An embattled banker and promoter of a major East-West transit project is calling on supporters to challenge Georgia’s billionaire leader in next year’s election.
The Georgian capital has become a stage set for a Hollywood action flick; some joke that the name of the film franchise is just driving as usual in the city.
Local families rushed to move belongings out of their farmsteads, as masked Russian soldiers began fencing off their property from the rest of Georgia.
The owner of Rustavi2, who just wrested back control of the station, now says he wants to sell it. Government critics see an elaborate plot to gag an opposition-friendly outlet.
After being weakened by massive protests, Georgia’s ruling party has regained its footing and has taken several steps to neutralize government critics.
A European court ruling opened the door for a government-friendly owner to take control of the country’s top opposition outlet, the management of which has vowed to fight.
The emblematic Georgian cheese pie would be the latest casualty of the ongoing crisis between Tbilisi and Moscow, if a Communist-backed proposal is implemented.
The host expressed what many Georgians – and Russians – feel, but many worried that it could unnecessarily escalate the ongoing crisis between the two countries.
Tbilisi’s Russian expat community disputes Moscow’s narrative of a surge of Russophobia in the country, but some say that the ongoing tensions have put them in a complicated place.
Protesters are demanding the resignation of the interior minister, but he may be too indispensable to the real power in the country: Georgian Dream chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili.
The reform would be a long-demanded shift from a system that allows the ruling party to amass power out of proportion to its support. Protesters were not mollified.
Georgian Dream came to power promising never to use violence against protestors, as was common under the former government. Now, images of tear gas and rubber bullets have shaken Georgians.
