Former Premier League footballer voted president of Georgia
A former Premier League footballer has been appointed president of Georgia amid heightening tensions over the country’s relationship with Russia.
Mikheil Kavelashvili, 53, was a striker for Manchester City between 1996 and 1997, and later played for several clubs in the Swiss Super League.
He was elected to parliament in 2016, and in 2022 co-founded the People’s Power political movement, which was allied with ruling party Georgian Dream, and became known for its strong far-right and anti-Western rhetoric.
Kavelashvili playing for Manchester City in August 1996 against Ipswich Town. Pic: Reuters
Mr Kavelashvili was also one of the authors of a controversial law requiring organisations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power” – similar to a Russian law used to discredit organisations critical of the government.
Mr Kavelashvili easily won the presidential vote as the Georgian Dream party controls a 300-seat electoral college that replaced direct presidential elections in 2017. It is made up of members of parliament, municipal councils and regional legislatures.
Some protesters outside Tbilisi’s parliament building on Saturday morning brought their university diplomas – after critcism that Mr Kavelashvili lacks higher education – while others kicked footballs.
Georgian Dream retained control of parliament in the South Caucasus nation in an election on 26 October that the opposition alleges was rigged with Moscow’s help. Georgia’s outgoing president and main pro-Western parties have since boycotted parliamentary sessions and demanded a rerun of the vote.
Georgian Dream has vowed to continue pushing toward EU accession but also wants to “reset” ties with Russia.
But critics have accused Georgian Dream – established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia – of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow. The ruling party has denied these accusations.
Georgian Dream recently pushed through laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.
Salome Zourabichvili, a pro-Western politician, has been president since 2018 and has vowed to stay on after her six-year term ends on Monday, describing herself as the only legitimate leader until a new election is held.
Georgian Dream’s decision last month to suspend talks on their country’s bid to join the European Union added to the opposition’s outrage and galvanised protests.
Thousands have gathered outside parliament every night since the suspension on 28 November, with riot police using water cannons and tear gas to disperse, with officers also assaulting demonstrators.
One protester Sandro Samkharadze said: ″[Kavelashvili] is not elected by us. He is controlled by a puppet government, by Bidzina Ivanishvili, by Putin.” Another waved a sign saying: “We are children of Europe.”
Demonstrators have vowed that the protests would continue.”If [the government] wants to go to Russia, they can go to Russia, because we are not going anywhere. We are staying here,” said protester Kato Kalatozishvili.
The EU, which granted Georgia candidate status in December 2023 on condition that the country meets the bloc’s recommendations, put its accession on hold and cut financial support in June following approval of the foreign influence law.
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Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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