BRUSSELS — In his column entitled “What Did We Expect?” in the New York Times of August 20, 2008, Tom Freidman argues that the recent conflict in Georgia proves that Nato enlargement in the 1990s was a strategic mistake and helped … Continue Reading…
Today is the 100th day in office for Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, and the Russian media runs overviews of the accomplishments of the period. They have been summed up by Izvestia as “at the end of the 100-day period, Putin’s dream is finally achieved: unity in two. The President … Continue Reading…
On August 8, the conflict between Russia and Georgia erupted into war over break-away enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. German Marshall Fund has been tracking the developments in the wider Black Sea region for the … Continue Reading…
BERLIN — The government and legislature are officially still in their summer break, but both Merkel and Steinmeier have given interviews and are said to be involved in brokering talks. The foreign ministry’s Caucasus representative, Hans-Dieter Lucas, was in Tbilisi these past days as well. Merkel and Steinmeier, in their … Continue Reading…
BRUSSELS — The current war in Georgia has taken much of the world by surprise. However, for those of us working on Georgia and traveling to that country, including the separatist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it was a conflict that was both predictable and avoidable. The … Continue Reading…
PARIS — On Saturday morning, Le Figaro dedicated one full page and its editorial (signed by Pierre Rousselin) to the Georgia crisis. After a description of what happened Friday, Temour Iakobachvili, the Georgian Minister in charge of the re-integration of separatist territories, put the … Continue Reading…
The Beijing Olympics have seemed destined to be about something – anything – other than the games. Last year, we were preparing for the ‘Genocide Olympics’. Then the ‘Burmese Junta Olympics’. This year the ‘Oppressed Tibetan People Olympics’. More recently, the prospect of a ‘Robert Mugabe … Continue Reading…
By Joe Guinan and Nicola Lightner
The Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization is now dead. Like the Monty Python parrot, it has passed on, is no more, has ceased to be, expired and gone to meet … Continue Reading…