The Russian Embassy to Georgia demanded that Georgian authorities immediately launch an investigation in the armed attack on charge de'affaires of the embassy Viktor Rynza, press secretary of the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi Denis Gonchar reported via phone.

According to FSB director Nikolay Patrushev, two women were in the carriage and jumped out of it before the explosion. One woman led the action and observed. She has hardly survived, Mr. Patrushev noted.

On December 3, President of Ingushetia Murat Zyazikov received in his Magas residence Islamic Relief's Country Director for the Russian Federation Mohammed Allaa Ammar.

Tamaz Maghlakelidze, Supervisory Board Chairman of the United Georgian Bank, was kidnapped early in the morning yesterday, December 5.

A press conference of Oleg Orlov, Council Chairman of the Human Rights Center "Memorial", was held at the Independent Press Center on December 3. Its subject was "Chechnya After the Election: Abductions, Illegal Prisons, and Torture".

The total number of victims has reached 155 people, a spokesman for the South Regional Center of the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations (MEC) told Interfax-South.

According to the data by the Independent Military Review, altogether the group of forces in Chechnya and around it (in the North Caucasian Military District) comes to no less than 300 thousand soldiers.

According to the preliminary data, 4 people were killed and 50 were injured.

The contest for libraries in memory of Doctor Gaaz has been summed up in Moscow. It was held by the Tolerance Institute of the All-Russian State Library of Foreign Literature, the Russian Ministry of Culture and the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation).

The parties stressed it was necessary that negotiations between Tbilisi and Sukhumi on the conflict settlement should continue, Heidi Tagliavini told journalists after the meeting.

The round table "How Not To Be Afraid of the Militia" took place in Krasnodar on December 2, 2003. It was organized by the Fund "School of Peace", the Novorossiysk Committee on Human Rights, and the Krasnodar Club of Civil Education of the Krasnodar Regional Public Organization "Creative Union "Southern Wave".

Russian authorities have closed down Ingushetia's Aki Yurt camp, evicting some 1,500 displaced Chechens despite appeals by the UN refugee agency, which is now trying to follow up on their location and condition.

If last year there were about 150 Chechens in Czechia, now there are about 3,000 of them there. Only one positive aspect can be discerned in this cheerless picture: the large Chechen Diaspora in Europe is aimed to become a serious political force so that to influence on the situation in the homeland and to convince Western politicians and public opinion of the necessity to demand that Russia should end the bloody war.

At the 11th Ministerial Council meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Foreign Minister of Armenia Vardan Oskanian touched upon the OSCE's economic policy and organization's strategy to solve threats to security and stability in the 21st century, as well as upon documents on trafficking, the Armenian Foreign Ministry's press service informs.

The invitation by the Human Rights Center "Memorial" in Nazran to take part in the "Peace to Our Home!" action.

The Russian, French and U.S. co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group, the mission of which is to promote the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, are arriving in Baku on Thursday, December 4, informed the Azerbaijan Interior Ministry's department of information.

According to the data by UNHCR, the 29 industrialized countries covered by the UNHCR report received 321,724 asylum applications during the first nine months of the current year.

On December 3, in the morning, a window was broken in the office of the Center-point firm in the center of Tbilisi. This firm is owned by the wife of Vakhtang Rcheulishvili, Vice Speaker of the Parliament and leader of the opposition Socialist Party.

On the last day of the annual OSCE Ministerial Council in Maastricht, December 2, Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian asked for the floor for the second time after the speech of his Azerbaijan colleague Vilayat Guliyev and accused the Azerbaijan Foreign Minister of telling lies.

"While meeting with official persons, I was not given the impression that they were ready to take concrete steps to solve the problems connected with the press," announced Mr. Menard.