Today, at 10:43 Moscow time, an explosion occurred near the National Hotel in Moscow. The terrorist act left several people dead and injured.

In Sukhum, Mr. Schramm was received by Vice-President Valery Arshba, Speaker of the Parliament Nugzar Ashuba, Prime Minister Raul Khajimba, and Foreign Minister Sergey Shamba.

Larisa Yakushko, a citizen of Kislovodsk, died on Sunday, December 7, in the Essentuki City Hospital; another citizen of Kislovodsk, Aleksey Amelekhin, died in the same hospital on the night of December 7-8.

The office of the commissioner for human rights in Karachaevo-Cherkessia has the A category and is equal in its rank to the office of the vice prime minister of the republic.

The Board of the Human Rights Center "Memorial" is pleased to inform that the Martin Ennals Foundation has conferred the 2004 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders (MEA) on Lida Yusupova.

"We rely on the fact that the wide coalition of forces, interested in the freedom and independence of media, will continue its efforts on improvement of legislation and at the same time will concentrate its attention on the development and introduction of mechanisms of the self-regulation of information sphere," reads the statement.

The people are offered to resettle to the neighboring Satsita camp. With all this going on, even minimal conditions have not been created for them to live there. Only graveling has been started at the site marked out for new tents.

As the rebels who laid down arms can be supposedly hunted by those who are still in illegal armed units, they will spend some time on the territory of special elements.

In the monograph "Karabakh Drama: Secret Acts" (Yerevan, Center for Iranian Studies, 2003), Armenian historian Ayk Demoyan succeeded in gathering and analyzing rich factual material about the military aid provided to Azerbaijan by Turkey during the Karabakh war and about the presence of recruited Chechen and Afghan mercenaries in the Azerbaijan army at that time.

"Roughly 200 voters, about 10 percent, came to our booth, so I really don't know where the [official turnout of] 70 percent came from," said Ruslan Khadashev, who worked at Precinct 369 on behalf of Salambek Maigov, one of the candidates.

26.7% of the ballots in Chechnya's single-mandate constituency were counted by 8:00 Moscow time, December 8, reported Chairman of the Chechen Election Commission Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov.

On December 4, Freimut Duve addressed a special letter to Azerbaijan Foreign Minister Vilayat Guliyev in which he expressed concern about the case of editor-in-chief of the Yeni Musavat newspaper Rauf Arifoglu.

There are several events planned in the Czech Republic for the period between December 8 and 13 that will be devoted to the Caucasus: its culture, history, tradition, as well as a current situation in the Caucasian republics. These events are also aimed at helping Chechen refugees.

The republican population is extremely alarmed with what is happening and express indignation about the continuing high-handedness from the direction of security agents.

Yesterday, December 5, 42 people were killed and more than 100 passengers were wounded as a result of the explosion of a railway car in the vicinity of the Essentuki station.

"The Azerbaijan party has information there is drug trafficking through Nagorny Karabakh. It is possible that drug plantations as well as camps to provide training to international terrorists are situated there," noted Mr. Aliyev.

Mothers whose sons were abducted or disappeared without a trace during the second Chechen war have blocked the building of the Government and let nobody in or out.

The administration of the Kabardino-Balkarian State University gathered all the university staff in the rector's office, gave them a task to vote for the United Russia party, and threatened to dismiss those who would not follow the instruction.

The Grozny Office of the Human Rights Center "Memorial" is one of the few human rights organizations still operating in Chechnya and providing the world with crucial information on violations of human rights in this Russian republic.

35 people died at the site of the terrorist act, the other 7 died in a hospital.