Oslo Court is discussing the motion of the prosecutor to keep the Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik in prison before trial, which is scheduled to start on April 16.

Breivik gave permission to be filmed in court for the first time today.

In Norway`s worst attacks since World War Two, Breivik killed 77 people in July by bombing central Oslo and then gunning down dozens of mostly teenagers at a summer camp of the ruling Labour Party`s youth wing. A Georgian girl, Tamta Liaprteliani was among the victims of the terror attack then.

Breivik, a self-declared anti-immigration militant, may avoid jail but end up in a psychiatric institution indefinitely after court-appointed experts concluded he is criminally insane, prosecutors said in November.

Norway has a tradition of stressing rehabilitation of criminals rather than punishment. The Nordic nation of 4.9 million does not have the death penalty and the maximum criminal jail sentence is 21 years.

The library of the Georgian Technical University was rehabilitated and furnished with new rooms and depositories. The renewed library was opened by the Chairmen of the Parliament of Georgia, David Bakradze and the Minister of Education and Science of Georgia, Dimitri Shashkini.

The lobby of the library, features unique publications of the XVIII, XIX and XX centuries, the rarest copies are preserved in Georgian, English, French, German, Latin, Greek and Russian languages, these publications are not available in any other libraries of Georgia.

The Hall of the Electronic Books is equipped with 100 computers and features literature on IT technologies and Informatics.

The Hall of Press is equipped with 12 computers and the readers can get familiar with the varieties of domestic and foreign scientific periodicals

The Voter List Perfection Commission has begun to staff special mobile groups, which will begin door-to-door checking of the voters. The representatives of the regional branches of the commission assembled today to sum up the work of the branches and agree on further work for the door-to-door checking of eligible voters. Eleven offices have been already opened in Georgia`s regions and the process of voter checking will begin in April. The final version of the list will be published by the end of July.
The members of the commission and the heads of the regional commissions discussed technical issues at today`s session.
`Today we focused on the process of staffing the mobile groups, which will be trained afterwards and begin the process of door-to-door checking of voters,` the chairperson of the commission of the New Rights Party, Mamuka Katsitadze said.

The convicts, who are serving their sentences at Georgian prisons, will be able to get professional education - special educational-rehabilitation houses will be opened in the penitentiary facilities, where the professors and lecturers of the Tbilisi State University will deliver lectures. Afterwards, the convicts will get appropriate certificates.

Such educational centre was opened by the Minister of Corrections and Legal Assistance of Georgia Khatuna Kalmakhelidze and the rector of the Tbilisi State University Sandro Kvitashvili today.

Similar centers will be gradually opened in all other prisons of Georgia and professional education will be available for all convicts.

Kremlin`s favorite presidential candidate in Georgia`s occupied South Ossetia Region, Anatoly Bibilov has recalled his candidacy and called upon all other candidates to do so. Bibilov says he will not run for the president in the repeat election, scheduled for March 25.

So-called elections has been also boycotted by Bibilov`s main rival, Ala Jioeva, who won the previous elections, the results of which were annulled by the supreme court of the puppet regime. Jioeva has already announced herself a president and appointed the date of her inaugural ceremony on February 10th.

Georgian Labour Party plans to submit a new draft bill to the parliament, which proposes prohibition of selling agricultural land areas in Georgia to non-Georgian citizens.

Giorgi Gugava of the party said at the briefing today that several thousands of land areas have been already sold to foreigners, asserting the process must be stopped.

`Saakashvili continues to sell the territories of our country by pieces and finally, our lands will be in hands of citizens of India, China and other countries. If this process is not stopped, Georgia will be sold off by pieces,` Gugava told media today.

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Nikoloz Vashakidze briefed for media today and summed up the most important political events of the past week. Vashakidze focused on the visit of the Georgian president to the United States, first of all the meeting with President Obama and the security conference held in Munich.

Nikoloz Vashakidze emphasized the agreement of the two presidents to elevate military cooperation on a new higher level, which includes growth of military assistance for the improvement of Georgia`s self-defense; also the initiative of the U.S. President to launch negotiations on the free trade relations with Georgia. Deputy Minister also spoke about the visits that were planned during the meetings in Washington.

