Georgia's draft media law is rapidly becoming a major embarrassment for the Saakashvili government. Ironically, the new legislation, if adopted, would make life much harder for the Georgian media, which was a key player during the Rose Revolution of November 2003. Georgia's new tax code,... MORE

The Pakistani military's six-month hunt for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants along Afghanistan's southeastern border has escalated into new incursions to other areas of the South Waziristan Federally Administered Tribal Area. More ominously, these new offensives are in the territory of the more numerous and better... MORE

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili addressed an audience of prominent businessmen and other distinguished Americans and Europeans at a special event hosted for him by the Jamestown Foundation in New York on September 20. Saakashvili spoke on Georgia's state consolidation, its security problems, and its Euro-Atlantic... MORE

In an apparent attempt to break the strategic deadlock now governing Russia's policies in Georgia and Moldova, some Moscow political pundits advocate a speedy recognition of the secessionist regions of South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Trans-Dniester. To justify such a move, they advise putting the problem... MORE

On September 16, Georgian television broadcast live parliamentary debates on recent events in South Ossetia and how they fit into the broader context of Georgian-Russian relations. The pointed debate suggested that Georgia's political opposition has awakened from its long hibernation following the November 2003 Rose... MORE

As in many post-communist states, Ukrainian authorities control "loyal nationalist" groups. Paradoxically, although presidential front-runner Viktor Yushchenko is regularly assailed as a "nationalist," his Our Ukraine bloc has only one member that is nationalist: the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. Yet the recent wave of terrorist... MORE

Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov announced on September 21 that criminal cases have been launched against three senior police officials in Beslan, North Ossetia, for negligence entailing grave consequences in connection with the school hostage seizure that began on September 1 and ended with deaths... MORE

The fallout continues over the recent public statement by Richard Miles, U.S. Ambassador to Georgia, about the presence of terrorist groups in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge (see EDM, September 16). On September 21, Georgian Interior Ministry forces, in cooperation with the Security Ministry, inspected the Pankisi... MORE

In the aftermath of 9/11 and NATO's renewed strategic emphasis on developing its partnership with the Central Asian states, Tajikistan has increasingly sought to enhance its security assistance from foreign states. With this strategy, Tajikistan's leaders risk damaging their security relations with Moscow, though they... MORE

Leading opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko is the target of a range of dirty tricks intended to defeat his bid to succeed Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. As Russian political commentator Andrei Piontkovsky wrote in Ukrayinska pravda on September 10, "The basic strategy of the outside... MORE