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Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili today lavished praise on the leading advocate for German investors in Russia whilst lashing out at the opposition: people who, only last week, he accused of being manipulated by Russia.

The president was speaking at the opening of a new apple juice concentrate factory owned by baby food magnate Claus Hipp (pictured with son). Hipp, as well as being a Georgian honorary consul to Germany, is the president of the Association of German Industry in the Russian Federation: the umbrella group for German entrepreneurs investing in Russia.

Yet just last week, in advance of the second anniversary of the events of 7 November - when he ordered heavily armed police to attack peaceful demonstrators and then sent special forces to storm the Imedi TV station - Saakashvili said that Russian manipulation of the opposition had meant he had to act against disidents. Today he, perhaps wisely, given whose factory he was speaking in, he did not lambast the Russians but did round on the opposition.

"The opposition itself, has money, houses in the centre of Tbilisi, has good jeeps, has a good time and are not interested whether peasants sell apples or be employed," he said this afternoon.

And for the second time in as many days the president gave voice to the increasing resentment many in the Georgian regime feel towards the European Union by saying that  "an ordinary European would have be afraid" to have made Hipp's invesment in Georgia after an earlier meeting between the German businessman and the Georgian president had been disrupted by protestors.

The Georgian administration is unhappy at the EU for its reluctance, in their eyes, to press hard against Russia's tireless promotion of the separatist regimes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and because of the increasingly visible European displeasure at Saakashvili's assault on human rights and media freedom with the EU today sponsoring a conference into human rights issues in Georgia.