Last week saw bands from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia compete in the semi-finals of a Metal Battle Caucasus to determine which three bands would perform at the final next month. The winner will get to perform at the Wacken Open Air Festival to be held later this year in Germany.
BBC Azeri yesterday published some of my photos documenting the environmental protest in Tbilisi’s Vake Park and so I paid a return visit the night before to check if there were any new developments. Basically, there are none although legal action has not been rejected by the courts. Instead, more information needs to be provided before any case against the construction can proceed.
Braving the recent snowfall and plummeting temperatures, environmentalists have managed to prevent construction from continuing in Tbilisi’s central Vake Park — for now at least. Blockading the road leading to the site where a new hotel is being built, activists from Guerrilla Gardening Tbilisi are now camped out adjacent to the construction site.
A few hours after the first reports of fatalities during violent clashes in Ukraine surfaced, some Georgians took to Facebook to organise a small solidarity rally in support of Euromaidan protestors outside the site of the former parliament building in Tbilisi. The demonstration follows similar events held last year.
My first presentation of 2014 and as with the year just gone it was to be for an audience as unexpected as my first presentation then. In February 2013 it was to be at an intergovernmental seminar for the U.S. Government’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) and Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF). This year it was to be for 50 students from the U.K. military’s tri-service Advanced Command and Staff Course.
Last night saw another rally in Tbilisi, Georgia, in support of Euromaidan protestors in Ukraine. Unlike last week’s rallies, which were definitely more grassroots, the latest rally appeared more organised and of interest to local media, probably because of the involvement of Tbilisi’s Mayor and plans to illuminate a prominent building on the city’s central Freedom Square in the colours of the Ukrainian flag.
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso has just published a few of my photographs of this week’s Ukraine Euromaidan solidarity action held outside the old parliament building in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Last week, the 4M Journalism and Social Media Forum came to the South Caucasus. Organised by Canal France International (CFI), previous 4M’s have been held in Nairobi, Cairo, Abidjan, Belgrade, and Tunis. Earlier this year, I had also been invited to speak at their 3rd annual meeting in Montpellier, France, although an air traffic controller strike meant I arrived a day late and couldn’t.
As I mentioned in a previous post, a message posted to a mailing list saw me pay a visit to an Armenian Catholic center in Tbilisi. Although Armenians are mainly Apostolic, Catholic Armenians are still an important minority in both Armenia and Georgia. Today’s return visit wasn’t just to photograph the kids at the center though. It was also to help them with their English language skills.