By empty (9/2/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Russian presidential advisor on amnesty and pardon matters, Anatoly Pristavkin, has called on international human rights organizations to facilitate the release of the hostages who are being held in a school in the North Ossetian town of Beslan. \"I am calling on the international human rights organizations to protect the principal right of our children - the right to live,\" reads Pristavkin\'s appeal. \"I am sure that those who have attacked the unarmed first-graders with assault rifles and grenade launchers in North Ossetia will be damned both by God and their peoples,\" he said.

By empty (9/2/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Arkady Gukasian, leader of the unrecognized republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, has reconfirmed his adherence to the peace settlement with Azerbaijan. \"Mediating efforts by the OSCE Minsk Group cochairmen can bring positive results if the administration of Azerbaijan displays goodwill and a sincere wish to resolve the Karabakh problem on mutually acceptable terms,\" says a Thursday statement of Gukasian on the occasion of the 13th anniversary of the unrecognized republic. \"Nobody can take away from us the freedom and independence for which we paid such a big price,\" the statement runs.

By empty (9/1/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Russian border guards have temporarily stopped letting people across the Russian-Georgian border after people were taken hostage in a school in the North Ossetian town of Beslan, a source in the North Caucasus department of the Russian FSB\'s border service\'s press service told Interfax. \"The procession of documents of people who want to cross the Russian-Georgian border one way or the other has been halted until further notice,\" the source said, noting that this is related to the events in North Ossetia. (Interfax).