Taklama

In President Saakashvili's own words, on Monday the 21st:

"It is said about me that I love exaggerating."

Quite right. For example, Saakashvili has frequently predicted rose-coloured futures for Georgia's economy. And so he went again last Monday:

"I have recently been in Dubai and I want to tell you …

The Georgian parliament may be moving in the direction of formally recognising the Circassian genocide perpetrated by Tsarist Russia in the 19th century. This genocide took place around the year 1864, the official end of the 50 year Caucasus war that more or less concluded Russia's conquest of the Caucasus …

What started as a brawl following a Georgian TV talk show has taken a definite turn for the surreal now that one of the central figures in the controversy has fled to Tskhinval , of all places. Even before this latest development, the situation was quite confusing.

The TV station in …

Most independent observers will agree that President Mikheil Saakashvili and his government have their flaws. No one was happy with the November 2007 crackdown of opposition demonstrations, the attack on Imedi TV and its take-over by government-friendly owners, the unfair advantages enjoyed by government candidates in election campaigns and especially …

Three weeks ago, the Georgian investigative journalist Vakhtang Komakhidze requested asylum in Switzerland. Komakhidze worked for the Reportiori studio, which has been responsible for several government-critical documentaries. One documentary revealed that the attack on two buses in the village of Khurcha on the day of the 28 May 2008 parliamentary …

On 3 January the Georgian Public Broadcaster launched its third channel, the First Caucasian Channel. It will broadcast in Russian, and cover news from the wider region. For the moment though, it is only available on its website.

Given time and enough resources, and if the Georgian government ensures that …

On 23 December the Council of Europe published the report of the Council's Anti-Torture Committee on its visit to Abkhazia from 27 April to 4 May 2009. Caucasian Knot reports that the publication is controversial, because Abkhazia claims that it had been agreed beforehand that the report would only be …

This post is a quick update to the story of the destruction of the World War II monument in Kutaisi last Saturday, which killed a mother and her child.

The governor of the Imereti region has been fired, and the head of the company directly responsible for the detonation has …

Authorities in Kutaisi have pulled down a World War II monument, making headlines because it cost two people's lives and it injured several others. Which is a tragedy, and I wonder why they had to pull down the monument in the first place. Supposedly it stood on the site where …