Skip to main content

tv   [untitled]    January 16, 2012 8:31am-9:01am EST

8:31 am
the islamic state carries out its threats. also was the mayor proves it has published an article outlining his plans to battle corruption strengthen civil society and tackle poverty it's all part of his campaign to return as president with the election now just two months away. to our special report and the changes imposed on georgia when president saakashvili came to power in twenty fourteen and twenty in two thousand and four i should say are two floors now how they even infiltrated the nation's art and culture. the. no forgiveness. if you are fools. go the fashionable new theatre at cetera renowned georgian artistic director robert stuart or is presiding over
8:32 am
a rehearsal of shakespeare's the tempest not so long ago he was forced to resign from his post as a director of a leading state theatre in tbilisi. the british invited me to london to see a future with the plan was that i will stage a play there in two thousand and twelve. today stuart a has to stage his productions abroad the international association of theater critics is up in arms over his exile. it was. then dismissed it all with the steroid was the kind of political demonstration the next day after he was forced to resign thousands of people joined a rally in central tbilisi in front of the theater the company released a statement saying they can be no other artistic director them steward of the theater. in one of his earlier comments president suck us really said
8:33 am
the intelligentsia should be flushed you know just like when you flush the toilet the leaders of many state sponsored theaters were dismissed under mikala saakashvili nearly the entire faculty of the conservatoire and the academy of ops were replaced senior professors in almost every university forced to retire. the town of gori capital of the georgian province of she'd accomplish. gori intellectuals have been discussing saakashvili latest decision. which is fairly a young and ambitious journalist is filming another story about robert stewart
8:34 am
george's independent media has been focused on his expansion of. the trial of the t.v. company was founded in one thousand nine hundred nine. john doe not yet just really started the venture with only a video recorder and a transmitter borrowed from a friend. he had barely any money and even less experience. john doe did everything with his own two hands sheer enthusiasm kept driving him forward. ten years later everybody in georgia head of the small t.v. company. began experiencing very serious problems after the saakashvili government came to power in two thousand and three. in the following year defense minister really tried to talk us into selling the company to him but we turned the request down that was when the problems began piling up the interviews were now off
8:35 am
limits to our journalists they were often beaten up and humiliated in public. in the summer of two thousand and ten the government decided to remove a monument to stalin from the town's central square journalists wanted to cover the story when both supporters and opponents of the demolition gathered on the square. the reporters wanted to present an objective story by filming both sides but they stood no chance to have a claim close policemen came up to us and told us not to film anything there they prevented us from performing our professional activities they attacked me and my camera we were detained and our camera was confiscated. after the square was cleared of demonstrators opposing the demolition the camera was handed back to the journalists and released from the police station. we were able to film this part but when they gave the camera back to us something was
8:36 am
missing they had to leave the footage of the rally against the monuments demolition . the only part left was of these pro-government activists applauding that it was never john doe motive to make trial an opposition media but for several years now government officials have steered clear of his talk show. we make no distinction between the two sides we invited both of them to go on air but the fact is that the opposition comes here but i don't the government keeps away that's why the government claims that we're an opposition channel but that's not true local officials turn down or imitation because they've been told by higher ups not to give interviews to our journalists or appear on our programmes. journalists from this regional t.v. company even from the building housing the local administration they are denied
8:37 am
interviews and accreditation to important events. despite all the problems the t.v. company is still in operation with news bulletins going out daily the arrival of any political scene has thrown george authorities into total confusion. billionaire seen a vanish villi has invested a great deal of money in the georgian economy but soon after he announced his intention to stand in the next presidential election the country's government stripped him of his citizenship the following is an excerpt from a vanished billie's first formal press conference held on november the first twenty eleven. he'd really dull the need for the people to regain a lost sense of justice is of crucial importance now even sack inner circle is stricken with terror there is no trace of self-government everything is in the
8:38 am
hands of one man's music. incidentally there was actually a time when those young people who are now in the government were in the pay of ivanishvili. essentially he funded the state machinery he has built theatres among many other things. seventy year old artist. has been great expectations on a vanished billie he also has a serious bone to pick with the present day or forties tamera's was unceremoniously fired from the academy of fine arts after a professional period lasting many years. i spoke out against the regime in public i gave interviews i didn't keep silent. in the chancellor and this is what he said to me afterwards but you don't let us live what this is because i was there. he may have decided that giving me the sack was the
8:39 am
easiest way of resolving the problem. tamera's lost his job but not his workshop so he began to devote more time to painting however there's hardly a place in today's georgia where he can show his paintings to the public georgia is not a wealthy country and there just isn't enough money to support an artist museums can barely make ends meet. your campaign seek to create the impression that all is well in the country. do you know what kind of a nation is in the making. handful of people or of well everyone else lives to ensure that has a cushy existence. three. his wife marina is an actress she's employed. where robert stewart was
8:40 am
artistic director for decades. this is one of the latest newspapers robert still writes in an article that would be dina ivanishvili will emerge victorious. oppositionists he writes that unless saakashvili leaves his post of his own free will he will face the same fate as colonel gaddafi and i write sad really took his stance in the right place at the right time. when george's ministry of culture fired robert store a marina and her fellow actors at the theater took to the streets about five thousand people turned out to express support for their favor a director. all the traffic in the avenue in front of the playhouse was brought to a halt. we met face to face with the spectators who had adored roberts to rap all this time the actors were wearing such t.
