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broadcasting live from our studios in central moscow this is. story thousands of demonstrators are made outside the greek parliament as the government gives its final approval to hard hitting spending cuts. the ratification secure the bailout the. defaulting on its loans it's been met with weeks of protests and rioting that have left over three hundred people injured and many others detained. police. budget cuts also flared in the u.k. as a one day public sector strike closes twelve thousand schools in england and wales workers walked out over pay and pensions. offices as well as border controls the pension cuts are part of a wider package of austerity measures started by the coal. government when it took

power and. diplomatic approach russia calls on the un to carefully consider its handling of syria foreign minister sergey lavrov pointed out the un hard line on damascus. strongly criticized france for reportedly dropping all arms to libyan rebels saying if the claims are true they represent a clear breach of the u.n. resolution. i'll be back with more news in thirty minutes but up next it's the latest in our series of reports on life in the former soviet republics twenty years after the collapse of the u.s.s.r. . cheat independence from the u.s.s.r. . the standoff with the record disintegrating soviet empire. independence but it resulted in much blood and destruction. the civil broke out. to

susie. to this day the nation has been unable to overcome its. the country's infrastructure is in ruins tens of thousands of people who fled the country in the time of the soviet union was one of the wealthiest republics today one third of the population lives below the poverty. twenty years of past the people who. did during the soviet period. back in one thousand nine hundred eight. really was just a student he joined a mass trying to strike outside government headquarters. the country was still cool to the georgian soviet socialist republic. that hunger strike which lasted eight or nine days. liberation i often sat on

the steps with my friends. the number of protesters good day by day. then a young historian lend his support to the cool. independence was my watchword at that time i didn't miss a single public action all rally. in a. celss of people gathered in tbilisi for an open ended rally outside government headquarters they wanted independence for the republican georgia. to foot the leader of a nationalist movement was the speaker who made the most extremist remarks in an intensely dramatic speech. in the early hours of april ninth the soviet government dispatched vehicles and soldiers against peaceful demonstrators sixteen people died and hundreds were injured. a mathematician would be magnet of

georgia was lucky enough to evade even injury. we were in too much of a hurry we was trying to study history to help move it forward happened then had to happen but of course the thought the georgian might become independent is nine hundred ninety one never crossed my mind back in the late one nine hundred. sixty s. for the became the first president of a sovereign georgia in april one thousand nine hundred one after an election campaign where independence was the catchphrase but as soon as he came to power he didn't expect that independence. from this region. into ethnic conflicts began georgia responded by sending troops to south assess here. because. people were once neighbors became bitter enemies thousands of refugees fled to georgia.

as far as i know years ago this building was meant to be a hospital. but there is no hospital and now. the building is used as a shelter for refugees. thousands of the georgians who have left since the early one nine hundred ninety s. still live in makeshift shelters they have lost everything homes jobs and even the hope to return to their home country georgians and alike have gone through a lot of suffering such as the horrors of war and loss of loved ones and yet they don't blame one another for that conflict. well you know there is nobility sions have toned the people apart there was no enemy to between individuals my neighbor said to me what am i supposed to do one of my sons in law is in a pansy and that means my grandsons are peasants aren't they. another daughter is

married to a georgian so her children are georgians do i need to tell my grandsons apart what am i supposed to do in this situation. it's a fighting between georgia standing army enough because the insurgents cost thousands of lives on both sides. tomorrow is not because young woman four of her five sons died in the war the youngest was seventeen when he volunteered to fight his grave is close to his father's. you have an opinion of that i would do like to have the word war confined to the history books if i want nobody to ever arteries again i wanted to be forgotten altogether radio. tomorrow and a husband wanted the new house to have enough room for all that children and their future families but now it's almost uninhabited one of the rooms houses

a memorial museum to the family it features their son's medals they received and the letters they sent from the front line to more especially treasures objects made by her children i want in this is the root of a pine tree they made a heart out of it. my second son enjoyed making such things she died in a battle on the same day as my youngest son. len many georgian opposition parties and even spearhead gamsakhurdia as former associates demonstrated that discontent with the rule georgian intellectuals sent numerous letters to the president asking him to come to his senses. responded by imposing censorship. all of them with a nine hundred ninety one law even denied registration for all political parties it was indorsed by people who had served terms in soviet prisons and campaigned for

georgia's freedom and independence. most people did while they themselves had been opposed to. a train to become a mathematician in the early one nine hundred ninety s. he left university and went into business his elder brother chose the career of an actor today he is very popular in georgia i his soul is in short films have an uncanny bearing on the country's present day situation. i had no desire to get involved in the war in a kasi i'm such

a war where brothers were killing brothers so i decided to stay away from georgia for a time there were. those who were displeased with the first president gathered to openly demand his resignation the nine hundred ninety two standoff between protesters and the regime erupt into street fighting involving all tillery and tanks. gamsakhurdia had to fly. leave the country. does it was george the second president the experience political heavyweight that backed me perestroika soon after he took office he lifted the opposition political parties and allowed independent media. after i went into business in one thousand nine hundred ninety three i launched a project called. over ten years i turned a small studio in the provincial town of the study into a leading national broadcaster. to t.v.

