JUNE 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia-France missile deal Georgia signed a deal with France to buy an air defence missile system, framed as a much needed modernisation. The deal has been in the making for several months. Finalising the details had been delayed because of a change of Georgian defence minister last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alexander Rondeli, one of the most high-profile and influential Georgian political commentators, died aged 73. Rondeli was known for his charm and hospitality and was widely quoted by foreign journalists and diplomats.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia restored a rule which gave citizens of more than 100 countries the right to reside in the country for a year. Last year parliament scrapped the one year visa-free stay and imposed a 90 day limit. This was deemed a mistake.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Prices manufacturers in Georgia are paying to produce their goods are rising at the fastest rate since 2011, the national statistics agency said, sparking concern that underlying inflation may also be accelerating.
Georgia’s Central Bank has said it wants to fight off the effects of regional economic turmoil and the falling value of its lari currency and keep inflation under control.
But Geostat, the Georgian statistics agency, said its Producer Price Index (PPI) rose by 0.8% in May from April, registering an increase of 9% from May 2014.
“Manufacturing prices increased 11.1% contributing 9.05 percentage points to the overall index growth,” Geostat said of the PPI growth rate figures.
“The prices mainly increased for manufacture of food products, beverages and tobacco products (16.9%), manufacture of paper and publishing (30.4%) and manufacture of basic metals and fabricated metal products (4.0%).”
The 9% year-on-year increase in May was the highest inflation in prices paid by producers since 2011 when the economies were recovering from the 2008/9 global financial crisis and price inflation was a major concern. Now inflation, triggered by a falling lari, is once again a headache that the Central Bank has to confront.
The lari has lost around 20% of its value this year. The Georgian Central Bank has been putting up interest rates to try to strengthen its currency and dampen inflationary pressures.
Geostat’s Consumer Price Index measured a jump in inflation of 0.6% in May, measuring a rise to 3.5% of year-on-year inflation, its highest since September 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Georgia detained four people on suspicion of working for the radical group IS and trying to recruit people to head out to Syria, media reported. The Georgian government has said it is worried about people living in its Pankisi Gorge, which has a reputation for lawlessness, heading out to join IS.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia, started work as governor of the Ukrainian region of Odessa.
Media recorded an indifferent reaction to Mr Saakashvil and his new chief of police, Giorgi Lortkipanidze, an ex-Georgian vice interior minister.
But, ever the populist, Mr Saakashvili seized his moment.
“Some people think that they are above the law,” Mr Saakashvili was shown in a video broadcast by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as telling people on a city tram which had been blocked by black Mercedes.
“That’s why I have appointed a new chief of Odessa police who will restore order so that these things won’t happen here,” Mr Saakashvili said.
Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko appointed Mr Saakashvili as governor in Odessa last month, surprising observers.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
TBILISI/GEORGIA, JUNE 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — To David Gabunia, a well-known Georgian musician, it just doesn’t make sense.
“When you cut down gorgeous big old trees, they let you get away with it,” he said referring to a tree cutting programme by Tbilisi city council. “But when you take a small weed and smoke it, they’ll put you in jail for many years.”
And he’s not alone in pondering this apparent quandary.
Several thousand people across Georgia joined demonstrations and signed online petitions on June 2 calling for the government to reduce harsh laws governing marijuana use.
The largest protest was in Tbilisi, where several hundred people attended a protest in the centre of the city.
Georgia has a zero tolerance drug policy. Drug use is an administrative offence with fines up to 500 lari ($225) for first time offenders and a criminal offence with one year imprisonment for repeat offenders. Carrying small quantities of illegal substances, such as marijuana, can mean prison sentences of between 11 and 20 years, comparable to rape, human trafficking and murder.
Marijuana grows naturally in Georgia, and the Abkhazia version, from the west of the country, is particularly highly thought of. But in the dark days of 1990s post-independent Georgia, society’s view of drugs and their users changed and a zero tolerance policy was introduced.
Since 2013, though, rallies have been organised asking the government to rethink its policies on marijuana. But not everyone is convinced. The powerful Georgian Orthodox Church is staunchly against marijuana and PM Irakli Garibashili also said a couple of days after the rallies that decriminalisation would have disastrous consequences.
“This is an issue of principle, and we are obliged to realise its deplorable consequences. I am personally completely, categorically against it,” he said on his Facebook page.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – APM Terminals plans to increase the size and depth of its port at Poti, on Georgia’s Black Sea coast, media quoted its deputy managing director Joseph Crowley as saying at a conference. Mr Crowley said APM wanted to add two more deep-water berths to the port, boosting its capacity.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ramaz Davitaia, a corporal in the Georgian army, died at a military hospital in Georgia three years after being badly injured in Afghanistan. Davitaia is the 30th Georgian solider to die supporting the NATO operation in Afghanistan. Georgia wants to join NATO and has been an enthusiastic supporter of US- led operations.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Saudi Arabian Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud visited Tbilisi and met separately with both PM Irakli Garibashvili and President Giorgi Margvelshvili. Prince Al-Waleed is a billionaire investor. Georgia has said it wants to boost foreign direct investment.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)