After the Revolution

For a tour of Kosovo during its declaration of independence – including some interesting anti-Serbian fashion statements, click here.

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Have you ever seen a country being born?
The Prime Minister of Kosovo declared Kosovo “independent, sovereign and free“ in a session of Parliament today.
To watch the BBC’s video of Prime Minister Hashim Thaci reading the declaration of independence from Serbia to the Parliament, click here.
But to watch the party outside, click here.
Mark Mardell described it in his blog:
“The streets of […]

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Though conspiracy theories about the death of billionaire opposition leader and media mogul Badri Patarkatsishvili seem to be losing steam, one question remains unanswered: What will become of Patarkatsishvili’s embattled television station?
 According to a recent article on EurasiaNet.org, Rupert Murdoch’s son is to arrive in Georgia in the near future to discuss purchasing a controlling […]

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Recently deceased Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili – a man who had monetarily sustained much of the political opposition to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili – had lived in fear of assasination.
He was wanted in Georgia and Russia and living in exile in England and Israel.
When he died at the age of 52 on Tuesday, British police called it “suspicious.”
But according to […]

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As I described in my previous post, Georgia’s richest citizen (and possibly the one who most resembled Mark Twain) died a “suspicious” death at the age of 52 on Tuesday. Badri Patarkatsishvili had been in exile in London after the Georgian government accused him of plotting a coup.
Gideon Lichfield, Jerusalem correspondent for The Economist, wrote about his encounter with Patarkatsishvili in his blog. […]

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The richest citizen of Georgia died suspiciously on Tuesday at the age of 52. 
I wrote about Badri Patarkatsishvili on Jan. 30 and and Jan. 15. He was the billionaire media mogul who supported Georigan President Mikheil Saakashvili during the Rose Revolution but ran against him in the most recent election.
He was in exile, having been accused of plotting a coup after last year’s […]

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I give Russia a break, and Putin has to go and threaten to aim nuclear missiles at Ukraine.
Ukraine and Russia may have just reached an agreement about Ukraine’s unpaid gas debt, but that doesn’t make Russian President Vladimir Putin any happier about Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s desire to join NATO.
Putin told Yushchenko at their recent meeting that if Ukraine allowed NATO […]

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Focusing in this blog on three countries that simultaneously depend upon and rebel against Mother Russia, I tend to write entries that portray President Vladimir Putin as the bad guy.
Mark MacKinnon, author of “The New Cold War,” wrote an interesting blog entry a few days ago entitled “It’s not always Russia’s fault.”
MacKinnon argues that a new Cold War […]

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The U.S. media tends to break down State of the Union addresses as if they were sporting events.
They count the number of breaks for applause, show replays of important people falling asleep and list most-used words.
Imagine how much fun they’d have if Congress were more like Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, where a fistfight that broke out among lawmakers prompted […]

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Why does so much news from the former Soviet Union remind me of “The Godfather”?
 I found this article this week:
“Severed ears and fingers have been sent in packages to three high-ranking government officials in Kyrgyzstan.
“The body parts were sent to the presidential administration chief, the director of the competition monitoring agency and a member of […]

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