channel rushed at the country's new leaders including president eduard shevardnadze and was focused on runaway corruption. corruption in the economic sphere was enormous off the shevardnadze came to power but on the other hand businessmen learned new skills in tune with modern times and a real market economy took shape true there was pervasive corruption from top to bottom but there was also freedom of speech and individual liberty the sort of quagmire that we have now didn't exist then. independent t.v. channel two became a so-called platform for the opposition and had great political weight but president shevardnadze who declared freedom of speech as a principle made no attempt to sway the channel's editorial policy. the worst of the two t.v. channel and other georgian media paved the way for radical political transformations

november two thousand and three saw a bloodless coup in georgia the rose revolution. really a young and ambitious person came to power. it was a bus when i attended my resignation of my own free will to prevent bloodshed when they burst into the house of parliament i went out into the street to meet my followers. then you would a coming from me is the lawyer for the army no doubt the army was of defeated them after a bloodbath i make no distinction between those who saw and all of them and georgian citizens. believe had promised to beat corruption and lead the nation to prosperity however it was the press that was the first victim of his law and order. wealthy british style.

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street still keeps its secrets but now it's time to reveal that in the soviet files on the. wealthy british style. that's not on. the. markets why not scandals. find out what's really happening to the global economy in these kinds of reports on r.t. . as soon as really took power he attempted to take control of the editorial policy of the country's leading independent t.v. channel. to its owner. really realize that his window of opportunity was quite narrow. the authorities ambition to take control of the channel it goes

back to two thousand and four the new system of government seemed to be weak we thought we needed to build a viable state first and then take care of the rest of us because of the article as it turned out the regime's aim was to take control of the channels i take the blame for what i did because i gave away risk. i didn't want to rock the boat. as about the same time george's media was going out of its way to report on mikhail. this release police reforms on face value the changes look quite impressive petty crime had been stamped out people now felt more secure on the streets of the towns of the . traffic patrols that stopped taking bribes. to just these days of big strew the country's traffic police are totally free from corruption. but you can get your license within a day after pain right through official channels instead of flying in somebody

spock it's. for many years nino burjanadze was speaker of the country's parliament and one of mikhail saakashvili his closest associates in two thousand and eight she resigned from the post of parliamentary speaker and founded an opposition party. in the us the reason very serious problem by its corruption in the elite it has grown even larger compared to what it was like in the last years of shevardnadze through when everybody was talking about corruption in georgia's government. there. was always an opposition moderate to saakashvili as the owner of a major medical insurance company he knows all too well the meaning of so-called elite corruption saka through the soon to suck us really in his inner circle came to how they set about collecting taxes and sokol dirty money which was that they sent very many people to prison and were businessmen as well as former officials

among them people realize they had better pay off as much as they were expected to pay they sold the property they ceded their shares in businesses to members of saakashvili as party prosecutors office and the interior ministry kept a close eye on the deals this man. pent up discontent fun erupted into a mass rally in november two thousand and seven according to various estimates fifty to one hundred thousand opposition supporters came to the house of parliament in tbilisi. for several days they kept around the top vigil on november seventh police barlinnie dispersed the peaceful rally hundreds of demonstrators were injured police and us i police beat up people lying on the ground with batons. the only remaining independent t.v. channel showed these events in tbilisi to a nationwide audience it was late shut down while it was on the air with

a regular news bulletin. did the madam of the demon by closing the channel the government is violating the constitution this means that this is a dictatorship regime ots misdemeanors coming into the studio i want to say thank you i hear shouts in the control room overture and i hope our employees won't be injured here are our guests. the independent journalist of a coma he'd say became popular in georgia in the mid one nine hundred ninety s. he enjoys also king unpleasant questions no matter who is in power he is now in hiding in switzerland his latest piece of investigative journalism concerns the conflict between georgia and south a city in two thousand and eight. but on this one the. no journalist who would not have wanted to get this handle to get the facts. but all the state media summed up my work there is high treason to the self-proclaimed

republic of south as such here hasn't been under georgia's direct rule since nine hundred ninety two. really repeated many times the republic had to return to georgia and he promised to settle the situation through diplomacy. to disarm we don't need a war and their pals in an ascension people don't need one either there is a force that wants the defeat of the georgian and up has in a city and people are i promise they won't let it happen. but in the early hours of august the altering repeated showed symbolic from georgian territory in the morning troops were sent into the republic. it was the start of a military operation described by saakashvili of the introduction of constitutional order in the turret tree south of setia. i was woken

