Things Not Peachy in Georgia

Eduard Shevardnadze has been president of the Caucusus republic of Georgia since its independence from the U.S.S.R. a decade ago. Or had been. Nobody wants to say for sure.

Shevardnadze was chased from the parliament after he tried to convene that body in the wake of fraudulent elections on November 2. The opposition leader (Mikheil Saakashvili) and the speaker of Parliament (Nino Burdzhanadze), whose combined ages fail to add up to Shevardnadze's 75 years, engineered the ouster with massive public support. There are no reports of violence, and the architects are calling it a "Velvet Revolution", echoing the Czechoslovak phrase for their 1989 democratization (which was then followed by the Velvet Divorce).