`Mrs. Clinton plans to arrive in Georgia soon to chair the next meeting within the most successful format of cooperation between Georgia and the United States which is the security strategic partnership format,` Vashakidze said and underlined that Georgia`s political reforms were hailed at the high-level meetings in Washington.

The spring session of the parliament will open tomorrow with a session of the bureau, where the lawmakers will approve the agenda of the committee hearings. The legislative government of Georgia plans to continue to work on several significant bills, including the anti-drug project. Several important economic projects aiming to improve the business environment in the country will be also initiated during the spring session. The lawmakers are working on the bills currently.
The chairperson of the parliament of Georgia Davit Bakradze says the lawmakers won`t be able to work perfectly at the autumn session due to the parliamentary elections in October, therefore, all significant bills will be discussed earlier. Bakradze said the basic direction of the parliament`s work will be economic and political issues.
`For us economic projects, which aim at improving business environment and creating new jobs are most important as well as the political reforms, which are tied with the process of democratization,` Davit Bakradze said.

Low temperature has frozen the River Mtkvari in Mtskheta City on Sunday. The water at the outfall of the rivers Mtkvari and Aragvi is currently covered with ice layer. Weather forecast says the temperature will rise today and tomorrow, but from February the 8th, it will fall again and it will snow on the whole territory of Georgia. Bad weather will be maintained in the region until February 12th.
Despite the low temperature and frost, the movement on all main motorways of the country is open. The Jvari Pass, which was closed due to the danger of avalanche, has been also opened for all kinds of transport.

Delegation of Kirgiz lawmakers holds meetings in Georgian parliament. Vice Speaker Mikheil Machavariani was the first to host the guests and introduce the reforms carried out by Georgian government in recent years. During the two day visit, the Kirgiz lawmakers will be familiarized in details with the implemented reforms and those, which are still underway. Kirgiz journalists are accompanying the parliamentary delegation.
Mikheil Machavariani said after the meeting that their Kirgiz colleagues are well aware of Georgia`s successful reforms and they wish to share this experience.
`We want to share Georgia`s experience of successful reforms, which has already given its results but you keep on working in this direction. Totalitarian regime was changed twice in Kirgizstan, but we are beginning economic reforms only now. Therefore, your experience is invaluable for us. We want to learn from you, introduce this experience to our country and other CIS neighbors too,` Omarbek Aburakhmanov, the member of the delegation told journalists after the meeting.

In a wide-ranging interview with French quarterly review Politique Internationale, President Sarkozy highlighted most memorable moments of his presidency. French president said one of the most significant events in this period was ending the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
Sarkozy highlighted his role as EU president in 2008 in "putting an end to the war between Russia and Georgia" and France`s participation in the Libya intervention, saying it had saved "the people of Benghazi from the bloobath (Moamer) Kadhafi had promised".
Sarkozy hopes his work as the president was successful for France too.

Portuguese police have arrested a gang of four people suspected of robbery, two of which are Georgian nationals. Local media is reporting that the age of the robbers is from 30 to 40 years. Two of them are Georgians, one Ukrainian and the third person of the gang has not been identified yet.
The suspects had the loot - jewelry and metal tools used for breaking the locks with them - the police report.
The detainees will face their charges soon and be tried by local judiciary.

Three people have been hospitalized with CO intoxication in Tbilisi late last night. Reportedly, teh CO lacked from the faulty gas heater. A Mother, her child and a relative, who was visiting the family at that moment, were transferred to the Fifth Clinical Hospital of the capital. Doctors said after the examination that the health state of the patients was not so serious. They were provided necessary treatment and their health state is satisfactory at the moment.
Tbilisi mayor`s office calls on the residents of Tbilisi to check up the work of their gas heaters for free within the Safe Winter municipal program.

Vice Prime Minister of Georgia held meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart in Kiev. The two leaders discussed prospects of relations in various spheres between the two countries at the meeting.

Giorgi Baramidze and Sergei Tigipko are co-chairmen of the intergovernmental economic commission between Georgia and Ukraine.

Giorgi Baramidze also met representatives if teh Georgian Diaspora in Ukraine.

Delegates and foreign ministers from the Arab countries meet for the third day of the Security Conference in Munich against the backdrop of a Russian and Chinese veto against a UN resolution on Syria.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili delivered a speech at the conference.

