TBILISI, March 19 – The imprisoned former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili has asked to be taken to the funeral of Patriarch Ilia II, saying he wants to attend as both a friend of the late church leader and as Georgia’s third president. Saakashvili announced the request on social media on Wednesday, stating that he had … Read more
TBILISI, March 18 – Ilia II, the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia and one of the most influential figures in the country’s modern history, died Tuesday night at the age of 93, church and state officials said. The official announcement was made at the Caucasus Medical Center by Metropolitan Shio, the patriarchal locum tenens. According to … Read more
TBILISI, March 16 – Nearly three months after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze criticized high retail markups, lawmakers are pressing supermarket chains to explain how shelf prices are actually formed. At the parliamentary commission’s seventh working session on Monday, representatives of large retail operators including Carrefour, Ori Nabiji, Nikora and Daily Group were called in to … Read more
TBILISI, March 13 – A fresh political fight broke out in Georgia after the OSCE published its long-awaited report under the so-called Moscow Mechanism, saying the country experienced a drop in democratic standards during the period under review. The report, which was made public Thursday evening, examines developments in Georgia since the spring of 2024. … Read more
TBILISI, March 12 – One of the two oil tankers that caught fire overnight near Iraq was carrying 22 Georgian crew members. All of them were safely evacuated, according to Georgian media reports. Interpressnews, citing Greek media, reported that the vessel was the Zefyros, a Maltese-flagged tanker owned by a company in Greece. The report … Read more
TBILISI, March 12 – Emergency crews began evacuating residents in western Georgia on Thursday after a landslide hit a village in the Tkibuli municipality, while authorities also shut down a nearby section of road because of damage caused by the same slide. Georgia’s Emergency Management Service said the landslide struck the village of Kursebi, in … Read more
TBILISI, March 11 – Georgian police said Wednesday they had seized dozens of illegal firearms, ammunition and explosive materials across the country over the past two days, with 51 people detained in a broad security operation. The announcement was made at a briefing by Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Aleksandre Darakhvelidze, who said the searches … Read more
TBILISI, March 11 – Georgia’s Kulevi oil terminal is back in the spotlight after Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili said there was no evidence to justify putting the facility into the European Union’s latest sanctions package against Russia. Speaking on Tuesday, Botchorishvili said the Georgian side had once again shown the European Commission what steps the … Read more
TBILISI, March 11 – A new state audit has found that most municipal properties sold through electronic auction in Georgia drew just one bidder, spotlighting how local governments are privatizing public real estate. The findings, reported by BPN, touch a sensitive subject in Georgia, where privatization of public assets has been a recurring feature of … Read more
TBILISI, March 10 – Georgia’s domestic rail freight has fallen sharply over the past decade, with transport experts blaming neglected branch lines, very low speeds and a system that can no longer compete with road haulage. Speaking on Palitra News, Paata Tsagareishvili, head of the Transport Corridor Research Center (TCRC), said local cargo shipments on … Read more