DEC. 13 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a glitzy ceremony in Tbilisi Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’ richest man, launched his new opposition movement. Analysts say Mr Ivanishvili and his movement, the Georgian Dream, could be a serious challenger to President Mikheil Saakashvili and his United National Movement party.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
DEC. 2 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili pardoned two Israeli businessmen imprisoned earlier this year for offering a deputy minster a multi-million dollar bribe in October 2010. Roni Fuchs and Zeev Frenkiel had been jailed for 7 and 6-1/2 years souring Georgia-Israel relations.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
NOV. 30 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rafiq Tagi, a 61-year-old widely respected Azerbaijani journalist, died of stab wounds in a Baku hospital on Nov. 23, four days after an unknown assailant attacked him.
He wrote articles critical of both the state and hard line Islam. Muslim extremists, though, are suspected of organising Tagi’s murder.
Whether or not the authorities or Muslim extremists are the main threat, for local journalists the former Soviet South Caucasus and Central Asia states are often both difficult and dangerous to report on.
In Turkmenistan police this year tracked down and imprisoned journalists who reported on an explosion at an arms depot. In Uzbekistan most local correspondents from international news agencies have been chased out and in Tajikistan the BBC’s reporter was jailed.
Southern Kyrgyzstan remains dangerous for ethnic Uzbek journalists and in Kazakhstan in October attackers armed with baseball bats and a gun beat a camera crew covering protests in the west of the country against the state oil company.
A 2010 press freedom index compiled by the US-based NGO Reporters Without Borders scored the countries of the South Caucasus and Central Asia poorly. Armenia, Georgia and Tajikistan ranked slightly better but Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were in the bottom quarter of the index.
The report card for 2011 may well be even worse.
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(News report from Issue No. 67, published on Dec. 1 2011)
NOV. 27 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In Georgia’s rebel region of South Ossetia, ex-education minister Alla Dzhioyeva defeated the Moscow-backed candidate in a presidential second round vote with an estimated 56% of the votes. Days later South Ossetia’s Supreme Court annulled the result and banned her from standing in an election re-scheduled for March.
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(News report from Issue No. 67, published on Dec. 1 2011)
NOV. 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia completed its first ever jury trial when a 12-person panel convicted a man for a triple murder in 1994. The introduction of juries is considered an important step for modernising Georgia’s justice system. Currently, juries can only be used in murder trials.
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(News report from Issue No. 66, published on Nov. 23 2011)
NOV. 21 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A bronze statue of ex-US President Ronald Reagan will be unveiled in Tbilisi on Nov. 23, local media reported. Reagan, who was president between 1981-1989, is credited with being one of the architects of the downfall of the Soviet Union. The statue depicts Reagan sitting on a park bench seemingly inviting passers-by to sit and chat.
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(News report from Issue No. 66, published on Nov. 23 2011)
NOV. 13 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A presidential election in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia will go to a second round after the Kremlin-backed candidate, emergencies minister Anatoly Bibilov and former education minister Alla Dzhioyeva tied with 25% of the vote each. No other candidate polled over 10%.
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(News report from Issue No. 65, published on Nov. 16 2011)
NOV. 9 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia needs more democratic reforms before it can join NATO, the organisation’s Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a meeting in Tbilisi. Under President Mikheil Saakashvili Georgia has pushed hard to join NATO. According to local media, Georgia has nearly 1,000 soldiers in Afghanistan fighting with NATO forces.
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(News report from Issue No. 65, published on Nov. 16 2011)
NOV. 8 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – So, finally after months of on-off talks in Switzerland, Georgian and Russian negotiators agreed a deal that should allow Russia to join the WTO by the end of the year. Russia started negotiations to join the WTO in 1993, so it’s been a long journey.
As a member of the 153-nation WTO, Georgia had the right to veto Russia’s membership and, sensing an opportunity to extract concessions, it has played its cards heavily.
After the deal, Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, was quick to highlight what he considered was a diplomatic victory.
“What we have achieved today is a very important acknowledgment of what Georgia’s customs borders are,” he said on national television.
But was it really such an outstanding victory?
In return for accepting Russia’s membership in the WTO, Georgia won a concession to allow a private company to position observers on the Russian border with South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The observers will monitor trade in and out of both Georgia’s rebel regions.
This is more than the Russians originally offered but under pressure from the Europeans and the Americans who both want Russia to join the WTO, Georgia also had to make compromises.
The finer details of the deal haven’t been released yet but when they are it will be clearer whether Mr Saakashvili’s grand standing it justified.
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(News report from Issue No. 64, published on Nov. 8 2011)
NOV. 7 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – On the fourth anniversary of clashes between Georgian security services and anti-government protesters, several hundred people demonstrated in Tbilisi against President Mikheil Saakashvili and his government. Local media said the Georgian Labour party organised the protest.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 64, published on Nov. 8 2011)