The parliament of Georgia approved amendments to the Constitution, on September 26, in its final, third reading. One hundred and seventeen lawmakers—mostly from Georgian Dream–Democratic Georgia (GDDG)—voted in favor and two against. Parliamentarians from opposition parties United National Movement (UNM) and European Georgia (EG) walked... MORE

Many countries around the world are now threatened by rising sea levels in coastal areas as a result of climate change and the melting of the polar ice caps. Russia is experiencing such a scenario in the Arctic. But it is also facing another serious... MORE

Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov paid a visit to Israel, on September 11, to discuss cooperation in the military and military-technical spheres with the host country’s leading defense industry enterprises. While there, he also toured the Command and Control Center (CCC) of the Israeli Armed... MORE

Political leaders normally like to convert “either/or” issues into “more or less” ones because the latter permit compromises while the former typically do not. However, the fight over the requirement that all residents in Tatarstan study Tatar fall into the former category. And as much... MORE

From September 3 to September 11, Georgia hosted the multinational military exercise Agile Spirit 2017 (Agenda.ge, September 11). Originally, Agile Sprit started off as a bilateral United States–Georgia military exercise, normally held at the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital of... MORE

What occurred on September 10, at the Medyka-Shehyni crossing on the Polish-Ukrainian border, is remarkable. Earlier that day, Mikheil Saakashvili, the third president of Georgia and a Ukrainian opposition politician, declared his intention to reenter Ukraine after having been deprived of his Ukrainian citizenship on... MORE

The reaction of Russia’s Islamic community to the ongoing prosecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar occurred suddenly and unexpectedly. Groups organized unsanctioned rallies in front of the Myanmar embassy in Moscow, in Makhachkala (Dagestan) and in Grozny (Chechnya), on September 3 and 4. Some demonstrators... MORE

The United States’ ambassador to Yerevan, Richard M. Mills, praised the participation of an Armenian unit in the US-led Noble Partner 2017 exercise, held on July 30 to August 12, in Georgia, along with Georgian, British, German, Slovenian, Turkish and Ukrainian military forces. Ambassador Mills... MORE

The Embassy of the United States in Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia, has announced that it is ready to issue US visas to Russian citizens, if they apply to the embassy with such a request (News.am, August 26). The statement by the US diplomatic... MORE

The unprecedented escalation of violence, in April 2016, on the Line of Contact in the breakaway region of Karabakh had, in part, kick-started a new round of military preparations between Armenia and Azerbaijan (see EDM, April 6, May 5, 2016). But as bloody incidents along... MORE