Russia holds air combat manoeuvres in North Caucasus MOSCOW | Monday,Jul,18,2011 IST Russia began large-scale air force training manoeuvres in the North Caucasus today in a step towards boosting security against an Islamic insurgency raging in the region, a newspaper reported. The exercise is the largest of its kind in the predominantly Muslim region of Kabardino-Balkaria in 15 years and will involve fighter jets and combat helicopters, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily quoted air force spokesman Vladimir Drik as saying. The manoeuvres are aimed at strengthening military capabilities in a region where Moscow has promised to beef up security to protect the 2014 Winter Olympics from threatened Islamist rebel attacks. The war games will continue until August 10, said Drik. ''Tactics and methods of deploying air forces for combat in the mountains, including army aviation... will be worked out here,'' a military source who declined to be named was quoted by the paper ...
Georgian media demonstrate outside the Ministry of the Interior (Source: Reuters)
Georgian media-freedom watchdogs, criticizing the espionage investigation against three local photographers ("Three Photographers Charged With Espionage In Georgia,” EDM, July 14), have crossed the line beyond their own mandate. This group now seeks publication of the classified evidence and an "independent review” of the case with their own participation, all this ahead of the court trial.
A delegation of watchdogs and opposition journalists presented these demands to Internal Affairs Minister, Vano Merabishvili, on July 13 in a three-hour long meeting. The delegation left dissatisfied over issues unrelated to journalism or media freedom. They wanted the court to authorize the defense lawyers to share the classified information "with the people.” They felt that the evidence presented to them in the espionage case did not substantiate the charges. They sought ...
Georgia’s official presidential photographer, another photographer who is an Internal Affairs Ministry contract employee, and the Tbilisi representative of the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), are in pre-trial detention since July 7 on charges of espionage. On July 9 the Internal Affairs Ministry briefed the media on some of the findings in the case, pending the trial (Civil Georgia, July 9, 10; EurasiaNet, July 13).
According to that ministry’s senior counterintelligence official, Giorgi Bukhrashvili, EPA’s Tbilisi representative Zurab Kurtsikidze was in contact with Russia’s Military Intelligence Service (GRU). Tbilisi counterintelligence identified those contacts in Russia as Anatoly Sinitsyn and Sergei Okorokov, GRU officers tracked by Georgian authorities during earlier operations in the country. According to the investigation, Kurtsikidze supplied his Russian contacts with classified photographic and other materials purchased by him for money from the official presidential ...
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