--NEARLY A HALF MILLION ARE UNEMPLOYED Kavkazky Uzel on July 26 quoted a source in Chechnya's Ministry of Labor and Social Development as saying that the overwhelming majority of Chechnya's workforce does not have regular work and that the number of unemployed continues to grow.... MORE

--MORE VIOLENCE IN DAGESTAN Dagestan's Interior Ministry reported on July 28 that three militants were killed and two police officers wounded during a raid on an apartment in Makhachkala, Itar-Tass reported. The news agency reported that grenade explosions and sub-machinegun fire could be heard at... MORE

--A STREET NAMED KADYROV Main streets in Chechnya's towns and villages will be renamed after the late Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov to celebrate his birthday on August 23, Russian news agencies reported on August 8. Interfax quoted Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Belkhis Baydaeva as saying... MORE

--NAZRAN POLICE CHIEF WOUNDED Nazran police chief Dzhabrail Kastoev and his driver were seriously wounded in a bombing on August 15. According to the Regnum news agency, an explosive device had been planted near the central city mosque in Nazran and was detonated as Kastoev's... MORE

--PUTIN DEFENDS HIS CHECHNYA POLICY President Putin rejected criticism over Chechnya during a meeting in the Kremlin with foreign political scientists and analysts on September 5. "We are coming under fire for our policy in Chechnya," RIA Novosti quoted him as saying. "Of course, we... MORE

--RUSSIA WANTS U.N. SANCTIONS AGAINST EXILED CHECHEN REBELS Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin told Interfax on September 9 that Russia views the UN Security Council's anti-terrorist list as incomplete and wants Chechen extremists who have committed crimes against Russian citizens to be added. "Unfortunately,... MORE

--TREPASHKIN BACK IN JAIL Mikhail Trepashkin, the former Federal Security Service officer who investigated the alleged role of the FSB in the 1999 apartment building bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities and was jailed in October 2003 on charges of revealing state secrets, was... MORE

--ETHNIC BRAWL IN NALCHIKIHI Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel announced on September 24 that a criminal case had been launched in connection with clashes that took place in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, on September 22–23. According to Russian news reports, the violence began as... MORE

--REBELS AND COPS EXCHANGE FIRE IN DAGESTAN Dagestan's Interior Ministry announced on October 5 that it had captured two suspects believed responsible for the killing of a police lieutenant and the wounding of a police captain at a police post in the republic's Buinaksky district... MORE

--GEORGIA DENIES PANKISI CHARGES Georgia's Interior Ministry on October 12 rejected Russian claims that Chechen fighters are located in the Pankisi Gorge. Ministry spokesman Guram Donadze told RIA Novosti that the area is currently guarded as never before. "If [rebel] fighters get to Chechnya through... MORE