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POLICE IN GEORGIA arrested 43 protesters during a violent crackdown on an overnight protest against the government’s decision to delay pursuing membership of the EU.
A total of 32 police officers were injured, according to the interior ministry, as thousands rallied in the capital, Tbilisi, and other cities across the country after the Prime Minister announced the decision yesterday evening.
The interior ministry labelled the demonstrators ‘hooligans’ as riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas, and deployed water cannons, beating peaceful protesters and journalists outside the parliament building in Tbilisi, an AFP reporter saw.
The move comes amid a post-election crisis that has seen the president challenge the legitimacy of the newly elected parliament and government.
Two female politicians from the opposition Coalition for Change, Elene Khoshtaria and Nana Malashkhia, were reportedly injured during the protests. Khoshtaria sustained a broken arm, while Malashkhia suffered a broken nose, the coalition said.
The prime minister’s announcement came hours after the European Parliament adopted a non-binding resolution rejecting the results of Georgia’s recent parliamentary elections, alleging “significant irregularities”.
But he pledged to continue implementing reforms, asserting: “By 2028, Georgia will be more prepared than any other candidate country to open accession talks with Brussels and become a member state in 2030.”
Opposition lawmakers are boycotting the new parliament, alleging fraud in the October elections, in which the ruling Georgian Dream party gained a new majority.
President Zurabishvili – at loggerheads with the ruling party Georgian Dream – has declared the ballot “unconstitutional” and is seeking to annul the election results through the Constitutional Court.
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Why do they have to wait until the busiest weekends to do the work on the train lines? Could they not do that work at night during the week days and have it ready to bring people here and there during bank holidays?
@David Corrigan: They already do a lot of work at night, but for some work a 6 hour window is just not long enough, I presume. If it takes 2 hours to replace a gearbox you can’t do it in 4 separate bursts of 30 minutes.
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: But they try and fit all the repairs into a 3 day weekend instead of doing it on a 5 day week. Kinda blows your theory out the window, eh?
@David Corrigan: No, they frequently work around the clock. A few years ago a small bridge needed replacing near my brother’s house. August bank holiday, they started at about 7.00pm on Friday and worked through, with floodlights, and finished about 4.00pm on the bank holiday Monday. Virtually 60 hours continuous work, in shifts. The bridge soan itself was gone for about 36 hours as the replaced the anchorage and supports. This type if work needs a large and continuous chunk of time, and can’t be done in a standard 9 to 5 day. So a decision us taken to disrupt ‘leisure’ traffic over a bank holiday rather than the working hours of 10s of 1000s of commuters during a working week. Some people may not like that decision, but you can’t please everybody. A shorter time disrupting fewer people.
@David Corrigan: One line closure over the weekend by Iarnrod Eireann on the Belfast line. And one closure by NIR (makes sense to do both works at the same time).
Being a regular traveller on that line, I can tell you it is a lot busier during the week than it will ever be on any weekend.
People complain these lines should be electrified and upgraded. But when a push comes to shove they don’t want the inconvenience. I’d say expect a lot more of this over the next couple of years as electrification and infrastructure upgrades are brought in.
@David Corrigan: It’s three days where it’s not busy with commuter traffic. Disrupting the majority of people on days off is better than disrupting them and businesses for work commutes I assume is the logic
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: why do all these repairs specifically this weekend? These problems didn’t arise overnight, if they checked as they should, they should have prevented any possible fault before the fault happened, it’s called prevention.
You don’t wait until an airplane engine fails for you to repair it, it has mandatory service and diagnosis after a certain amount of time. the same goes for rail infrastructure. The fact that they had to repair them after they broke means that they didn’t check and keep track of them before so they can do a planned repair maintenance instead of a reactionary repair. That’s the problem
@J Ven: The bridge hadn’t broken. It hadn’t fallen. It was checked and deemed to need replacing. The continual repairs over the previous 100+ years were not enough anymore. So…… it was replaced. And it was decided to cause minimum disruption be doing it at a weekend where fewest people use it. (Am I correct in saying that every track is ‘walked’ and checked at least once a week??).
@Sean O’Dhubhghaill: how do other countries with 24/7 public transport manage their infrastructure maintenance without huge interruptions? Why is public transport here in Ireland treated as the ugly stepchild and not given adequate priority and funding? It’s beyond a joke that there’s only one North-South line on the east coast of this Ireland. It seems the motto is “Ah sure, it’s grand, who’d need alternatives, they have one railway, they should be happy”
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: Entire London tube lines are closed periodically. Entire stations closed.
@David Corrigan: The figures show that the least amount of customers are affected if they use weekends including bank holidays.
@J Ven: These are upgrades to the lines. As part of Dart + and the new Enterprise services to and from Belfast.
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: They do exactly the same as Irish Rail and close likes and stations at weekends particularly bank holiday weekends.
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: Cities like London have multiple lines going to most areas the way the web of lines are built. So closing one section isn’t as big a deal as here. Iarnrod Eireann and their contractors can only manage what they have. If you need extra lines and major upgrades well then that’s government infrastructure nation development plans, etc. So talk to your local TD. I’m sure he/she will oblige.
That’s like saying the Road Haulage truck driver people should be building new motorways.
It’s obvious from some of the comments here that project management and logistics are not strong points of some journal readers.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: Neither are they strong points amongst the people who manage public transport here in Ireland. Or it wouldn’t be the misery it is
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: hmmm. I’d be interested to hear how you would manage say a piece of work that requires 40 hours work, like replacing track sections or upgrading or replacing singling infrastructure.
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: They are very effective in Irish Rail considering the hoops they have to jump through.
That would be two easy to do day are brain dead in this country full stop ✋️
@Alan Moloney: says the man who can’t spell….
@Alan Moloney: says the lad who cant even spell correctly…..prime example of the brain dead here folks!
@Tom Newell: your one yourself
@6gRrQtLn: we are very funny today
@Alan Moloney: “You’re” or “you are” not “your”.
@Tom Newell: your one of them
@Eamon: what
Fair enough that works need to be done, but then provide viable alternatives and not a “limited” bus service
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: A limited bus service in conjunction which the regular bus service.
having had to do bus transfers before, there are enough buses for all the passengers.
Sadly the transfers by bus were caused by sad events and had nothing to do with Irish Rail.
Typical and typically.
We apologize for the convenience caused, due to technical difficulties…
God , I remember that deadly statement at least twice a week a decade ago… I bet that did not change.
Why are we not allowed comment on the contraversal issues?
Car share to minimise emissions, at an air display, PC BS. All the Best.
I hope they have a stealth fighter jet
This seems to happen regularly over bank holiday weekends, nearly yearly, massive overtime for all involved, Do we have an emergency Bus network reserved for these occurrences, or are buses taken from regular routes, depriving, regular bus passenger’s of their services.
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