The News in Brief
Monday, April 14
Georgia celebrates Palm Sunday
Orthodox Christians celebrated Palm Sunday, which marks Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
Patriarch Ilia II will performed the Divine Liturgy at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi on Sunday.
Palm Sunday is a movable feast which is celebrated on the Sunday before Easter.
According to the Gospels, Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem and worshipers laid down their cloaks and small branches of trees in front of him, to walk on.
Meanwhile pilgrims celebrating Palm Sunday in Georgia go to church with candles and willow tree branches. The branches are blessed in the churches with holy water as a symbol of welcoming the Lord.
On Palm Sunday people who are fasting are allowed to eat fish, while after this day, they must continue heavy fasting until Easter.
The great fasting began on March 3 and will end on April 20, the first day of the Easter holidays.
(Agenda.Ge)
State offers assistance to locals living near breakaway regions
The livelihood of people living near the breakaway regions of Georgia is looking brighter after the Government approved a social-economic strategy to help affected people.
The announcement was released by the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure after a state commission meeting about the needs of people living along the administrative boundary lines of Georgia’s breakaway regions.
The commission will approve the action plan accordance to the approved strategy.
Meanwhile, commission members also discussed potential problems relating to supplying more than 40 villages located along the boundary lines with natural gas, the Ministry press service reported.
According to current plans, these villages are expected to be connected with a gas supply by the end of October 2014.
Moreover, the cost of additional study for 419 students from those villages would be covered by Government funds.
On April 17, Tbilisi will host the Donors Conference where the additional needs of conflict affected people will be discussed.
(Agenda.Ge)
Court ruling supports former GPB board members
Georgia’s Constitutional Court has decided that the Public Broadcaster cannot fire members of its board before the end of their term.
Meanwhile, parliament has still not selected new board members, a process which has been dragged out over the last few months due to political wrangling.
The case arose because Davit Kandelaki, Natalia Dvali, Zurab Davitashvili, Emzar Goguadze, Giorgi Meladze and Mamuka Pachuashvili, all dismissed members of the GPB board, sued parliament for passing an amendment to the law about broadcasting. The amendment granted parliament the right to suspend board members before their term is ended.
A representative of parliament explained at Friday’s hearing that the goal of the amendment was to increase the effectiveness and accountability of the board. The old system for selecting a GPB board was inadequate, he said and it was necessary to dismiss the board before the term was over.
The new amendment about staffing the GPB board came into force on November 25, 2013. The amendment changed the rules for how to staff the board, but also the number of board members; there will now be nine members instead of fifteen.
A competition for selecting new members was announced on November 27. Three members should have been selected by the majority in parliament, three by parliamentary opposition, two by the Public Defender and one proposed by the autonomous republic of Adjara.
However, parliament failed several times to staff the board and selected only four new members.
The process to select five other members was just underway, as a special commission sent a list of candidates for parliament to review.
The term for the previous members of board of GPB was to have ended in 2015 and in 2017 for three of its members.
(Democracy & Freedom Watch)
Prosecutors file charges against UNM MP
UNM lawmaker, Roland Akhalaia, has been charged on two counts of exceeding official powers while serving as chief prosecutor of Samegrelo region in 2009, the prosecutor’s office said on April 11.
Charges were pressed a week after the Parliament passed a legislative amendment paving the way for prosecutors to file criminal charges against a lawmaker without the need to seek legislative body’s approve. Prosecutors will still require Parliament’s approval if they decide to detain MP Akhalaia; a statement by prosecutor’s office does not specify whether it would file such a request with the Parliament or not.
Prosecutors claim that while serving as chief prosecutor of Samegrelo region in 2009, Roland Akhalaia made relatives of accused persons to transfer on an account of a private company GEL 150,000 in one case and GEL 60,000 in another case in exchange of plea bargaining deals.
Akhalaia, who is a majoritarian MP elected from Zugdidi constituency, denies accusations; he said after being charged on April 11 that it is part of the authorities’ “political persecution against me and my family.”
Roland Akhalaia is father of former defense minister Bacho Akhalaia, who remains behind bars since November, 2012; Bacho Akhalaia was acquitted in two trials and found guilty in the third one, but pardoned last year by then president Mikheil Saakashvili; several trials into some other charges against Bacho Akhalaia, who remains in pretrial detention, are still pending.
Akhalaia’s other son, former senior interior ministry official, Data Akhalaia, was found guilty by the Tbilisi City Court of exceeding official authority in a case related to beating of policemen in 2005 and sentenced to 3 years and 9 months in jail in absentia; Data Akhalaia remains at large.
(Civil.Ge)
Association agreement to open way for further Georgia-EU cooperation
The German government representative for relations with Russia Gernot Erler expressed confidence that Georgia makes a very important action in terms of the European prospects.
Erler made this statement at a working lunch organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin.
Georgian Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze, the foundation representatives and German experts attended it.
"An association agreement will be signed in June," he said. "It will open the way for further development of the cooperation between Georgia and the EU."
Panjikidze stressed that Germany is well informed about Georgia's progress.
"The progress and development, recently observed in our country, were tactfully perceived in Europe, especially in Germany," she said. "German colleagues appreciated our activity. I am confident that this assessment will turn into concrete results soon."
