Badri Patarkatsishvili is the most powerful, albeit not the most popular, among the opposition candidates in Georgia’s snap presidential election on January 5. The oft-used designation of Patarkatsishvili as an “oligarch” is a misnomer in the Georgian context. Oligarchy involves a group, but Georgia does... MORE

Patarkatsishvili had set up his fully owned Imedi media holding in 2002 and the Imedi television channel in 2003. Given Georgia’s meager advertising market, Imedi was a money-losing enterprise, heavily subsidized from Patarkatsishvili’s funds. It cost him some $20 million annually, according to Georgian financial... MORE

Today (December 18) the tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili publicized his socioeconomic program as a presidential candidate via his fully owned media holding, Imedi. Addressing Georgia’s voters from his temporary London domicile in the run-up to the January 5 presidential election, Patarkatsishvili pledged to: Cover the expenses... MORE

Imedi Television’s reopening on December 12 (see EDM, December 13) leaves key questions about the channel’s ownership and management unanswered. The issue of responsibility for possible violations of the law remains equally blurred. Imedi TV had been forced temporarily off the air by the authorities... MORE

Georgia’s pro-opposition Imedi Television resumed broadcasting its political programs on Wednesday, December 12. The authorities had temporarily closed Imedi TV on November 7 as part of a state of emergency. The channel had instigated unlawful actions against state authorities during the November 2-7 opposition rallies... MORE

The new proposal from the OSCE’s Minsk group, put forward to the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan at last week’s OSCE summit in Madrid, needs to be studied in more detail by expert groups, according to Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov (ANS TV,... MORE

With just over two months to go before a fateful presidential election, Armenia’s leadership is stepping up what increasingly looks like repression against supporters of its most formidable opponent, former president Levon Ter-Petrosian. The authorities in Yerevan have been busy in recent weeks harassing his... MORE

Unanswered questions persist and are even multiplying about the relationship between Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and Imedi Television, the vehicle of Georgian tycoon and presidential contender Badri Patarkatsishvili. Co-owned by News Corp. and Patarkatsishvili, but controlled de facto by Patarkatsishvili-appointed program managers, Imedi TV agitated... MORE

The United States has voiced support for the ambitious idea of building a new nuclear power station in Armenia in place of an aging Soviet-era facility, boosting the chances of its realization in the near future. Moreover, the U.S. government announced last week that it... MORE

Azerbaijan’s decisive role in launching the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (Turkey) railroad project to link Asia and Europe (see EDM, November 27) underscores the country’s surge to regional leadership on energy and transport projects. Barely one year into full-scale operation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Azerbaijan has begun... MORE