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Ministry of Environment Protection will study the situation at Tbilisi dump

People of the village of Didi Lilo have been demanding the closure of the dump located near their settlement. After blocking the entrance to the dump for three days the Tbilisi Mayor’s Office agreed to allow inspectors from the environment ministry to study the site. Liberali reports that according to local resident Zurab Tamliani, people stopped blocking the site waiting for further developments.

Tamliani said a special document should be prepared regarding the conditions of the dump. “We also asked the Mayor’s Office to carry out an environmental audit of the site where independent analysts, local residents and the authors of the project of the dump could participate,” Tamliani said hoping to reveal the gaps that occurred while projecting the site.

Lilo residents claim the dump was improperly planned because the settlement suffers from the smell. Tamliani thinks that not only food and other everyday products enter the dump as garbage, bur also pharmaceutical and chemical materials. “We only demand a constitutionally defined safe environment,” he told Liberali denying any political elements to the protest.

He said it is the terrible smell and anti-sanitary conditions that have forced people to leave their homes and block the dump. Two years ago before opening the dump, residents were told there would be a modern factory built, but instead they received “this poison.”

Warning that no political promise can stop them, residents of Lilo said they would continue protesting if their demands are not met.



Often people forget their nation and think of own post – Ilia II

Interpressnews reports that in the traditional Sunday sermon, Georgian Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II said people should do as many kind acts as possible. His Holiness worried that often people stop thinking of others and only concentrate on their own positions. “We should be kind and do things to benefit the nation not only us individually,” Ilia II said, encouraging Georgians to be more thoughtful towards others.

Asking God to give Georgians the sense of their own sins, Ilia II wished people could identify what is good and what is bad. The patriarch said there are three things that can “spoil” a person: high-ranked position, wealth and beauty. Ilia II said happy is the person which believes in God, trusts people and hopes for the future.