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Monday, June 20
Baghaturia demands creating parliamentary commission

During the meeting with Civil Society, Media experts and Representatives of Media MP Jondi Bagathuria presented the initiative of the creation of the Parliamentary Investigative Commission to investigate claims of media harassment on 26 May, Akhali Taoba reports.

"Over the years the pressure on media has become common, there are the facts of physical attacks and verbal insults, there are attacks on TV companies, the closure of some of them, crashing of hardware, also on 7 November, 2007 the forceful invasion of the TV Company "Imedi”, the cases of pressure on the Chanel-25 of Adjara TV, on TV Company "Trialeti”, " Mediapalitra” and so on. So far, these facts have not been investigated, therefore we, the several independent MPs approached to the idea of creation of the investigative commission, for unbiased investigation of all those facts and not to allow impunity of the persons committed crime,” Baghaturia stated.

The co-authors of this initiative, the MPs Karlo Kopaliani and Petre Mamradze were participating in the meeting.

At the end of the meeting Baghaturia also introduced several new ideas to the public - that legislative change is necessary in order to avoid refusal by the cable companies to switch some of the TV channels into their package. In addition, he intends to collect the signatures of MPs for the purpose of creating this commission and expresses his hope that they will support the above-mentioned initiative.



Georgia has new Finance Minister

Dimitri Gvindadze has been appointed as new Finance Minister of Georgia. The former Deputy Finance Minister has replaced Kakha Baindurashvili in the position, 24 Hours reports.

Georgia’s Prime Minister Nika Gilauri introduced the new minister to the media at a briefing. Gilauri said Dimitri Gvindadze has been working in the Finance Ministry for over 6 years. He was in charge of foreign debt issues and was considered to have operated quite effectively.

"Several months ago, when we issued 10-year Eurobond, it was one of the most successful transactions in the world financial market and it is Dimitri Gvindadze’s accomplishment”, Nika Gilauri said, adding that Dimitri Gvindadze had difficult mission, to bring USD 4,5 billion to the country what was successfully accomplished.

Gilauri said that in 2008 a conference was held where USD 4,5 million was pledged to Georgia.

“It was Gvindadze’s accomplishment that more than 2 billion out of USD 4,5 billion has already arrived to Georgia and Georgia will receive it in the coming years”, Gilauri said, adding that the government decided to promote Dimitri Gvindadze due to his achievements.

Baindurashvili will assume the office of head of the supervisory council of Georgian Post. He said he does not intend to carry out staff changes and is going to settle some management issues.