As the Georgian government entertains the idea of allowing Russia to resume direct flights, Washington and Brussels have issued warnings about complying with international sanctions.
Officials in Moscow and their allies in Abkhazia and South Ossetia all canceled meetings with international diplomats brokering the discussions, casting the future of the talks into question.
A leadership election in Georgia's biggest opposition party has shown that informal rule may be a more widespread problem in the country than previously thought.
The surviving popularity of the komuz as a living instrument, rather than a museum artifact, and the flourishing tradition of Kyrgyz folk music is in no small way thanks to Malik Alikeyev, who died on January 17.