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The News in Brief

Thursday, September 3
St David Aghmashenebeli church to be blessed in the USA

A church dedicated to St David the Builder (Agmashenebeli) is to be blessed in the USA.

The Georgian Patriarchate has told Interpressnews that the church is housed in a building in Pennsylvania purchased by the Georgian Diocese of America and Canada for this purpose.

The church will be blessed by Metropolitan Dimitry of Batumi and Lazeti on September 26. (Interpressnews)



Teachers’ salaries increased

The Georgian Public School term begins on September 14, but the salaries of public school teachers were increased on 1 September, Minister of Education of Georgia, Nika Gvaramia has announced. He said that salaries would be increased in accordance with the education, experience and qualification of the teachers. The base salary will increase from GEL 220 to GEL 245.

Gvaramia said the salary increases would be particularly noticeable for class heads. For them the salary bonus will increase from 27 to 63 GEL. According to the Minister, as half the teachers in public schools are class heads, 50% of teachers will have their salaries increased by 70 GEL (Rustavi 2)



Passenger dies in minibus explosion

One passenger has died in the explosion of a minibus with a liquid gas engine. The minibus was on the way to Gori when it exploded. Reportedly, the faulty gas balloon exploded and the vehicle was burnt out.

Nine passengers were hospitalised with serious burns and one died. The police have identified the dead person as 45-year-old Ketevan Akhalkatsi. (Rustavi 2)



Tskhinvali still holding six Georgian citizens

The Tskhinvali puppet regime is still holding six Georgian citizens it detained two days ago, Head of the Analytical Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Shota Utiashvili has told Interpressnews.

“The detainees must be in Tskhinvali. They are residents of Lamiskana and Akhmaja. We are not aware of the other details,” stated Utiashvili.

The Georgian side intends to raise the detentions at the next meeting concerning the Incident Prevention and Reaction Mechanisms which will be held in Ergneti today. The Georgian citizens were detained and charged with smuggling precious material from trees on August 31. (Interpressnews)



Grigol Gobejishvili to be appointed Deputy Minister of Economy

Head of the Revenue Service of the Ministry of Finance Grigol Gobejishvili is to be appointed one of the Deputy Ministers of Economy. The Ministry of Economy states that the appointment has not been made official, but the Ministry of Finance says Gobejishvili is no longer Revenue Service chief.

It is not yet known who will replace Grigol Gobejishvili as Revenue Service chief. (Interpressnews)



20 IDP families housed

The Ministry of Refugees and Resettlement has allocated dwellings for 20 families of refugees in the building of the former professional school in Gardabani. Minister Koba Subeliani and Governor of Kvemo Kartli Davit Kirkitadze visited the IDPs in their new rooms yesterday.

The Minister checked the repair works in the building. He said that they had been funded by the state budget and the rooms were provided with natural gas, drinking water and a sewerage system. Each room has a gas heater and gas and water meters.

The Minister said the apartments would be given to the IDPs to own. (Rustavi 2)



Labour Party urges Government to give out textbooks free

The Labour Party has urged the Government to give public school pupils free textbooks. The party rallied outside a bookstore on Kazbegi Avenue yesterday to announce this.

The party says that textbooks are very expensive and most a families cannot afford them. On Monday it declared this week the ‘Week of Education’ and since then it has been holding rallies and briefings on problems in this sector. (Rustavi 2)