8:41 am
shirts as the fs i think these words mean i'm fired i like the expression on his face he seems to be saying i'm fired so what after all his work lives on. the ministry of culture as official excuse for his sacking xenophobia. really why he made a secret of his armenian. it's going to the man who keeps his father's nationality a secret. so the big question is who is moore's enough fardy with. the president and supposed to hide anything. someone asking him why do you make a secret out of it. during
8:42 am
a theatre festival in georgia in september twentieth levon members of the international association of theatre critics interviewed robert stewart for an hour asking him about all the details their conclusion about his misfortune was made in an open letter and supporter robert stewart of. f. numbers on the theater and the portress of freedom of expression we have been. by him overlap with us throughout from his post by the georgian government like so many people around the bug we feared that the government had used certain statements as did to us that there were a pretext to put punish a critical voice from within their teeth the community. the protests the letters by
8:43 am
the theater's act as nor a direct appeal by international organizations could make the georgian government budge. saakashvili never forgave the director he saw as undesirable. and that the system while i think it was a very good way to end more involvement with this theater. in syria typical for the theater. director out of the tradition stance it's unclear now it's smart turn to be good and i'm glad that i was kicked out by the government not by the actors were dead it would have been a real catastrophe for me. today robert stewart works abroad he had plans to stage shakespeare's tempest in moscow's etc theater six months before he was exiled. for going to the problems you were but this is the problem a man expelled from his home together with his daughter who were being driven out
8:44 am
of his senses fearful swims. was about as well as many reviewers think stewart his production is actually about himself prosper oh the play's main character is an avid reader scholar and artist. melanic spells him from his hometown because he fears the prosper will strip him of power. and this is the key to cry to deceive the brewer to us to son. to the winds whose pity sighing back again did us but loving wrong. steward a hopes he'll be allowed to stage productions in georgia. but this is impossible for the time being. george's best theatres are run by the government the ministry of culture has no intention of finding stewart as productions. i
8:45 am
won't give up so easily i will survive this trial. culture is that so much as it was in which of course he was on it and so here it is recasting america's global military strategy or just more of the same problem mommas new vision for the pentagon is aimed at saving. wealthy british style holes in. the. markets why not us can. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report. of
8:46 am
. georgia's capital tbilisi has acquired a new look in recent years the city's spirit and its unique architecture of being restored central tblisi attracts many tourists however several streets are still massive construction sites. forests come here to see the city's historical center it would be good for they don't really care about its outskirts. is one of georgia's most successful restoration architects the old central areas of several towns have been revamped. began as restoration work in the ancient town of signal. the job was nowhere near
8:47 am
the scale of tbilisi but back then it was the first time that several neighborhoods were restored civil taney a slave. then the amount of work and its intensity were overwhelming in the beginning. the project took nearly nine months of continuous work. we only slept three or four hours a day. but despite all the difficulties we completed the job successfully. signal today is one of george's tourist attractions while architects were trying to improve the town's appearance the residents had no idea of what was really going on behind their backs before restoration work began a small shop in central signal was taking in
8:48 am
a small but stable income for. order to shoot it's only a restoration started in two thousand and seven. was mayor at the time she came to us and said that they needed our facilities and that we have to go to one of. them thirty officers from the financial police came to our store and said that unless my husband and i give up the fight we would drop in prison for the rest of our lives. in ri georgian stand no chance of winning a fight against the while old machinery of the state the fifty square meters of this shop no longer belong to its former a owners. in fact we have been deprived of the only means of earning a living and i have got their originals of all the papers i want to see if they lend elias the ownership rights on the basis of comp is a come up to be so far we've been unable to find justice but we don't give up hope
8:49 am
. renovation work began in the historical part of gori in the early autumn of two thousand and eleven some of the residents are worried by the prospect of being barred from their homes are after the renovation but others still have trust in the promises made by the local administration alexander most villages and lives and works in the same house. you know you a bit of the me my driving school and my home are one in the series. both of us are going to move out soon after what will stay in a new place only for a time after their innovation will return here about the plot of unity for our renovation is in full swing in nearby houses all the tenants have already been evicted alexander expects to be forced out any time now he hopes his students will get their licenses before work begins on his house. would that this street in the
8:50 am
neighborhood will look much nicer to you is gonna know what may have happened somewhere once i'm not responsible for that anyway. but i know for sure that i'll continue to be master here as long as. and no doubt my descendants will be to . know the restoration and the way people legalize their claim to renovated houses were the subject of a talk show with a local t.v. company try lettie the show lasted one and a half hours none of the officials invited to the programme turned up this is what an independent lawyer representing the opposition of the local municipal council had to say. to municipal council has been stripped of its rights. a situation where everything depends on mikhail saakashvili is good will is wrong.
