PW Newsletter

THE PRAGUE WATCHDOG WEEKLY NEWSLETTER, No. 33 (August 16, 2005)

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1) THE WEEK IN BRIEF (August 8 - 14)

August 8 - Sergei Abramov, Premier of the Moscow-backed Chechen government, said that main streets in fifteen Chechen towns and villages would be renamed after Akhmad Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed President of the Chechen Republic assassinated in May 2004.
August 9 - Ingushetia's President Murat Zyazikov said that gambling houses should and would be closed in the republic.
August 10 - The Russian Defence Ministry announced that a total of 3,459 servicmen had been killed since the beginning of the second war in Chechnya in September 1999, and 67 of them were killed this year, but an independent monitor, the Union of Committees of Mothers of Russian Soldiers, said the count is several times lower than the real figure. The count does not include killed servicemen and members of the Russian Interior Ministry and other agencies.
August 11 - Abdul-Khalim Sadullayev, successor to the slain President of independent Chechnya and resistance leader Aslan Maskhadov, issued decrees sacking the separatist government and cancelling the posts of foreign envoys, according to reports by websites close to the resistance.
August 12 - Natasha Khumadova, sister of top Chechen guerrilla commander and Vice-President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Doku Umarov, was kidnapped from her house in Urus-Martan. Human rights defenders suspect the incident to be another case of retaliatory hostage-taking by government forces aimed at making the abductee's relative to surrender.
August 14 - Five Russian soldiers, including the commandant of the Urus-Martanovsky district, were killed in a clash with the guerrillas in the village of Roshni-Chu.
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2) UPCOMING EVENTS

August 20-23 - Chechnya: The Moscow-backed Chechen leadership will organize celebrations marking the 54th birthday of Akhmad-Khadzhi Kadyrov, the late leader of the republic, whom the Kremlin made President in October 2003 and who was assassinated in May 2004.

August 25 - Chechnya: Deadline for the closure of all gambling houses in Chechnya as set by Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed Vice-Premier of the Chechen Republic.

For more upcoming Chechnya-related events go to http://www.watchdog.cz/calendar.

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3) REGIONAL REPORTING

Dear readers, we apologize for the absence of new reports in August. Things should be back at normal after summer holidays are over. PW editors.
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4) ATTACKS ON HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
Monitoring attacks on the rights defenders whose work is connected with the Chechen conflict.

Link: http://www.watchdog.cz/attacks

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4) LATEST ADDITION TO OUR LINKS LIBRARY:

Russian-Chechen Information Agency (http://www.ria.hrnnov.ru)
A new on-line project of the Nizhny Novgorod based Society of the Russian-Chechen Friendship. In Russian.


For more Chechnya-related links go to our Links library ( http://www.watchdog.cz/links ), which is being continuously updated.

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Prague Watchdog Weekly Newsletter is a publication of Prague Watchdog. If you wish to subscribe (unsubscribe) to it, please send us an e-mail to mail@watchdog.cz. The newsletter is usually sent out on Monday evenings.