Makhachkala police chief dies of wounds after ambush shooting.

MAKHACHKALA, February 6 (Itar-Tass) -- The chief of the Makhachkala
police force, whose vehicle was ambushed and rained with bullets late
Friday evening, died of wounds on the way to hospital.

"Colonel Akhmed Magomedov's Volga sedan and his bodyguards in a
Lada-Priora car came under fire in Akushinsky Avenue at about 22:00 Moscow
time," a source said.
The shots were fired from several places. Two bodyguards and the
driver suffered multiple wounds and died instantly. The crime scene is
being studied by investigators. A man hunt is on.
Colonel Akhmed Magomedov, 43, was appointed chief of the Makhachkala
police force in November 2009. Before, he was chief of Dagestan's criminal
police.


.Georgian citizen with explosives, firearms detained in Kiev.


KIEV, February 6 (Itar-Tass) -- The Ukrainian Security Service SBU has
detained a man in Kiev's Independence Square who proved to be carrying two
TNT blocks, firearms and a Ukrainian passport, the SBU chief, Valentin
Nalivaichenko, told the Inter television channel Friday evening.
The SBU suspects that there was a risk the explosives might be used
during presidential election rallies. Nalivaichenko said the detainee
might have had crime connections. Also, the SBU has a number of questions
to ask about the Ukrainian passport the detainee was carrying. The
Interior Ministry and the Kiev Prosecutor's Office are probing into
whether the document had been issued legally. The SBU has opened a
criminal case.
"In the course of the special operation a suspect, born 1968, carrying
TNT and electric fuses was detained. He also carried firearms. We have
opened a criminal case and are probing into whether this person had an
intention of committing a crime or staging an explosion at a crowded place
during electioneering events that were taking place in Kiev's squares,"
the SBU chief said.
This is the first incident of the sort to have been formally made
public during the Ukrainian presidential election campaign.
The runoff is due Sunday, February 7.


.Amended election law to prevent chaos in Ukraine - CIS monitors.


KIEV, February 6 (Itar-Tass) -- That the Ukrainian president, Viktor
Yushchenko, has signed into law the latest parliamentary amendments to the
election legislation will enhance the effectiveness of the election
mechanism and rule out the risk of a "scandalous third round," a member of
the CIS affairs committee of Russia's Federation Council, Vadim Gustov,
told Itar-Tass in an interview on Friday. Gustov is present in Ukraine in
the capacity of a member of international observers from the CIS
Inter-Parliamentary Assembly.
"I have been able to see that the Ukrainian president has
realistically evaluated the pre-election situation in the country, for the
first time over years," he said.
"Although Viktor Yushchenko lost in the first round of the
presidential election, he acknowledged honestly that the mechanism of
elections in Ukraine must be set in motion in earnest in order to prevent
a 'third round,' which happened in 2004 after the 'orange revolution,'
Gustov said.
In his opinion, the adopted amendments to the election legislation
"are extremely timely and adequate to the political situation that has
taken shape in Ukraine."
Gustov is certain that "today everything must be done to ensure to let
the people exercise their will, in defiance of the threats of boycott,
because, according to sociologists' early estimates, about 70 percent of
those eligible to vote are determined to come to the polling stations on
February 7."
"It does Ukraine's incumbent president credit that he took a bold
decision that would not let plunge the country into political chaos, like
the one observed in the presidential election of 2004," Gustov said.
The CIS observer believes that after the presidential elections there
should be early parliamentary elections, that would enable Ukraine to find
a way out of the political and economic crisis.
"Without a parliamentary majority and without political stability a
newly-elected president will be unable to find a solution to the country's
economic problems," he believes.
Another international observer from the CIS Inter-Parliamentary
Assembly, Armenian parliament member Rafik Grigorian, told Itar-Tass that
the Ukrainian parliament has made this sort of decision to ensure the
constitutional election rights of the Ukrainian people. He remarked that
such a legal provision could have been adopted far earlier than the brief
period between the first and second round of the elections.
"But for these amendments, the losing party would have a chance to
disrupt the polls," Grigorian said.
The Ukrainian parliament met in early session on February 3 at the
initiative of the Party of Regions to vote for amendments enabling local
election commissions to go ahead with their routine proceedings without
the previously mandatory quorum of two-thirds of their membership. On
February 4 the incumbent president, Viktor Yushchenko signed the
amendments into law. The Party of Regions came out with that idea out of
the suspicion the representatives of the rival party might disrupt the
activity of election commissions merely by refusing to attend their
sessions. After that the results of the voting would be declared void.

-0-str


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