Since 25 March 2013, the UN Refugee Agency is providing its big tents and plastic sheeting to families affected by the heavy rains in Gori and Kopitnari. Following a request from the Ministry of IDPs from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia (MRA) and the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure of Georgia, the Representation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Georgia is helping victims of heavy rains and storm in Gori.

New government postpones deadline for providing proper housing to people displaced by past conflicts.

By Nino Gertsmava - Caucasus

The Georgian government has once again put back the deadline for providing housing for everyone displaced by conflict in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Most of the internally displaced persons or IDPs are ethnic Georgians who fled from Abkhazia and South Ossetia after the conflicts of the early 1990s. The Russian-Georgian war of August 2008 added to the numbers.

Prime minister’s charity group accused of making selective compensation awards.

By Tinatin Jvania - Caucasus
CRS Issue 673, 28 Jan 13

A charity owned by Georgian prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili is extending a helping hand to people whose homes and crops were damaged by hailstorms last summer. But the gesture has received a hostile response from residents of the affected area who say they have lost out in the compensation process.

12/14/2012 11:11 GMT

TBILISI, Dec 14, 2012 (AFP) - Arch foes Georgia and Russia are to meet Friday in Switzerland for their first direct diplomatic talks since ties were severed after they fought a brief war in 2008, officials in Tbilisi said.

Georgia's recently-appointed special representative for Russia, Zurab Abashidze, will hold talks with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin in Geneva, Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze said.

Panjikidze said the meeting was intended to lay the ground for future talks.

10/01/2012 15:46 GMT

by Matthew Collin

TBILISI, Oct 01, 2012 (AFP) - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili Monday faced a billionaire tycoon in parliamentary polls that pose the first big challenge to his nine-year rule and sparked concerns of unrest in the volatile ex-Soviet state.

The showdown between Saakashvili's ruling United National Movement and the Georgian Dream coalition led by Bidzina Ivanishvili has turned increasingly bitter after a prison-torture scandal prompted nationwide protests.

08/09/2012 – This is an unusual sight in Tbilisi’s Public School nr 47 in the centre of the Georgian capital: 20 boys and girls aged between 13 and 16 years share the school benches with Australian and Canadian representatives of UNECE (UN Economic Commission for Europe) and the Georgian Ministry of Environment Protection.

No one wants Islamic insurgency to spill over from Russia’s Dagestan region.

By Teo Bichikashvili - Caucasus CRS Issue 656, 31 Aug 12

Georgian troops killed 11 suspected Islamic militants who crossed the border from the North Caucasus this week, in what some see as a a worrying sign that instability could spill over from the Russian republic of Dagestan.

Armed men crossed into Georgia on August 28, and seized five people from the village of Lapankuri in the Telavi region.

08/15/2012 12:51 GMT

TBILISI, Aug 15, 2012 (AFP) - The breakaway region of South Ossetia is to demolish abandoned Georgian villages whose population was driven out by the war there in 2008, Georgian media reported on Wednesday.

The region's leader Leonid Tibilov said that houses in previously Georgian-populated villages, which were damaged during the fighting or torched afterwards by militias, would be torn down.

NEW MINISTER OF INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS FROM THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, ACCOMMODATION AND REFUGEES OF GEORGIA DALI KHOMERIKI

On 4 July 2012, the Prime Minister of Georgia, Ivane Merabishvili, introduced Ms. Dali Khomeriki as a new Minister of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia.

Outlining the importance of her new position, the Minister stated: “I will do my best in my new capacity to ensure that the new program of the Georgian Government - “More Benefit to People” reaches every IDP family”.