Nation

President changes parliamentary regulations
The law on addenda and changes to internal regulations of Milli Maclis (Azeri parliament) becomes effective on February 22. According to Saturday's official newspapers, the President has already approved the draft law.
The document was discussed during the fall session of parliament. In addition to several editing changes, some MPs opposed reducing parliamentary meetings from once a week to twice a month. This question also interested Andreas Gross, a co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan from the monitoring committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), who was paying a visit to Azerbaijan during the first ten days of February. The PACE co-rapporteur drew attention to the change at his meeting with the Azerbaijani Speaker, Murtuz Alasgarov, and expressed his dissatisfaction. In response, Murtuz Alasgarov said that no international organizations are entitled to interfere with the internal affairs of the legislative body of a sovereign state and the reduction in sessions was not abnormal.

Qabala radar station accelerates capacity
The opposition National Independence Party's Qabala District office made a statement saying that the Qabala radar station had shifted to a environmentally damaging work regime. The statement reads:
"The Qabala radar station has been operating on the accelerated regime for a long time. Since the station keeps watch over Middle East countries and the US-Iraqi conflict is being stepped up, this facility has increased its relevant functions. Though Azerbaijan's place in this conflict is unknown, the military station, which is Azerbaijani state property, is under Russia's control. Pundits say that the facility works within 10-15-per-cent capacity on ordinary days, while its special work regime means 70-80 per cent of its full capacity, which seriously increases radiation. Recently, more people in Qabala are complaining of headaches and there is an increase in cases of sudden death. Besides Qabala District, the radar station negatively affects adjacent regions. The then government leased it to Russia for a ten-year period. Officials who try to prove the impossibility of the station's shutdown should be advised that though they are incapable of doing so, they must spend $7-m leasing a year on ensuring the social security of the region's population. Qabala residents, who light their homes with oil lamps, feel  insulted as they are look at the glowing electric lamps of the radar station."

OSCE conference to discuss Unified Election Code
A draft new Unified Election Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan will be the main topic of a conference to be held at the initiative of the OSCE on February 26-27 at the Europe Hotel in Baku.
It will bring together some 120 participants representing governmental authorities, Parliament, political parties and non-governmental organizations, as well as representatives of the diplomatic corps and international organizations in Baku.
According to the OSCE Baku office, the event will be attended by experts from the International Foundation for Election Systems, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw and the Council of Europe Venice Commission, as well as Azerbaijani officials. Reportedly, most of the political parties and non-governmental organizations in Azerbaijan have also been invited to the conference.
The electoral code will be discussed at the spring session of Milli Maclis (Azerbaijani parliament) to start work on March 1, regardless of whether opposition parties will join the roundtable conferences or not.
By facilitating this conference, the OSCE Office in Baku, with support from IFES, intends to promote widespread public awareness and discussion of the proposed Election Code.
"This conference is particularly important in providing an opportunity for the public to become familiar with the election law provisions in the lead up to the October 2003, Presidential Elections," Ambassador Peter Burkhard, Head of the OSCE Office in Baku said.

Baku calls CE for supporting Europe-Caucasus-Asia project
A colloquium conducted in Strasbourg, Belgium, over February 17-18, as part of a project, Cross-cultural dialogue and addressing conflicts, under the Council of Europe auspices, has ended. Azerbaijani Minister of Culture Polad Bulbuloglu made a speech to the event joined by culture ministers from 55 nations. He spoke of the importance of preventing cultural assets from being destroyed; stressing the role culture could play in the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani, Abkhazian-Georgian, Cyprus, Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. Polad Bulbuloglu called on the Council of Europe to take part in the Europe-Caucasus-Asia cultural corridor project proposed by Azerbaijan.
During the conference, the Azerbaijani minister of culture met with his counterparts from Norway, Austria, the Ukraine and other countries to talk over questions of bilateral cooperation.
The Azerbaijani permanent delegate to the Council of Europe, Ambassador Mehdiyev also attended the event.

Protests at UN indifference to AIDS sufferers
HIV/AIDS victim's aid association Imdad-SOS is furious that among CIS countries only Azerbaijan and Belarus have received no aid from the UN Anti-AIDS Fund.
The association told AssA-Irada that Azerbaijan with nearly 500 HIV-positive citizens had no funds to cure them. One million refugees have been living in Azerbaijan for more than 10 years and there are a range of social and economical problems. Medicines for people suffering from AIDS are very expensive, costing $10-15,000. The association accuses the UN structures in Azerbaijan of being indifferent to this issue. The organization applied to Baku Mayor's office to sanction the protest action to be conducted outside the UN office in Baku on March 27.

Opposition to apply to Constitutional Court
The Coordinating Center of the Opposition passed a resolution to apply to the Constitutional Court on Friday. The purpose of the application is to ask the court to comment on whether constitutional and legislative requirements were met by the failure to publish results and protocols of constituencies and voting points during the presidential and parliamentary elections in 1998 and 2002, as well as Heydar Aliyev's simultaneous occupation of the positions of president and party chairman, and his bid to be elected as president for a third term of office. At the same time, the opposition center applied to the government to demand that it clarify legal actions against top officials in international courts.

Four more inhabitants of volatile Nardaran released
Four people arrested during clashes in the volatile Nardaran settlement of Baku were released.
On Friday, a Baku court tried four Nardaran residents arrested during clashes with police on February 5. The court ruled that the defendants be set free, considering the information on their place of residence and the fact that they have young children.
The four men, who had been convicted of participation in widespread clashes and violations of public order, will be under police control pending the end of court proceedings. The next court session is scheduled for February 28.
One of the district elders, Haciaga Nuriyev, judged the decision as just. He said that a new round of talks between Nardaran representatives and the authorities will be held next week.
Nardaran inhabitants forwarded a number of social demands and voiced their dissatisfaction with the appointment of a local executive power head without their consent.