TBLPOD26sept2013

CRRC/NDI #’s: Jobs #1, more Osset barbed wire, Hammarberg report, Misha & Obama, Burj financial issues, Smirba got a plan, Lakayev extradition, lots of little presidents, Margvel program launch, Kbilashvili in Moscow, Vano MEP visit, Bacho on prosecutors, Bacho’s wife’s video, Sabanadze (34 million) Chkhitunidze, Melnikov extradtions, Levan Pirveli’s back! Immoral behavior & physiological needs, Kakabadze manifests metaphor, 1000 Lari Kakheti vouchers, Huter ag suit, Misha mayor, Sokhumi off plane, Lesotho Ambassador, floods in Mestia and Kakheti, Girvliani’s mom’s statue, Tamaz Tkemaladze wants TV show, Rachveli conductor quits, Export Development Agency, ISET say GeoStat numbers good, more sanitary inspectors, In Bloom award, Margvel on Stalin, Tourism guy on Azeris and Jews, Kutaisi-Vilnius, constitution, inventions, Zero tolerance schooling, old people %.

6 thoughts on “TBLPOD26sept2013

  1. The constitutional amendments, endorsed on September 20, involve a proposal to cut some of PM’s powers vis-à-vis parliament when changing cabinet members.

    New constitutional provisions, adopted in 2010, which will be enacted after the new president, elected in the October 27 election takes oath, will significantly increase PM’s authority at the expense of cutting presidential powers.

    Under the constitution, which is currently in force, in case of change of one-third of cabinet ministers, the entire government and the PM require to be re-confirmed by the Parliament.

    This clause will be removed after the new constitution goes into force after the October election.

    GD-proposed constitutional amendments offer to keep this clause in order not to allow PM to change more than third of cabinet members without Parliament’s authorization.

    New constitution will give the PM right to initiate non-confidence vote against the cabinet in respect of any government-sponsored bill. In this case the Parliament will have to either confirm government-sponsored bill with one reading, instead of three hearings, within 14 days or will launch non-confidence vote procedures.

    GD-proposed constitutional amendments envisage removing this clause from the new constitution.

    GD-proposed amendments also envisage introduction of a new clause in the new constitution according to which if the Parliament fails to confirm state budget within first two months of new fiscal year, it will amount to launch of non-confidence vote procedures; but if the Parliament fails to confirm new government, the President will have the right to dissolve the Parliament and to call snap elections.

    Under the constitution, which is now in force, the President has the right to either sack government or dissolve Parliament if the latter fails to confirm next year’s budget before the end of current year.

    The MEME this week comes from Palitra TV which decided to introduce Georgian inventors. In the video you can see shoe that works as a charger, “trail-erasing” and singing cup. Palitra TV plans to introduce more interesting individuals with their original projects in future features. Link: http://goo.gl/9pLu24

    THINGS TO READ:
    Report of Public attitudes in Georgia: Results of September 2013 Survey carried out by CRRC for NDI. The research was funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. Link: http://goo.gl/oQ1h4l

    An article by Steven Traylor on “The Baltic Times” titled: “Georgia’s prime minister sends mixed signals.” Link: http://goo.gl/wQGsBt

    TI Georgia’s blog post about living conditions of ecological migrants in Shavghele. Link: http://goo.gl/X96zs2

    The paper “Zero-tolerance schooling: education policy, crime, and democracy in post-Soviet Georgia” by Nodar Tangiashvili & Gavin Slade explores the consequences of the massive investment in criminal justice in Georgia following the Rose Revolution. Link: Link: http://goo.gl/8uwfdB Also check out Gavin Slade’s tedx talk on thieves in law or his piece on open democracy called Georgia, the politics of punishment. Link: http://goo.gl/aPtwFU

    An article on The Economis titled “Sex-selective abortion Gendercide in the Caucasus. “ Link: http://goo.gl/98Glxi

    An article on DfWatch.net about the challanges with EU’s visa procedures. Link: http://goo.gl/qiFTny

    ANNOUNCEMENTS
    From the 3rd till the 10th of October the former building of the newspaper “The Communist” will host an exhibition titled “the 90s Georgia.” The Address of the event is #14 Kostava str. Link: http://goo.gl/0PRLjW

  2. Mr Mullen, did you play El Paso by Marty Robbins in honor of his birthday or because of the final episode of Breaking Bad is entitled Felina? Inquiring minds want to know

  3. Aw geez! I have been moving heaven and earth to avoid learning about the “Breaking Bad” finale, because I’m just now starting to watch the series, and now I hear “Felina” is the episode title on TBLPOD? The world is too freaking flat.

  4. The GNTA dude needs to do his homework. China has about 70 million Communist Party members, not 1.3 billion. By contrast, there are something like 100 million underground Christians in China (many of them quite wealthy) who have little familiarity with where Christianity first developed in its early centuries, and find travelling to places like Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, the Levant and Greece to be very interesting and rewarding. Most Chinese people don’t know that Stalin was Georgian, do not care, and would not waste their hard-earned cash on visiting dreary museum devoted to him when much nicer places beckon. Most of them haven’t even visited the museum of his client, Mao Zedong, in his hometown of Shaoshan.

  5. Best for the State to stay out of export market development. People with real talent in export promotion tend to be hired by the private sector and paid handsomely for performance.

    Why not just give exporters vouchers to spend on whatever export market development consultants they like, be it Big Four or a boutique market entry consultant? Alternatively, match industry associations’ export market development budgets lari-for-lari, and leave campaign execution to the experts?

    Many developing countries have industry association levies on exported goods to cover industry-level export market development expenses, matched by government in the early days and then state subventions are progressively reduced over time so that exporters are responsible for their own export promotion expenses.

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