BRIEFS

–REBEL WEBSITE REAPPEARS IN LITHUANIA

Kavkaz Center, the Chechen separatist website, resumed operations in Lithuania on November 29. Interfax quoted a statement from the website’s administration as saying that operations resumed as soon as the Second District Court in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, ruled that all restrictions on the website on Lithuanian territory be lifted, after which Lithuania’s telecom unblocked the address. The statement said that Kavkaz Center’s main server is sill in Sweden and that the Lithuanian site, serviced by a Lithuanian Internet provider, “has a ‘mirror’ of the main server.” It also said that another mirror will soon being working in Finland, where the website was earlier shut down. According to Interfax, Lithuania’s State Security Department, which had shut down the website in Lithuania, refused to comment on its re-opening. Russia, however, expressed concern, Interfax reported on November 30. “Russia’s position on the content of this website and our attitude to it are well known to the Lithuanian authorities,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “We have sent an inquiry to the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry requesting an explanation on this issue.”

–CHECHEN ELECTION COMMISSION BEING SET UP

The candidate for chairman of Chechnya’s election commission, Ismail Baikhanov, said the commission is being set up and will be in charge of parliamentary elections, to be held in October 2005, Itar-Tass reported on November 29. Earlier, Chechen State Council Chairman Taus Dzhabrailov said it would be desirable to strengthen political parties as part of the republic’s “political infrastructure” before holding elections to a dual-chamber parliament, Vremya novostei reported on November 24.

–QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Modern warfare is big business and big money, after all, and controls over spending are frequently lax. Even in the first war, there were entire groups of people making money there. And they’re doing the same in this war. They include military officers, civilians, secret service personnel, bureaucrats, people from the defense sector, people from the political establishment – all of them with their own specific interests: financial interests, career interests, political interests. —Former Russia Supreme Soviet speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov from an interview published in Yezhenedelny zhurnal, No. 45, November 22, on the reasons for the start of the current war in Chechnya.