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The News in Brief

Monday, September 11
Georgia’s FM: Within Eastern Partnership, countries enjoy different paces of development

Georgian Vice Premier & Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze will participate in an informal meeting of EU Member States and Eastern Partnership countries, Georgia’s Foreign Ministry reports.

The meeting is being held at the initiative of Estonia, holders of the current EU Presidency, and will focus on the issues on the agenda of the Eastern Partnership summit scheduled to be held in Brussels on 24 November, as well as on co-operation between the EU and Eastern Partnership countries.

"It is important that we have been invited by Estonia, as a Council of the EU presidency holder, and foreign ministers from the Eastern Partnership countries are given an opportunity to discuss future steps in an open and non-formal format with EU foreign ministers,” Janelidze said.

He added that within the Eastern Partnership, countries enjoy a different pace of development and integration, but it is important that the unity is maintained as all of these countries have shared goals.

A meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova will be held While in Tallinn, Janelidze is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with European foreign Ministers as well, the ministry says.
(IPN)



Tbilisi State University remains in 5% of world’s best universities

Georgia’s Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (TSU), the oldest university in Georgia and in the Caucasus region, has been named among world’s and Europe’s best universities by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018.

TSU is the only university in the region on the list, ranking 301+ place among Europe’s 400 best universities.

In the world ranking, the university takes the 1001+ place among the world’s more than 1,500 best universities.

The calculation of the rankings for 2018 has been subject to independent audit by professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), making these the only global university rankings to be subjected to full, independent scrutiny of this nature.

“This year, we have made a slight improvement to how we handle our papers per academic staff calculation, and expanded the number of broad subject areas that we use. The top 1,000 represents no more than 5 per cent of the 20,000 higher education institutions in the world,” THE reads.

The University of Harvard, University of Cambridge, California Institute of Technology, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology were the top five in the world rankings.

THE, which drafts the surveys, is the leading provider of higher education data for the world's research-led institutions.

THE’s in-house data team ranks 2,150 institutions worldwide, with 1 million data points analysed across 2,600 institutions in 93 countries. In 2016, the global media reach of the rankings was almost 700 million.

TSU was founded in 1918 in Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi by famous Georgian scientist Ivane Javakhishvili and a number of other professionals.
(Agenda.ge)



Elton John's concerts in Georgia postponed

The two concerts of British pop and rock star, singer and composer Elton John scheduled for September 16 and 17 on Black Sea Arena, have been postponed.

The decision to postpone concerts at Black Sea Arena in Shekvetili has already been approved. Elton John's concerts will not be held this year in Georgia.

According to the latest news, Steve Johnson, one of the member of Elton John’s band has underwent a surgery on his hand, which was named the official reason for the postponement of the concerts.

Elton John and his band will hold the concerts in Georgia on June 30 and July 1, 2018, Giorgi Kereselidze, director of the company "Eastern Promotion” stated at the press conference.

According to him, both sides have already signed the relevant agreement. These two concerts scheduled at Black Sea Arena (concert hall located on the coast of the Black Sea in Shekvetili, Guria, Georgia) will be the only concerts held by Elton John in Europe next year.

As it has been reported, Elton John, his band and band management "Solo" and " Eastern Promotion" are very sorry for the incident and apologize to Georgian listeners. Elton John's representative also released official press release in relation to this issue.

In addition, the owners of the tickets for the concerts of the 16th -17th September will be able to attend the concerts of June 30 and July 1 with the same tickets. The tickets of September 16 will be substituted with the tickets of June 30 and September 17 with July 1st respectively.
(IPN)