"We can compare the sudden upheavals of 2011 and the ongoing protests in various parts of the world to what the economist Nassim Nicholas Taleb has called Black Swans—improbable, unpredicted high-impact events which amaze the analyst community when they appear, yet in retrospect seem obvious or inevitable to everybody.

"They take us by surprise and force us to recalculate our sense of the possible, challenge our conventional wisdom and oblige us to look at the world in another way.

"The media hastily dubbed the 2011 movements as “the Arab Spring,” but – as we all saw yesterday in the streets of Moscow - they span far beyond the Middle East and the spring season, respecting no limits—of time, geography, or culture.

"These massive protests remind all of us that freedom, democracy, and accountability matter and even that they matter more than anything else.

"More than cultural, political, religious or social differences, more than fake stabilities and geographic borders.

"They move nations and reshape the security environment.

"Today, we are barely one year past that historic moment in December 2010 when an unknown Tunisian citizen named Mouhamad Bouazizi set himself on fire in the remote town of Sidi Bouzid.

"Thirteen months later, we note with amazement how this isolated act of despair has changed the course of history and our perception of the world.

"Tunisia’s dictator Ben Ali was toppled one month later.

"The fearless crowds in Tahrir Square defeated Mubarak’s regime.

"Governments from Morocco to Saudi Arabia acceded at a diverse extent to public demands for reforms.

"Muammar Gaddafi and his despotic regime were overthrown.

"And the protests grew well beyond the Middle East.

"We can barely grasp the meaning of what has happened, nor can we know where these diverse events will lead.

"There is no freedom textbook for our friends in Tunisia, Libya, or elsewhere. But there are experiences of post-revolutionary transitions interesting to be studied.

"Georgia’s post-revolutionary experience of radical social, political and mental transformation does not provide a transferable model for the many countries that have known or will sooner or later know pro-democracy uprisings.

"But reflecting on our own experience help us to understand the diverse challenges these societies in transition face.

"... no matter how beautiful and moving popular uprisings are, the real revolution occurs after the cameras from CNN and BBC and Al Jazeera have left the country. It consists in the long and difficult process of reform that follows.

"Revolutions are fought and won by the citizens of the countries in which they occur.

"But the response of the international community matters – both in order to support democratic movements and to deter those who want to suppress them.

"Seen from our part of the world, two radically different attitudes emerge, embodied by two specific regional powers.

"On the one hand, the Russian Federation reacted with panic and outrage to freedom movements in the Middle East and tries everything it can to prevent any international support to these uprisings, anywhere.

"On the other, Turkey asserts itself as a role model for the post-revolutionary countries and an active supporter of the change.

"On the one hand, one government that desperately tries to halt the progress of History, on the other one, another that decided to embrace the evolutions of the world.

"It is not a coincidence if Russian influence is decreasing while Turkish leadership is growing in our region.

"This is a lesson and a message of hope: there is no future for global powers playing against the will of the people. Outside or inside their borders.

"Because this difference of attitude reveals a much deeper difference of attitude: towards their own citizens.

"You cannot calm your own people anymore by proposing a return to Soviet Union or nurturing their imperialistic nostalgy.

"People want respect, rule of law. People want freedom.

"This Monday, I had the pleasure to meet President Obama in the Oval Office. I was impressed by his vision and his knowledge of the dynamics of my region.

"Of course, I was pleased to hear him telling the media that Georgia had become “the role model of democracy and transparency” in the region and praising the institution building that has taken place in my country.

"These were humbling words to hear. But we could never have achieved so much without the support of our American and European friends.

"Democracy needs support and tyranny requires deterrance.

As I stressed to President Obama, we are determined in return of this unwavering support to be a security contributor to the Western community of nations we aspire to join, not just a security consumer.

"That is why we have deployed over a thousand our soldiers fighting in the dangerous Helmand Province, including 12 who bravely paid with their lives; and we will nearly double our troop commitment in the coming months.

"This is not easy for my country. It is not easy for any country. It is simply necessary.

"But – and I will finish with this - the main message I wanted to carry with me to Washington and to Europe is this one: there is no such thing as Western decline.

"Despite the economic problems and the doubts about the future, 2011 has shown that the very values on which the trans-atlantic Alliance is based are on the rise.

"People all around the world are ready to risk their lives for freedom, accountability and respect.

