RFE/RL Caucasus Report
30.08.2013
A review of RFE/RL reporting and analysis about the countries of the South Caucasus and Russia's North Caucasus region.
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Does Chechnya Stand To Lose Out From Russian-Azerbaijani Oil Agreement?
The two agreements signed during President Vladimir Putin's one-day visit to Baku on August 13 between the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft and Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR mark the opening of a new chapter in economic cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan. More Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has withdrawn the Heart of Chechnya Mosque from the running in a nationwide Russian poll to select the country's favorite landmark after he alleged "blatant fraud." More The lawyer representing Vartan Sedrakian, who is accused of hiring two men to assassinate Soviet-era dissident Paruyr Hairikian on the eve of the February 2013 presidential ballot in which both were candidates, continues to argue that Sedrakian had no motive to kill Hairikian. More Azerbaijan's united opposition has nominated an alternative single candidate for the October presidential election. More Five years after their formal recognition by Russia as independent states, Georgia's breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are on very different trajectories in terms of relations with their northern neighbor. But both are plagued by growing domestic political instability. More The ongoing protests that followed the removal of a mosque's minaret in the village of Chela in Georgia’s southern Samtskhe-Javakheti region on August 26 have served to focus attention on the uneasy coexistence within Georgia of an Orthodox Church dating back to the 4th century and a heterogeneous Muslim community. More Azerbaijan's Central Election Commission has registered Camil Hasanli as the united opposition's alternative presidential candidate. More The leaders of several North Caucasus republics have rejected as misplaced criticism by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Finance Minister Anton Siluanov of how they spend the considerable sums of money allocated from the federal budget to balance their budgets. More The U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan has criticized what it calls "disgusting personal attacks" against Khadija Ismayilova, an RFE/RL investigative journalist and talk show host in Baku. More |