians.
Olmert said Russian officials did not urge Israel to soften its stance regarding Hamas during his three-day visit to Moscow last week.
At the same time, he acknowledged that while Russia has become more evenhanded in its approach to Israel, Moscow could not be expected to totally reverse its historical support for the Palestinians.
In an interview published Friday in the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA, Lavrov said Hamas could “move gradually toward accepting†the international conditions.
“Demanding now that Hamas fully accept the Quartet’s conditions, such as the recognition of Israel, the denunciation of violence against Israel and the acceptance of all existing agreements is unrealistic at the present stage,†Lavrov said.
After Hamas won parliamentary elections in January, Moscow invited the militant group’s leaders to visit over Israeli objections.
Lavrov told Olmert in Moscow that keeping up contacts with Hamas could help to moderate them. Olmert told the Russians he disagreed.
Popularity: 3% [?]
October 24, 2006
Russian Spy - covering the latest news on politics, business, culture and sports in Russia and the World. Also providing news coverage for all former Soviet Union Countries.