FEB. 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Financial police in Georgia opened a tax investigation into Geocell, its largest mobile phone provider. The authorities said they were searching for alleged large-scale tax evasion. Geocell, which is part of Swedish telecoms group TeliaSonera, denied the allegations.
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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili made his first trip to Baku since taking over the presidency in November. At a press briefing after meeting with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, Mr Margvelashvili said Georgia and Azerbaijan were part of a bridge linking Asia and Europe.
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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Tbilisi convicted Ivane Merabishvili, a former Georgian PM, of corruption and sentenced him to five years in jail. Merabishvili is the most senior member of Georgia’s former government to be convicted during a series of trials which they have been described as “politically motivated”.
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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he is ready to meet Georgia’s leaders, Georgian media reported. This is a major step forward in Russia-Georgia relations which have been so strained over the last few years. Mr Putin and former Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, hated each other.
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(News report from Issue No. 171, published on Feb. 12 2014)
FEB. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s new power duopoly is in its infancy but unrest in the Georgian prison system has given it an early test.
Media has reported that around 1,000 prisoners in the west of the country have been on hunger strike since Feb. 7 complaining about conditions which they have described as abusive.
The government dismissed their hunger strike as being organised by criminal bosses but on Feb. 10 17 inmates apparently intensified their protest by cutting themselves.
The rather ominously named Georgian Ministry of Correction said that the prisoners had stabbed themselves multiple times in the chest and arms.
“The injured inmates received medical treatment and were brought back to the prison in a normal condition. No force was used against them by the prison administration which is fully in control of the situation,” media quoted a ministry statement as saying.
The previous administration, under former president Mikheil Saakashvili, was accused of torturing prison inmates. Now Georgia’s new PM, Irakli Garibashvili, and president, Giorgi Margvelashvili, who both took office in November, have to show that they can handle the politically sensitive issue of prison unrest more deftly.
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(News report from Issue No. 171, published on Feb. 12 2014)
FEB. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bidzina Ivanishvili, the richest man in Georgia, has already changed the face of Georgian politics. He achieved what at one time seemed the impossible and defeated former President Mikheil Saakashvili and his party in two consecutive elections.
Now, having forced Mr Saakhashvili — the poster-boy of Georgia’s post-Soviet Western-centric policies — into an early retirement, it seems that Mr Ivanishvili still feels he has work to do in Georgia’s civil society. Last month, Mr Ivanishvili announced that he would set up an NGO called Citizen. Now he’s given a mission statement, of sorts anyway, for Citizen.
He said it will remain small with only half a dozen or so staff, and focus on the media and assessing its bias. This has become a particular problem over the past few years with accusations of one-sidedness being thrown around.
“Through objective and quality information we will improve the level of public debate. We will then be able to act as a check on our government,” media quoted Mr Ivanishvili as saying. One of his gripes against Mr Saakashvili was there had been virtually no checks on his power.
The key issue, though, for people watching Georgia is just what influence will Mr Ivanishvili will bring to bear on both media and politics.
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(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
JAN. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s PM Irakli Garibashvili, flew to Israel for a two day visit. During a meeting with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr Garibashvili signed a bilateral trade deal aimed at expanding ties between the two sides. This was the second high profile Georgian visit to Israel since June 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)
JAN. 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian officials accused Russia of pinching territory by shifting its border 11km inside the disputed region of Abkhazia. Russia recognises the independence of Abkhazia which it supported in a brief war in 2008. Georgia says Abkhazia is still part of its sovereign territory.
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(News report from Issue No. 168, published on Jan. 22 2014)
JAN. 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Highlighting improved relations between Georgia and Russia, Airzena Georgian Airways will resume flights to Sochi in time for the start of the Winter Olympic Games next month. Georgian Airways plans to fly twice a week from Tbilisi to the resort town on the Black Sea coast.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
DEC. 22 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Georgia suspended the mayor of Tbilisi, Gigi Ugulava, while various investigations into alleged fraud were ongoing media reported. Mr Ugulava’s suspension damages the image of Tbilisi as a place for foreign companies to invest. He has denied any wrongdoing and said the charges were politically motivated.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)