"Georgia prime minister’s pick wins presidency" by Lynn Berry | Associated Press, October 28, 2013
TBILISI, Georgia — The candidate backed by Georgia’s billionaire prime minister easily won Sunday’s presidential election in this US-aligned former Soviet republic, exit polls indicated. His closest rival quickly conceded defeat.
With the convincing victory by former university rector Giorgi Margvelashvili in what for Georgia was an unusually calm and predictable election, Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili has cemented his control.
Although he may now make more progress in decreasing tensions with Russia, Ivanishvili has maintained the pro-Western course set by the outgoing president, Mikhail Saakashvili.
The main uncertainty is over how Ivanishvili intends to govern and whether he is willing to see Saakashvili jailed.
During nearly a decade in power, Saakashvili put Georgia on the path toward democracy, but he deeply angered many Georgians with what they saw as the excesses and authoritarian turn of the later years of his presidency....
I'll bet they are glad he is gone after he brought war to the republic in 2008.
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Also see: Sunday Globe Special: Death in Georgia
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"US prosecutor to review odd gym death in Ga." by Kate Brumback | Associated Press, November 01, 2013
MACON, Ga. — A federal prosecutor said Thursday he will review the facts and evidence in the death of a teenager whose body was found inside a rolled-up wrestling mat in his high school gym.
US Attorney Michael Moore said that if he uncovers sufficient evidence to warrant a criminal civil rights investigation into the death of Kendrick Johnson he will ask the FBI to conduct it.
‘‘I will follow the facts wherever they lead. My objective is to discover the truth,’’ Moore said.
That would be a first for a federal prosecutor.
Moore said he’s reviewing a previous investigation by a sheriff’s office and two autopsies done on Johnson, along with photos, videos, and other evidence and information. He said he’s met with investigators and the attorneys for Johnson’s family.
‘‘I am committed to doing everything in my power to answer the questions that exist in this case, or as many of them as we can,’’ Moore said.
The 17-year-old’s body was found Jan. 11 stuck upside down in an upright mat in the gym after his parents reported him missing the night before. Lowndes County sheriff’s investigators concluded Johnson died in a freak accident while trying to retrieve a shoe, but his family insists that someone must have killed him.
So which important person's kid at the school murdered him?
An attorney for the Johnsons praised Moore’s action.
‘‘We have to solve this murder mystery and we think the federal government’s intervention is one step closer to solving this mystery,’’ said attorney Benjamin Crump.
A Georgia judge on Wednesday ordered the release of all surveillance video that investigators reviewed.
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