After the Revolution

In a flurry of acronyms, the U.S. and the U.K. supported Georgia at the U.N. this week in the Abkhazia dispute.
Russia withdrew trade sanctions against the breakaway republic last week.
The United States and Britain criticized the move, saying it opened up the possibility of weapons trade.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili will discuss the issue with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon […]

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Russia doesn’t usually look too kindly on former Soviet states that elect pro-Western leaders.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavro seems to have found a Georgian he can get along with: Ilia II, a 75-year-old man who has been a patriarch in the Georgian Orthodox Church since 1977.
1977 - that’s 14 years before Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union.
According […]

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Mikheil Saakashvili was sworn in as president of Georgia on Jan. 20 after an election internationally recognized as flawed but generally accepted as valid.
The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) published a review of the electoral process specifying a number of problems.

The voter turn-out was much […]

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With about 80,000 Georgians protesting elsewhere in the capital, Mikheil Saakashvili was sworn as president on Jan. 20.
Saakashvili said he would strive to strengthen Georgia’s relationship with the West. But he also offered an olive branch to Russia.
Georgia expelled Russian officers from the country in 2006 on charges of espionage. In response, Russia forbade all Georgians from traveling to Russia, a restriction they later eased. 
But Russia […]

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