He declared a state of emergency and accused the opposition of staging
Posted in General on 07. Oct, 2010
He declared a state of emergency and accused the opposition of staging an “armed coup”.”I will not resign. I will resign when the presidential term expires, according to the constitution,” he said before his car, accompanied by armed guards in riot gear, pulled away from the parliament building. “I, as chairman of the Georgian parliament, in accordance with the constitution, will take on the functions of the President until such time as it becomes clear whether he [Shevardnadze] has the ability to continue,” Ms Burjanadze said.But Mr Shevardnadze, 75, the former foreign minister of the Soviet Union, vowed not to resign. Fist fights broke out after Mr Saakashvili ordered Mr Shevardnadze’s supporters to leave the building.
He then claimed the “velvet revolution has taken place”.The Georgian parliament’s outgoing speaker and leader of another opposition group, Nino Burjanadze, said she was taking on the role of President. Led by opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili the demonstrators overturned tables and chairs and leapt on to the podium. The embattled Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze had to be hustled from the parliament building in Tbilisi by bodyguards yesterday after hundreds of opposition demonstrators stormed the building.
They broke in while Mr Shevardnadze, re-elected after a contested election earlier this month, was convening the new parliament.Georgia’s opposition parties say the election was rigged and have demanded Mr Shevardnadze’s resignation. Instead, the two leaders hope to push forward the discussions on how to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale next spring. A royal visit to Paris and a couple of unusual sporting events, to symbolise the integration of French sports stars into the British way of life, are under consideration.. From the French side, Britain is the obvious first stepping stone in the slow business of rebuilding bridges across the Atlantic.
Tomorrow he will repeat France’s offers to make a modest contribution to the reconstruction of Iraq. There is no prospect yet of it sending combat troops but there is an offer to help train the new Iraqi army and police force.President Chirac will also try to avoid embarrassing his host by not reminding him publicly of France’s pre-invasion warnings about the dangers of occupying Iraq. Mr Blair will also be anxious to hear him say that there will be no referendum in France on the proposed EU constitution.Relations between the two leaders are better now than they were 12 months ago, when they were trading verbal blows at an EU summit in Brussels. They reached the low point in March, when the UK held Mr Chirac personally to blame for the failure to obtain a second UN Security Council resolution, which would have given legitimacy to the invasion of Iraq. The pro-war Sun has portrayed Mr Chirac as a worm, while French newspapers have, only slightly more politely, described Mr Blair as an American poodle.But Mr Blair and Mr Chirac now have a strong mutual interest in being seen to get along. The Black Watch is 250 years old and it refers to itself as Scotland’s “premier regiment”.The Conservative’s defence spokesman, Nicholas Soames, criticised the proposals. “There are no circumstances that would merit a cut in the infantry at a time when the world has never seemed more dangerous,” he said..
Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac will make a major effort to repair frayed relations between Britain and France during a summit in London tomorrow. As well as the withdrawal of troops from Ulster, the problem of recruiting and retaining soldiers by some regiments is believed to be a factor in the cuts.Infantry regiments should have about 650 troops at full strength, but many battalions, especially those in the Scottish Division, have consistently failed to achieve this, meaning they need to be reinforced by other units when on deployment.The Royal Scots, which was formed in 1633, is the Army’s oldest regiment. A battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment and at least one of the two battalions of Gurkhas will also be cut, although defence chiefs hope to avoid large-scale redundancies by achieving the fall in numbers through natural wastage and transferring soldiers to other units.More than 9,000 soldiers need to be cut as a direct result of the Northern Ireland peace dividend, where troop numbers are to be scaled down to 5,000 by April 2005. The British Army could lose up to 10 of its most famous regiments, including the illustrious Royal Scots and the Black Watch, in the largest reorganisation of the armed forces for half a century, it was reported yesterday.
Other regiments to be disbanded include the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and the Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire, according to a report in The Sunday Telegraph. A two-night stay in Venice will set you back £395, and a seven-day tour of Catalonia will cost £750. But the Tate insists it is offering excellent value for money. The Venice trip is being over-seen by the gallery’s resident specialist on the Italian city..