The South Caucasus republic of Georgia is struggling with a plague of brown marmorated stink bugs (BMSB), or Halyomorpha halys. Originally native to East Asia, the BMSB is an agricultural pest that can cause widespread damage to fruit and vegetable crops, particularly when present in... MORE

The Georgian seaport city of Batumi hosted the eleventh annual Georgia Defense and Security Conference (GDSC), on October 12. The event was attended by Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili, Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, Parliamentary Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze, as well as a number of high-ranking government officials,... MORE

On September 27, the head of Azerbaijani Railways Company, Javid Gurbanov, along with his Georgian and Turkish counterparts, Mamuka Bakhtadze and Ahmad Arslan, respectively, attended the first test run by a passenger train along a section of the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (BTK) railway, from the Georgian capital... MORE

On September 30, Georgia’s minister of interior, Giorgi Mgebrishvili, urgently traveled to Samtskhe-Javakheti, a region on the country’s southern border. Most of the residents of this area are ethnic Armenians, though they hold Georgian citizenship (Jam-news.net, October 2). The minister flew by helicopter to the... MORE

October 1 marked five years since the Georgian Dream (GD) coalition, led by Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, won its landslide victory against the ruling United National Movement in the 2012 parliamentary elections (Cec.gov.ge, 2012). GD ended UNM’s nine-year rule, representing modern Georgia’s first ever peaceful... MORE

The party of former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, United National Movement (UNM), has begun actively preparing for local elections, scheduled for October 21. Its first major action, which caused a big response, was a rally in downtown Tbilisi, at the central office of Cartu Bank,... MORE

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

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 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