Monday, August 13, 2007, #153 (1420)

Press Scanner

Headline: Baghaturia against KazTransGas
Kartuli Dasi (Georgian Troupe) leader Jondi Baghaturia has been busy this summer, according to Akhali Taoba.

He has campaigned for merchants losing their places in city markets, organizing press conferences and collecting signatures, and he has lobbied for an increase in pensions. Now he hopes to file a case against KazTransGas. Human rights organizations and a pensioners' advocacy group support his actions.

Baghaturia announced at a press conference that next week Georgian Troupe will protest unacceptably high consumer fines levied by KazTransGas.

According to Baghaturia, his group has gathered substantial information on KazTransGas. He said that one pensioner on a monthly income of GEL 38 was fined GEL 600 for a damaged meter.

Baghaturia demanded that those consumers who were fined unfairly be compensated. He stated that KazTransGas is acting against the Georgian constitution as its policies are depriving citizens of the right to live.

Baghaturia plans to file this case next week.

Headline: Gold discovered near Kazreti
The residents of Kazreti district are waiting for resettlement to make way for mining, reports Rezonansi.
The Madneuli mining company has offered them flats in Dmanisi and the Tbilisi district of Ponichala.
While gold extraction has already begun in Kazreti, reserves in the surrounding area are a new find-and according to some sources-are of better quality.

However, the press spokesperson for Madneuli could not confirm the new discovery.

Headline: Maia Nadiradze won't be in the new parliament
New parliamentary elections are to be held in Georgia in 2008. Reforms will downsize parliament to 150 members so political parties are trying to keep only the best politicians on their party lists, Akhali Taoba reports.

Opposition parties claim the ruling party has began compiling their list. Minister of Internal Affairs Vano Merabishvili is said to be actively involved in this process, as he was for the last election.

According to Davit Zurabishvili there will not be many famous faces from the ruling party in the next parliament. A leader of the ruling majority, Maia Nadiradze, will supposedly appear on a black list, he claims. According to Zurabishvili, Nadiradze irritates people and the ruling party are unlikely to let her in the future parliament.

Zurabishvili doubts that Nadiradze will be left jobless. As she likes England, he speculated she'll be sent off there as an ambassador.

Headline: Foreign tourists robbed on Temka beach
Three foreign tourists and their interpreters were robbed on Temka beach at Tbilisi Sea, reports Rezonansi.

One of the victims told the paper that they went to swim in the sea for ten minutes before noticing a group of five youths taking their possessions on the beach. She added they were not able to apprehend the thieves.

The victims reported they had approximately EUR 1000 in cash in their bags, as well as expensive mobile phones. The robbers also took their clothes, leaving the victims in their swimsuits.

Rezonansi reports that the patrol police do not have enough policemen to control the territory. A policeman at the beach told a Rezonansi journalist that they have 15 policemen in addition to lifeguards.
Regular beachgoers said this was not a first. 45-year-old Jimsher Janjghava commented it was the second incident in a week that he was aware of.


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