Closed Case Irks Ministry
The Foreign Ministry has accused Estonia of breaking a promise to bring to justice the killer of a Russian national during 2007 riots.
It said Estonia's Foreign Ministry recently told the Russian Embassy in Tallinn that prosecutors have closed the case because of a lack of evidence in the stabbing of Dmitry Ganin during protests over the removal of a Soviet-era monument in Tallinn in April 2007.
"The Estonian prosecutor's office has broken the few promises made at various government levels by putting the brakes on the investigation into the murder of a Russian citizen," the ministry said in statement carried by RIA-Novosti. (MT)
Tomsk Team Deep in Debt
Russian Premier League football club Tom Tomsk could go out of business because of its huge debts, the Siberian club said Tuesday.
"I would call our situation critical," Tom general director Yury Stepanov said on the club's web site. "We owe almost 200 million rubles [$6.42 million]. We still owe bonus money to a group of players from last year and also salaries from March to June."
Stepanov said major regional companies like oil producer Tomskneft that backed the club in the past have put their money elsewhere.
"Some of them could have helped us, but instead they chose to pump their money into Zenit St. Petersburg or the Sochi Olympics," he said.
Media reports said Tom, 13th in the 16-team premier league heading into the midseason break, needed to find about 400 million rubles to keep afloat. (Reuters)
6 Dead in Kyrgyz Gun Fight
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- Security troops battled suspected Islamic militants in western Kyrgyzstan, killing at least five of the gunmen, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday.
The violence was some of the worst to hit the Kyrgyz districts lying within the Ferghana Valley, a poor region sprawling across the three Central Asian countries that has seen regular ethnic and religious strife.
Troops surrounded a house outside the city of Jalal-Abad on Monday, trying to arrest a groups of fighters believed to belong to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the ministry said. The forces met stiff resistance from the fighters who were armed with machine guns and explosives, it said.
At least five militants were killed in the shootout, along with at least one security forces officer. Another officer was wounded in the clash, the ministry said. (AP)
500 Georgian Peacekeepers
TBILISI, Georgia --? Georgia plans to send 500 peacekeeping troops to Afghanistan in 2010 in addition to the 100 it is dispatching this year to serve alongside NATO-led forces, a senior Defense Ministry official said Tuesday.
The ministry official said "around 100 soldiers" would leave this year for Afghanistan alongside a French contingent, in a deployment announced earlier in the year.
"For the next year, we plan to send 500 Georgian peacekeepers to Afghanistan who will serve there together with Americans," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. (Reuters)
Accidental Air Gun Fatality
A St. Petersburg man died after a friend accidentally shot him with an air gun in a cemetery, RIA-Novosti reported.
The 38-year-old man died in a hospital without regaining consciousness after being shot in the head Saturday.
He and two friends, aged 34 and 36, were playing in the cemetery with the gun when one of them, thinking that the gun was empty, jokingly held it to his head and pulled the trigger, the report said.
Police have detained the shooter and are considering whether to file charges. (MT)
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