up by a loud noise everything was for. that shaking we mean outside was screaming and crying it was as if all of us had landed in hell after a volcanic eruption and everybody stayed awake throughout the night the noise never died down not even for a second. color man. lives in an old house on the outskirts of the village of got a cooler fifteen kilometers from the border with south of setia he is not interested in politics and doesn't know the first thing about international relations but artists from around the world flock to his home to display their works one of the projects was called liquid it was to have been implemented jointly with the russian artists in late september two thousand and eight. the georgian word for this place is maharani year it is in places like this that

georgians traditionally make wine artists or different nationalities are going to contribute to georgian traditions they will get in to press grapes with their feet just as it was done in the old days a year later we will get a jointly made product a wine brand called liquid aunt. in the spring of two thousand and eight karen man began building a pavilion for the exhibition he was still constructing it in august when another war broke out between south the set here in georgia. i went on building the pavilion during the war fighting was going on right behind the mountain fifteen kilometers from here i saw the flashes and heard the bombings i also saw helicopters up in the air.

hostilities came to an end nine days later when russia sent troops into south a setia to separate the warring parties georgia subsequently broke off diplomatic relations with russia. when investing come a he was working on a film about the georgian city and conflict he made arrangements for an interview with european human rights campaigners to be held in geneva shortly before he was due to go the journalist received a tip off that he had better stay in switzerland. all sorts of problems cropped up after my return from senegal because i won't talk about them because my words may get in the way of the investigation. i can only tell you that i received open threats and heard something so humiliating that i contradicted. no comma he'd say lives in a swiss hostel for political refugees friends keep him abreast of events by.

i hear you going to switzerland. that's right in october by that time you must complete all formalities concerning immigration chances are i myself will return home by then that there is a regime change. did you say regime change yes why not that's a possibility. we hope so. vegetating and so is us who body have been friends ever since they went to school together when parliament appointed to the post of he gave his friend a job in his office when his first term of office came to an end parliament annoyed him a second term now the journalist is in hiding in a foreign country the ex is unemployed would be a qualified praise the authorities i would have been elected. they would even have changed the law to let me for ten terms. in the last presidential election.

was officially the runner up his party's headquarters supplied the zero s c e commission with evidence documenting schools every regularities some of them made public in the commission's conclusions but the final report ultimately described the election as valid. is a famous georgian musician in protest against the regime he decided to barricade himself in a television studio made up to look like a prison cell for several months he stayed in the room with four t.v. cameras tracking his every move. today georgia means prison all of georgia is a prison but the georgian people made

a mistake by electing what i call an illegitimate person. politician sportsman and all visited his cell to support the musician. heads the leading opposition party he visited his brother three times during his self-imposed imprisonment. how are you so so what are you i get loads of letters to possibles are full of them already the guy's a nuts they've made a saint out of me. he's one man the prison show began of the eleven pm and last until morning the following day the whole country would discuss what had been said during the night after two months of self confinement you only get such a lot they took time out for a public appearance at the b.b.c. stadium leaving a cage in the midst of the show was a strikingly symbolic act the people who had filled the stadium and adjacent roads

turned guilty could try to lead to show into what amounted to a protest rally. and they put two thousand and nine leaders of all opposition parties as their followers to take to the streets in tbilisi. just felt get out second street get out saakashvili get down gets out move you know it all position has never said saakashvili is our president we call him a de facto rather than does your president. today the former participants in the rallies for georgia's independence have united into a party. that our aim is to create a party that is without power a and georgian history it should be a party based on genuine national values shared by most people in our country. the leader of the new party is live. a former magnets in the wine industry he has the

support of its mellish really the architect of the country's leading television company and george's last ambassador to russia the party's third leader is a historian who has won the nation's affection as an honest woman. george's rulers in recent years have been so different the one would be hard put to say which of them is fully to blame for the present day situation there are no independent courts of law democratic institutions are not allowed to develop and the country's people are intimidated in the autumn of two thousand and eight a group of friends met in old warehouses turned into studios in moscow they were artists who are keen to participate in an international project that was to take place in the home of. the bull this is a remarkably exquisite european style project but i think we need to make slight changes to emphasize a note of sorrow in it merrymaking is out of place after what happened you don't do

that at a funeral the funeral still goes on. the russian artists didn't visit their georgian friends in either two thousand and eight or later they have decided against going to georgia for the time be for they do not travel in politics they believe that in their beautiful country of long traditions funerals will give way to weddings and the street protests else did by projects concerts and theatre festivals.