OC Media

OC Media

Georgia axes secondary school exams in controversial education reforms

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(Georgia's Ministry of Education)

Georgia’s education ministry has announced plans to scrap stan­dard­ised grad­u­a­tion testing for secondary school students and to drop one of the four Unified National Exams — the stan­dard­ised entrance exams for Georgian uni­ver­si­ties. [Read more…]

MPs threaten to quit Georgian Dream over supreme justice nominees

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Eka Beselia (Tabula)

At least four MPs from Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party have threat­ened to leave the party, including the influ­en­tial former legal affairs committee chair Eka Beselia. The split has occurred over a list of can­di­dates for Georgia’s Supreme Court who critics say are part of a ‘clan’ within the judiciary.
[Read more…]

Opinion | Georgia’s economy has failed; now it’s time to build factories

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Tato Khundadze is a lecturer in Inter­na­tion­al  Political Economy at the Georgian-American Uni­ver­si­ty and head of the Ana­lyt­i­cal Division at the Georgian Public Broad­cast­er.

Despite the many inter­na­tion­al economic indices sug­gest­ing Georgia is a great success story, most Georgians live in poverty. In a country where emi­gra­tion is rampant and half the pop­u­la­tion ekes out a living in agri­cul­ture, the gov­ern­ment needs to create new strate­gies to form a strong, indus­tri­al economy. [Read more…]

Controversial supreme court nominees withdraw candidacy in Georgia

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The protest outside the High Court of Justice on 21 January in Tbilisi (/Liberali)

A group of judges being con­sid­ered for Georgia’s Supreme Court has asked par­lia­ment to disregard their nom­i­na­tions, citing  a campaign of ‘unprece­dent­ed pressure’ on the judiciary. Their nom­i­na­tions had been con­tro­ver­sial after rights groups, the oppo­si­tion, the Public Defender, and several members of the ruling party accused them of being com­pro­mised and condemned the ‘rushed’ con­fir­ma­tion process.

[Read more…]

Proposed Georgian defamation law ‘puts freedom of speech at risk’

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Tbilisi City Court (Dato Parulava / OC Media)

Several Georgian media advocacy groups have warned that a proposed defama­tion law put forward by the president could put freedom of speech in the country at risk. The groups pointed out that there are already legal mech­a­nisms in place against defama­tion, and that any new restric­tions would ‘endanger Georgia’s demo­c­ra­t­ic devel­op­ment’. [Read more…]

Women’s groups slam Zurabishvili for appointing man who ‘normalised sexual harassment’

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Dimitri Gabunia (Admin­is­tra­tion of President)

Georgia’s first woman president Salome Zura­bishvili has come under fire from women’s groups for appoint­ing as her par­lia­men­tary secretary a man who ‘portrayed sexual harass­ment as almost the norm’. The groups cited comments made by Dimitri Gabunia while rep­re­sent­ing former NGO-head Zviad Dev­dar­i­ani, who has been accused of sexual harass­ment and sexual assault by around dozen women. [Read more…]

Clashes on road to Telavi as police block protesters from Georgian presidential inauguration

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Police set up makeshift bar­ri­cades with buses, fire engines, and police pickup trucks. (Mari Nikuradze/OC Media)

Oppo­si­tion pro­test­ers clashed with police on Sunday after they were prevented from entering the east Georgian city of Telavi, where Salome Zura­bishvili was being sworn in as president. In her inau­gu­ra­tion speech, Georgia’s fifth president called for national unity and an end to ‘political con­fronta­tions’. [Read more…]

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