Latest Articles about Georgia
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS PERSIST ABOUT IMEDI TELEVISION IN GEORGIA
Imedi Television’s reopening on December 12 (see EDM, December 13) leaves key questions about the channel’s ownership and management unanswered. The issue of responsibility for possible violations of the law remains equally blurred. Imedi TV had been forced temporarily off the air by the authorities... MORE
IMEDI TELEVISION REOPENS AMID GEORGIA’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN
Georgia’s pro-opposition Imedi Television resumed broadcasting its political programs on Wednesday, December 12. The authorities had temporarily closed Imedi TV on November 7 as part of a state of emergency. The channel had instigated unlawful actions against state authorities during the November 2-7 opposition rallies... MORE
MORE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS ABOUT IMEDI TELEVISION
Unanswered questions persist and are even multiplying about the relationship between Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and Imedi Television, the vehicle of Georgian tycoon and presidential contender Badri Patarkatsishvili. Co-owned by News Corp. and Patarkatsishvili, but controlled de facto by Patarkatsishvili-appointed program managers, Imedi TV agitated... MORE
REOPENING IMEDI TV: NOT WHETHER, BUT HOW
The state of emergency was lifted in Georgia on November 16, but the pro-opposition Imedi Television remains sealed off by the authorities, its broadcasts temporarily suspended, under decisions by the Tbilisi city court and the National Communications Commission. The authorities took Imedi TV off the... MORE
IMEDI TELEVISION: USE AND MISUSE OF A GEORGIAN TELEVISION CHANNEL
The anti-government Imedi TV was taken off Georgia’s airwaves, along with the pro-government Rustavi-2 TV and other television channels, on November 7 when Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili declared a 15-day state of emergency. The move helped end the rallies and disturbances in downtown Tbilisi, instigated... MORE
GEORGIA AND UKRAINE: SIMILAR REVOLUTIONS, DIFFERENT TRAJECTORIES
The ongoing political crisis in Georgia shares similar roots with the September 2005 crisis in Ukraine (see EDM, September 8, 14, 16, 2005). The Georgian crisis began when former defense minister Irakli Okruashvili accused President Mikheil Saakashvili of money laundering, misuse of power, and instigating... MORE
BADRI PATARKATSISHVILI’S GEORGIA OPERATION
Georgia reckons with the possibility of Russian hostile operations between November 2007 and April 2008 in connection with four major political deadlines: First and second, Russia’s parliamentary and presidential elections (December and April), which might again be accompanied by some military operation of choice, as... MORE
SAAKASHVILI: DEFIANT AND READY FOR ACTION
Last Saturday evening, November 3, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili granted me a two-hour interview in his office, which is a few minutes’ walk from parliament. Demonstrators have been protesting in front of the building, demanding his resignation. On Friday, November 2, an estimated 50,000 protesters... MORE
GEORGIAN OPPOSITION ON A FREE RIDE, part two
Billionaire businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili has turned his Imedi Television, which broadcasts across the country, into a stronghold of political opposition to the government. Along with that move in 2006, he sold a 49% stake in Imedi TV to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. In October 2007,... MORE
GEORGIAN OPPOSITION ON A FREE RIDE
On Friday, November 2, at least 50,000 people (as estimated by most local and foreign observers at the scene) demonstrated in downtown Tbilisi for regime change and early presidential elections in Georgia. The number decreased to some 12,000 on November 3. The demonstrations were peaceful... MORE