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Compiled by Etuna Tsotniashvili
Wednesday, July 22
War damaged people will be handed vouchers

Until 21 August people damaged as a result of the August war will be given vouchers, Sakartvelos Respublika reports.

The Health and Social Programmes Agency says that the IDPs will be handed vouchers as part of below the poverty line and health insurance programmes. IDP children will also be given vouchers and will decide for themselves which company they will be insured with. Voucher recipients can exchange their vouchers for insurance policies between August 22 and August 28.



Opposition youth movement members imprisoned for two weeks

Rezonansi writes that law enforcers have arrested participants in an action held by the entrance of Parliament on July 20. One of the detainees is a founder of the Join Us movement, Melor Vachnadze.

The arrests bear witness to the fact that we have a dictatorship in Georgia, said Lasha Chkhartishvili, a member of Conservative Party, who was also at the entrance of Parliament. The police did not allow the protestors to stay there.

The young activists have been imprisoned for two weeks. They have appealed to the Diplomatic Corps for assistance.

“We are absolutely unprotected. Four members of our group have been arrested. If things go on in this way and our demands are not satisfied we will ask international organisations and the diplomatic corps for help,” one of the members of Join Us, Tamta Kirtadze, said. The youth movement is demanding that the President veto the new amendments to the law on protest rallies and release what it calls political prisoners.



New alliance to be created next week

The Traditionalists and the Freedom Party plan to create another political alliance next week and present their programme to their colleagues, Mteli Kvira writes.

“Whether other opposition parties take our programme into account is their business. We want to prevent our country falling into revolution and destruction. We don’t want a repeat of 1992. Some months ago a New Alternative was founded with Gia Maisashvili, but it soon failed, though it is not worth speaking about it in detail. I always stand there where my people are,” Leader of the Traditionalists Party Akaki Asatiani said.

Asatiani said that the opposition has made several serious mistakes. They do not even have an action plan and have not said concretely where they were going. “The opposition’s slogan is Go, Saakashvili, but they don’t think about what will happen then. It is not logical to try and remove Saakashvili directly. We see that he does not intend to go anywhere. There are two ways open to us: either we can use force to drive him out or hold new elections,” Asatiani says.

The Traditionalists leader says that the only reasonable subject of dialogue between the opposition and Government is appointing new elections: Parliamentary and Presidential.