The website for the de facto Abkhaz government notes that Bagapsh expressed "regret" about the presence of such war ruins in the capital, Sokhumi, and other towns, and "particularly along the central highway."
The demolition order in question will apply to the road stretching from north of the capital, Sokhumi, to Ochamchira, a Black Sea port town slotted to host a Russian naval base.
The news sent a ripple of anger across Tbilisi, where it was interpreted as targeted against ethnic Georgians who fled the region after the war. Officials have warned Sokhumi against demolishing private property legally owned by Georgians. In practical terms, however, Tbilisi has few options at its disposal to influence decision-making in Abkhazia.
Those steeped in the Caucasus tradition of drinking wine know that when somebody toasts you, you should toast them back in gratitude. Likewise, Moscow could not leave unanswered Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's June 21 claims that Russia’s four-year ban on Georgian wine has only improved its quality since Georgian wine companies were forced to export to more selective markets.
The Russian food safety administration (Rospotrebnadzor) “was right to stop the inflow of the suspicious mixture,” declared the administration's chief, Genadiy Onishchenko, on June 22. “At one point, at the beginning of this epoch of our confrontation, I said that the time will come when Georgian winemakers will thank me [for the ban], just like the Moldovan ones.”
Onishchenko added that Georgians are welcome to ask for the return of Georgian wine to Russian stores.
Time will tell. But given the bitter differences between the two countries over Russia's post-war behavior toward breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it's unlikely that Tbilisi and Moscow will be raising a glass of Kinzmarauli together anytime soon.
Armenia and Azerbaijan on June 21 clashed for the second time in roughly three days on the Nagorno-Karabakh frontline, RFE/RL reports. The skirmish, which allegedly killed one Azerbaijani soldier, comes after a June 18-19 gunfire exchange that killed four Armenian soldiers and one Azerbaijani soldier -- the worst violation of the Nagorno-Karabakh cease-fire since 2008.
Mediators pleaded with both sides to tone down the aggressive rhetoric that has accompanied the violence, which started the day after the conclusion of a St. Petersburg summit between Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Where is Armenia's economy? Well, to hear the World Bank’s country chief tell it, more than a third of the economy is closeted away in a world impervious to accounting and tax collection. Light must be shed on the shadow economy for Armenia to make ends meet, Airstomene Varoudakis said at a June 18 press conference.
“It is a very important challenge to formalize this informal economy so as to increase tax revenues and be able to pay for much-needed social services,” he said.
Armenia’s government described poor tax administration as one of the weakest spots in its economic stewardship and promised a massive overhaul of the system. That would mean a “softer” regime for business owners and fewer encounters with tax collectors.
Varoudakis said the World Bank will provide $25 million to underwrite the reform. The World Bank, IMF and Russia have provided hundreds of millions of dollars in economic aid to blunt the effects of the global financial crisis, a sharp decrease in foreign remittances and bust of the country's construction bubble.
By doing the unspeakable -- refusing to drink Georgian wine -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin hoped Georgia’s heavily agricultural economy would go to seed, but the Russian prohibition turned out to be a blessing in disguise, Saakashvili argued. While Georgian wine is still consumed in Russia, Georgian winemakers have found new outlets, and have diversified and improved quality, he claimed.
The moral of this tale? The grapes of Moscow’s wrath can make for a good Georgian wine.
Georgia has canceled taxes for information technology producers in an ambitious bid to turn the country into the Silicon Valley of the Caucasus. Finance Minister Kakha Baindurashvili hopes that the profit tax-free environment will attract Internet and computer software giants such as Microsoft and Google to set up regional operations in the new IT tax haven.
“We want to declare Georgia a tax-free zone for the companies that produce . . . .information technologies and software,” Georgian Prime Minister Nika Gilauri told a June 18 cabinet meeting, Rustavi-2 television reported. Baindurashvili told journalists that major .com businesses will be informed about the tax-free opportunities in Georgia.
More details have surfaced about the alleged June 16 attack on an Azerbaijani journalist, Natiq Gulahmedoglu (Adilov). A Baku convenience shop-owner apparently punched and chased the journalist with a spade for plucking a leaf from a tree the storeowner had planted in honor of the late President Heydar Aliyev. Both men complained to the police.
The storeowner said of Gulahmedoglu, known for his criticism of the authorities: “I do not know what kind of journalist he is, but he does not look like a patriot to me.”
The whole incident may look trivial, but the fact that the police held Gulahmedoglu at the station quickly sparked fears among his colleagues that the authorities were looking for a way to punish a critical journalist. Brawls have led to other journalist arrests in Azerbaijan in the past.
Ganimat Zahid, Gulahmedoglu's editor at the pro-opposition Azadlig newspaper, is worried that the authorities may use the incident to punish Gulahmedoglu for his attacks on the Azerbaijani government’s poor democracy record. Zahid was arrested and sentenced to four years in prison following a similar incident.
Gulahmedoglu reportedly does not see a political motive for the attack, according to Kavkazsky Uzel.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have accused one another of all the mortal sins since they launched into battle over the separatist region of Nagorno Karabakh, but the list of assumed misdeeds at times seems endless.
Now Baku says Armenia is a compulsive arsonist, who apparently runs through Azerbaijani wheat fields, throwing lit matches left and right.
The blaze has destroyed wheat crops in the occupied region of Tartar and, with temperatures rising, the fire threatens to destroy some 1,300 hectares of farm land.
The Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict may have stemmed from deep-seeded differences, but the chronic bickering between the two countries has long become reminiscent of iconic writer Nikolai Gogol’s The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich. The two Ivans are good neighbors, but one unfortunate incident sparks a never-ending, excruciating squabble that no arduous mediation by their well-meaning community can resolve. The two country gentlemen reach the point of no return after one has the indiscretion to call the other a silly “goose.”
By comparison, such a mild insult, if delivered by one side or the other in the 22-year Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict, would most likely rank as an improvement in dialogue.
Twitter and Facebook reports are coming from Azerbaijan about the alleged detention of yet another journalist critical of the government in circumstances similar to the arrest of bloggers Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli.
Natiq Adilov, who works for the pro-opposition Azadliq (Liberty) newspaper, was allegedly beaten and taken into custody on June 16, reports say. As was the case with Hajizade and Milli, an unidentified man allegedly attacked Adilov (this time, on the street in Baku) and then accused him of assault.
Police could not yet be reached for confirmation or denial of the reports.
There is an interesting piece in Salon.com about how the row between Turkey and Israel over the humanitarian flotilla incident is changing the Israeli perspective on Ottoman Turkey's World War I-era slayings of ethnic Armenians. The story may be largely about its disgruntled author venting his grievances against The Los Angeles Times for allegedly killing his article on the same topic for a perceived pro-Armenian bias, but it nonetheless includes some fresh observations on the politics surrounding Armenia's genocide recognition campaign.
Mark Arax argues that the idea of recognizing the slaughter of ethnic Armenians as genocide is gaining currency with Israel, which allegedly refrained from doing so previously out of fear of alienating a strong Muslim ally. With Turkey and Israel now at loggerheads over the flotilla attack, that reluctance could soon vanish, Arax predicts.
