Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire seeking political power in Georgia, is recruiting political allies to his proprietary Georgian Dream movement, ahead of parliamentary elections. A newcomer to politics, Ivanishvili started out by dismissing all of the numerous factions in the extra-parliamentary opposition as useless (he admitted... MORE

Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili has appointed his wife, Ekaterine Khvedelidze, as leader of his Georgian Dream movement. Its legal status is that of a “public,” i.e. a non-political organization. However, Georgian Dream pursues the declared goals of turning into a political party, winning the 2012... MORE

Senior US officials have sounded remarkably optimistic about the conduct of Armenia’s forthcoming parliamentary elections, which President Serzh Sargsyan will try to use as a launch pad for winning a second term in office in 2013. Highlighting Washington’s overall satisfaction with the current authorities in... MORE

Timing, route, and parameters make Azerbaijan’s Trans-Anatolia Gas Pipeline a game-changing project. Planned to run from the Georgian-Turkish to the Turkish-Bulgarian border, with a capacity of 16 bcm annually, and scalable to 24 bcm, the line would cost $5 billion to $6 billion to build... MORE

Energy Ministers, Natig Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Taner Yildiz of Turkey, signed on December 26 in Ankara a memorandum of understanding to build a Trans-Anatolia Gas Pipeline to Europe, dedicated mainly to Azerbaijani gas (“Direct Road to Europe: Azerbaijan’s Trans-Anatolia Gas Pipeline Project,” EDM, January... MORE

On January 2, a court in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia penalized two people who had participated in a public protest, sentencing them to five and ten days of detention. On January 1, the well-known North Ossetian journalist Elina Marzoeva and the rights activist Ruslan Magkaev were... MORE

On December 26 in Ankara, the Energy Ministers of Azerbaijan and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to build a Trans-Anatolia Gas Pipeline to Europe. Crucially, Azerbaijan would be the main owner of this line in Turkish territory. Azerbaijan regards this gas project’s significance... MORE

Turkey and Azerbaijan signed a memorandum of understanding that will facilitate the transit of Azerbaijani natural gas to Europe, changing the calculations over the EU-backed Southern Corridor concept. In October 2011, the two countries signed numerous agreements regulating the volume and price for Turkey’s gas... MORE

Georgian billionnaire Bidzina Ivanishvili launched his political movement, “Georgian Dream,” on December 11 in Tbilisi’s State Concert Hall. The venue and format were tailored to one of his core constituencies: the Tbilisi intelligentsia that lost state support after the Soviet era and survives professionally on... MORE

Armenia appears to be intensifying integration into the European Union, despite Moscow’s unease over the growing EU presence in its former Soviet backyard. The authorities in Yerevan are particularly keen to conclude a far-reaching “association agreement” that will lead, among other things, to a permanent... MORE