"This is a fantastic message of hope and this is what really matters at the end of the day.

It means that authoritarian models might look strong and present impressive growth rates but they propose no credible and universal alternative.

"It was a mistake to proclaim the End of History after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and to think that the progress of liberal democratic values in the world would not be challenged anymore.

"Let’s not make the opposite mistake now.

"Let’s not give in to the prophets of the Great decline, the clash of civilization or any form of cultural relativism..

"Let’s not overlook the universal call for freedom that we are witnessing in the most diverse parts of our world.

"Because in this call lies the true motor and the true meaning of History." Saakashvili said.

A new government institution supposed to control insurance and social agencies will be established soon in Georgia, Parliament Speaker Davit Bakradze told the local population in the town of Zugdidi of Samegrelo Region in Western Georgia today.

As reported, people will be able to submit their proposals and claims towards social agencies to the new structure.

It was also said that representatives of the local municipalities will be able to mediate in the process of granting the status of socially vulnerable to persons and families.

Along with the speaker, other leaders of the parliamentary majority also held meetings in Samegrelo. They visited the towns of Poti and Abasha.

Georgian president continues his visit in the U.S. Mikheil Saakashvili visited the United States Naval Academy (USNA) in Annapolis on Friday (February 3).

Mikheil Saakashvili was taken from Pentagon to the academy by the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, the American multi-mission, military, tiltrotor aircraft with both a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), and short takeoff and landing (STOL) capability.

A special solemn reception was held in the academy to meet President Saakashvili. He was met on the central square of the historical academy.

The orchestra of teh academy performed the national anthems of Georgia and the U.S. at the ceremony. 21 cannon salutes were fired to honor President Saakashvili.

Raymond Edwin Mabus, the United States Secretary of the Navy guided Mikheil Saakashvili around the historical building and the campus of the academy.

Later, Saakashvili met students and other representatives of teh academy. At the meeting the president was introduced by the United States Secretary of the Navy to hundreds of students as the leader of the most democratic country.

Mikheil Saakashvili in his speech accented the bilateral cooperation between the two countries, saying that the U.S. is not only a partner to Georgia, but it is the country, which embodies the idea of liberty.

Founded in 1845 by Secretary of the Navy, George Bancroft, the Academy started as the Naval School on 10 acres of old Fort Severn in Annapolis. Since then, the history of the Naval Academy has reflected the history of the United States. Among its notable graduates are President Jimmy Carter and Republican Senator John McCain.

At the moment, 4400 students are studying at the academy. Among them are only 30 foreigners, including four Georgian students.

Mikheil Saakashvili inspected the students` dormitory, later met the Georgian student and talked to them.

During his visit to the USNA, Mikheil Saakashvili was presented with a student`s jacket of teh academy. Along with the emblem of the academy, the president`s name was also written on the special pilot`s coat presented to the president.

Within the next days, 27 convicts are expected to leave prisons in Georgia. There are no underage convicts included in the list.

Results of the sittings of the Parole Commission were summarized at a special briefing today.

Cases of several hundreds of convicts were discussed at the sittings.

Search operation at the site of shipwreck off the Turkish coast has been resumed. After rescuers found out the boat that had sank to the bottom, divers engaged in the operation.

They dove down into the hull of the freighter.

Fate of the missing sailors remains uncertain so far. The divers continue to search for the Georgian mechanic Murman Darsadze, who is also missing.

11 crew members were on board when the accident took place. The strong storms likely caused the crash of the Vera freighter.

The freighter sank off the coast of Turkey few weeks ago. The ship`s second and third captains and its cook, a woman, were rescued and hospitalized.

Republican Party leader has downplayed the allegations of the Free Georgia party leader Kakha Kukava, who accused the opposition party leaders of making decisions for Georgian billionaire and politician Bidzina Ivanishvili. Davit Usupashvili held a briefing at the Prime Time Press Club today trying to convince the society that Bidzina Ivanishvili is an independent politician, who takes political decision independently, after taking consultations with his political allies.
`Kakha Kukava`s accession into the coalition has not been put forth for discussion neither by any subject in the coalition, or by Kukava himself. Therefore, any statements that something was blocked by some political subject, is a lie. Only those talk about unity and unification most of all, who can never stay in any union, including their own parties,` Usupashvili said.