(Trend)
Orthodox Christians celebrated Palm Sunday, which marks Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
Patriarch Ilia II will performed the Divine Liturgy at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi on Sunday.
Palm Sunday is a movable feast which is celebrated on the Sunday before Easter.
According to the Gospels, Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem and worshipers laid down their cloaks and small branches of trees in front of him, to walk on.
Meanwhile pilgrims celebrating Palm Sunday in Georgia go to church with candles and willow tree branches. The branches are blessed in the churches with holy water as a symbol of welcoming the Lord.
On Palm Sunday people who are fasting are allowed to eat fish, while after this day, they must continue heavy fasting until Easter.
The great fasting began on March 3 and will end on April 20, the first day of the Easter holidays.
(Agenda.Ge)
State offers assistance to locals living near breakaway regions
The livelihood of people living near the breakaway regions of Georgia is looking brighter after the Government approved a social-economic strategy to help affected people.
The announcement was released by the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure after a state commission meeting about the needs of people living along the administrative boundary lines of Georgia’s breakaway regions.
The commission will approve the action plan accordance to the approved strategy.
Meanwhile, commission members also discussed potential problems relating to supplying more than 40 villages located along the boundary lines with natural gas, the Ministry press service reported.
According to current plans, these villages are expected to be connected with a gas supply by the end of October 2014.
Moreover, the cost of additional study for 419 students from those villages would be covered by Government funds.
On April 17, Tbilisi will host the Donors Conference where the additional needs of conflict affected people will be discussed.
(Agenda.Ge)
Court ruling supports former GPB board members
Georgia’s Constitutional Court has decided that the Public Broadcaster cannot fire members of its board before the end of their term.
Meanwhile, parliament has still not selected new board members, a process which has been dragged out over the last few months due to political wrangling.
The case arose because Davit Kandelaki, Natalia Dvali, Zurab Davitashvili, Emzar Goguadze, Giorgi Meladze and Mamuka Pachuashvili, all dismissed members of the GPB board, sued parliament for passing an amendment to the law about broadcasting. The amendment granted parliament the right to suspend board members before their term is ended.
A representative of parliament explained at Friday’s hearing that the goal of the amendment was to increase the effectiveness and accountability of the board. The old system for selecting a GPB board was inadequate, he said and it was necessary to dismiss the board before the term was over.
The new amendment about staffing the GPB board came into force on November 25, 2013. The amendment changed the rules for how to staff the board, but also the number of board members; there will now be nine members instead of fifteen.
A competition for selecting new members was announced on November 27. Three members should have been selected by the majority in parliament, three by parliamentary opposition, two by the Public Defender and one proposed by the autonomous republic of Adjara.
However, parliament failed several times to staff the board and selected only four new members.
The process to select five other members was just underway, as a special commission sent a list of candidates for parliament to review.
The term for the previous members of board of GPB was to have ended in 2015 and in 2017 for three of its members.
(Democracy & Freedom Watch)
Prosecutors file charges against UNM MP
UNM lawmaker, Roland Akhalaia, has been charged on two counts of exceeding official powers while serving as chief prosecutor of Samegrelo region in 2009, the prosecutor’s office said on April 11.
Charges were pressed a week after the Parliament passed a legislative amendment paving the way for prosecutors to file criminal charges against a lawmaker without the need to seek legislative body’s approve. Prosecutors will still require Parliament’s approval if they decide to detain MP Akhalaia; a statement by prosecutor’s office does not specify whether it would file such a request with the Parliament or not.
Prosecutors claim that while serving as chief prosecutor of Samegrelo region in 2009, Roland Akhalaia made relatives of accused persons to transfer on an account of a private company GEL 150,000 in one case and GEL 60,000 in another case in exchange of plea bargaining deals.
Akhalaia, who is a majoritarian MP elected from Zugdidi constituency, denies accusations; he said after being charged on April 11 that it is part of the authorities’ “political persecution against me and my family.”
Roland Akhalaia is father of former defense minister Bacho Akhalaia, who remains behind bars since November, 2012; Bacho Akhalaia was acquitted in two trials and found guilty in the third one, but pardoned last year by then president Mikheil Saakashvili; several trials into some other charges against Bacho Akhalaia, who remains in pretrial detention, are still pending.
Akhalaia’s other son, former senior interior ministry official, Data Akhalaia, was found guilty by the Tbilisi City Court of exceeding official authority in a case related to beating of policemen in 2005 and sentenced to 3 years and 9 months in jail in absentia; Data Akhalaia remains at large.
(Civil.Ge)
Association agreement to open way for further Georgia-EU cooperation
The German government representative for relations with Russia Gernot Erler expressed confidence that Georgia makes a very important action in terms of the European prospects.
Erler made this statement at a working lunch organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin.
Georgian Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze, the foundation representatives and German experts attended it.
"An association agreement will be signed in June," he said. "It will open the way for further development of the cooperation between Georgia and the EU."
Panjikidze stressed that Germany is well informed about Georgia's progress.
"The progress and development, recently observed in our country, were tactfully perceived in Europe, especially in Germany," she said. "German colleagues appreciated our activity. I am confident that this assessment will turn into concrete results soon."
(Trend)