8:51 am
that is what people in every family think. alexander was among those who called the talk show. this group yes this is a project suggested by the government and the municipal authorities why do you doubt that it will be carried out. out of our under the work. did you only have an all agreements or did you see the papers saying you own the place. the papers are ready i'm told they invited us in we had an understanding we signed the papers and they will explain to us what will happen next. is a local deputy was less optimistic he felt government p.r. campaigns have pulled the wool over people's eyes and those people who were suspicious of the work was simply afraid to speak out. that i think most of the
8:52 am
people in georgia today are against the president and his man i here is for many many people they'll say we don't like sack policies but we won't speak out because . we have families mothers fathers children and other relatives. john don't and yet or she really is the owner and director general of trial at e.t.v. he can't be fired from his job he can't be prevented from inviting the opposition to take part in live broadcast but the company is a thorn in the side of the country's leaders in the autumn of two thousand and ten nine yet it was asked to sell it to a government controlled construction firm for six million dollars. all t.v. company has already earned a reputation. and that's quite an asset in itself it will be an argument that i might have sold it if they hadn't told me i must leave the country and never come
8:53 am
back. at noon three days later a police patrol stop john doe while he was driving to a bank. i was stopped the policeman demanded i produce my papers after the us they pulled me and. handcuffed me and forced me to the ground then four more police cars turned up they punched and kicked me when passers by gathered on the scene the cops picked me up from the ground my clothes all had boot prints on them they cleaned me out. and wished me away to court. three hours later the judge slapped a three hundred dollar fine on john doe not yet it's merely for obstructing the police for outdoor video cameras mounted on a nearby bank of the shop and recorded the moment when the director general of the prominent t.v. company was beaten up but the film was not filed or used in the case.
8:54 am
that all of this pressure and complete monopoly of the media caused by sack ash really is absolutely unheard of seems some of the intimidation of the press is unprecedented i'm of the time and there is daily pressure on my employees associates and relatives to the seizure of a cash in transit vehicle belonging to my bank was totally against the law. but all of this won't hold me back. for a billionaire the arrest of one cash fan is a drop in the ocean what is more important is the fact that several major georgian companies withdrew their account from his call to bank within days there were financial inspections in some of its branches. like most georgian intellectuals actress marina from the. theater has a vital stake in seeing code to banks continued prosperity. the bank funded
8:55 am
research yours actors and directors at many theaters it also provided money for maintenance of this salaries paid to actors and other theater employees are not high enough to know no matter how high they may be the bank paid actors twice or three times as much. a protest in support of bank is under way in georgia thousands of people across the country have opened accounts in the bank branches they deposit whatever money they have george and intellectuals hope that if will stand his ground and be able to continue financing scientists artists writers and actors. was a long lived piece i doubt there we are free people who are afraid of that
8:56 am
actress in yasukuni as philly found employment at the shotover severely theatre when she was twenty one years old she thinks of robert stuart a as a second father. he was the one who saw her talent and made her the lead actress. this. these theater has a history of celebrated directors. but the big question is who will be the next one . if you have a splinter in your skin you need to pull it out if you don't want it to rot there are politics and the arts don't go together in this way is such a pressurized an artist's trying to control them is totally wrong. meanwhile actors before the stage of one of george's oldest theaters but without an artistic director to guide them. the international shakespeare society ranks robert stewart as london production of hamlet as one of the ten best productions in the past fifty
8:57 am
years. after i lost my job at trinity a three judge in fisa and george and don says it's a shame quit that's what makes our country popular in the wild west as she is since my cherished hope is to see everything that will change for the better. actors that the shah taught us to valley theatre still perform vintage plays in front of a full house every day. but at the same time a world renowned georgian director cannot work in his home country. store a can now only see his own productions as a regular theatregoer rather than as its leading light.
8:58 am
8:59 am
9:00 am
the arab league at loggerheads well kept our calls for intervention in syria other members warn it could lead to a region wide undress that says damascus announces an amnesty for political prisoners in accordance with the peace but. the u.k. up the ante against iran pushing for a tough new oil embargo which tehran's promise to counter by blocking a vital transit route. the u.k. says it will take military action in the persian gulf the islamic state follows through with a great story from london in just a few months. and in other news put the reports on revealed his plans to battle corruption.

32 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on