Welcome back! The Daily Dispatch is our editorial take on the past day’s news. You can subscribe here to get it in your mailbox . Click to write to us! We’d love to hear your ideas and opinions.
RUSSIAN PROXY, WE?! It was just eight days ago, when the letter by a group of the US lawmakers got Georgian officials quite miffed: it referred to the Georgian Dream chair Bidzina Ivanishvili as “Putin’s close ally” and “destabilizing Georgia on behalf of Russia”. When those officials thought the crisis blew over, the German Prosecution unwittingly joined the fray. In charging the Russian national with contract-killing of the Georgian citizen in Berlin, the prosecutors enumerated “the background” of the proxy murder, mentioning, among other, more important factors, “a pro-Russian government of Georgia.” German Ambassador in Tbilisi was forced to do some awkward back-pedaling. Prosecutors don’t make good diplomats…
KILLING IN THE NAME OF… More pertinently, Tbilisi has been uncomfortably tight-lipped about apparently Kremlin-sanctioned killing of its citizen in Berlin, leaving all the legwork to the Germans. Now that the contract-killing threat hit closer home, this looks less and less like prudence… Reporters Without Borders, France-based journalist brotherhood, called for “a thorough and transparent investigation” into an alleged plot to murder Georgian TV anchor Giorgi Gabunia “using a suspected Russian hitman.” (And yes, if you were wondering, we’ve borrowed that title from The Rage Against the Machine. Earphones! Enjoy. )
DANGER: POLITICS Non-judge member of the Council of Justice Ana Dolidze, known for her crusader against politically-influenced top-bench judges, seems to have fallen on her own sword. Another Council member, Nazi Janezashvili took an issue with Dolidze recently joining a political movement (although not a party), saying it was incompatible with the Council membership. Dolidze hit back hard, saying Janezashvili was a ruling party puppet. It got ugly.
GOT A DEAL? Rumors spread that the opposition got a deal on common nominees for majoritarian districts in Tbilisi. Sounds like a good news after teetering on the brink. We’ll know more tomorrow.
NC/DC Georgia’s National Center for Decease Control has been elevated to rock-star status for handling the pandemic, and now they released their second album report detailing the spread of the virus. One of the striking findings is that if in the beginning of a pandemic a single infected individual infected almost three others (effective reproduction number 3.88), now the figure is 0.44. Good work of doctors, and apparently Georgians are law abiding, when they have to…
That’s full lid for today!