The Associated Press reported on December 6 that police in Dagestan stormed a two-story 10-room hotel near the republic’s capital Makhachkala where armed militants were blockaded and that two rebels and a policeman died during the operation. The news agency quoted Dagestan’s Interior Ministry as... MORE

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Muzdalifah, near Mecca, in Saudi Arabia on December 9. Ziyad Sabsabi, the Russian Federation Council member representing Chechnya, also took part in the meeting and told Interfax that Kadyrov and Abbas “unanimously noted... MORE

Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov this week appointed Musa Pliyev, the lawyer for the family of the slain opposition website founder, Magomed Yevloyev, as an adviser on law-enforcement issues. Pliyev told the Moscow Times that Yevkurov signed the decree appointing him to the position on December... MORE

In the wake of the OSCE’s year-end meeting, Russia is continuing to block the return of OSCE monitors to a South Ossetia ethnically cleansed of its Georgian population and occupied by massive Russian forces in breach of the armistice. The Russians have prevented the mission’s... MORE

Armenia’s decade-long economic recovery seems to be slowing down due to the increasingly visible effects of the global financial and economic crisis. The authorities in Yerevan are scrambling to minimize them by boosting government involvement in business activity and seeking hundreds of millions of dollars... MORE

The NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels on December 3 announced that Albania and Croatia were now completing their Membership Action Plans (MAPs) and would be welcomed at the NATO Summit in April 2009 as new members of the alliance. The ministerial communiqué takes note of... MORE

NATO’s ministerial meeting on December 3 decided to offer Annual National Plans (ANPs), instead of Membership Action Plans (MAPs), to Georgia and Ukraine. The old NATO-Ukraine Commission and the new NATO-Georgia Commission are to draw up and administer the ANPs (see EDM, December 5). A... MORE

According to the two reports, which appeared on the website of the Georgian non-governmental organization Human Rights Center (HRIDC) on October 27 and November 4, dozens of ethnic Lezgin refugees arrived in the Kakheti region of eastern Georgia in the past month and a half.... MORE

Russia’s state run Vesti-24 television channel reported on December 2 that police in North Ossetia had detained five people in connection with the November 26 assassination of Vladikavkaz Mayor Vitaly Karayev. According to Bloomberg News, Vesti-24 reported that police in North Ossetia had carried out... MORE