At a press conference in Karachaevo-Cherkessia on October 1, Moscow’s envoy to the North Caucasus, Aleksandr Khloponin, admitted that the North Caucasus still has excessive unemployment. Khloponin stated that the situation is especially “lamentable” in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia. At the same time, Moscow’s envoy... MORE

A number of insurgency-related incidents were reported in Dagestan and Ingushetia this past week. Dagestan’s Interior Ministry reported today (September 30) that an arms cache was discovered on the outskirts of the village of Toturbiikala in the republic’s Khasavyurt district yesterday (September 29), and that... MORE

Russia keeps bewildering the public with extravagant economic plans for the North Caucasus that are supposed to pacify the region. According to Russian officials, it is unemployment that is causing the problems there (www.russiatoday.ru, 24, December 2010). To provide employment for the local population, ski... MORE

To reduce its dependence on expensive Russian natural gas, Ukraine proposes to import Azerbaijani liquefied natural gas (LNG) via Georgia and across the Black Sea to Ukraine. Recent gas discoveries in Azerbaijan, and the reactivation of the Turkmenistan-Azerbaijan gas pipeline project, encourage a growing number... MORE

On September 24, besides the sensational-albeit-expected news that Vladimir Putin will return to the Russian presidency in 2012, the United Russia party’s conference unveiled its list of candidates for the next parliamentary elections. Out of 601 people on the list, 44 candidates to the Russian... MORE

Baku expects three gas transportation consortiums to submit competing bids by October for the gas production of Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz field, Phase Two. The rival projects are Nabucco (Turkey-Bulgaria-Romania-Hungary-Austria, potentially reaching Germany), ITGI (Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy), and TAP (Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, linking Turkey via Greece and Albania... MORE

On September 23, a delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) visited Ingushetia. The head of the PACE delegation, Nikolaos Dendias, called the refugees’ living conditions in the republic “unsatisfactory.” Dendias is a member of Pace’s committee on migration, refugees and... MORE

As the Newsru.com website wrote today (September 23), the situation in Dagestan, where insurgents have sharply increased the number of attacks, “is beginning to spin out of control and increasingly looks like a real guerrilla war.” In the suburbs of the capital Makhachkala today, the... MORE

The first reports of the killing of three Chechens after Friday prayers in Istanbul on September 16, indicated the incident may have been linked to the Caucasus Emirate (www.interfax.ru, September 16, 2011). Russian media tried to present the murders as being related to fighting with... MORE

The last several months have been full of good news for the national oil company of Azerbaijan. As the country prepares to celebrate the anniversary of the “Contract of the Century” (the main oil contract signed in 1994 between Azerbaijan and a consortium of western... MORE