At its first session, the newly elected assembly introduced an entirely new leadership team, but the fealty to President Ilham Aliyev was as strong as ever.
A long-awaited deal should make the country’s electoral system more representative of the popular will, and bring an end to the protests and instability that have seized Georgia since last summer.
The effort is part of a long-standing desire to reverse the country’s population decline. But to many, it sounded like the government was blaming women for infertility.
The criticism from Abkhazia is rare, given its deep dependence on Russia. But a Russian media report about the “poisoning” of an opposition politician appears to have triggered Sukhumi.
On his visit to Georgia, the Armenian prime minister called on the two countries to move beyond their long-running frenemy relations and conflicting geopolitical orientations.
Last year the candidate, Aslan Bzhania, claimed to have been poisoned by the then-president. Now he has fallen seriously ill again and his campaign says the vote can't go ahead without him.
Armenia went farther than most of Iran’s neighbors, closing its border for two weeks. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, was the only country to have not closed its border with Iran at all.
The country is banking on new hydropower projects to solve energy problems. But the communities most affected don’t trust government assurances that the dams will be safe.
The novel technique suggests that the government was struggling to manage the fallout from the disappointing results of the previous weekend's elections.
The legislative efforts come after long struggles between the government and a hostile media, much of which is controlled by figures close to the former regime.
