The US Department of Commerce is working with two private American-Georgian business associations to stage a trade summit in Tbilisi in late October. The initiative is part of a general effort to bolster investor confidence in Georgia.
After weeks of unity following the war with Russia, the truce between Georgia's opposition and the government has finally ended. Opposition leaders are now scrambling to define their position against President Mikheil Saakashvili and his role in the war.
Television has played a critical role in shaping public opinion about Georgia's recent war with Russia, but some media analysts and journalists state that patriotism has outweighed objectivity or critical reasoning in broadcast coverage of the war.
Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili has called Tbilisi's latest withdrawal agreement with Russia a "moderate success," but uncertainty lingers over how the situation on the ground would look after the promised pull-back of Russian forces.
One month after war broke out with Russia, Georgian officials and foreign business executives are maintaining a cautiously upbeat outlook on the investor climate in the country.
The Georgian school year could prove the latest casualty in the war over South Ossetia. Georgian officials are now grappling with a painful dilemma, as public schools in Tbilisi and elsewhere in Georgia are trying to figure out ways to accommodate both students and thousands of Internally Displaced Persons now living in the buildings.
Over 20,000 Georgians from villages destroyed during the war with Russia have taken shelter in over a hundred public schools in Tbilisi. Although Georgian schools are supposed to open by September 15, there is no official decision as yet about where to move these displaced persons.
Georgians are welcoming the arrival of American aid shipments, interpreting them as a get-tough message to Moscow, and as a gesture of enduring support.
Brushing aside international calls for restraint, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on August 26 approved a parliamentary resolution to formally recognize the independence of Georgia's two separatist regions -- Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The move is sure to inflame tension in the Caucasus and accelerate the deterioration of Russia's relations with the West.
Russia moved to recognize the contested territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on August 25 in a move apparently calculated to capitalize on lingering tensions between Moscow and Georgia following the two countries' armed conflict this month.
