Eurasianet

Similar systems have been used around the world to encourage vaccinations. But under Georgia’s, you may be better off not being vaccinated at all.

Letters from Washington, cybersecurity cooperation with China, and negotiating with a bankrupt Taliban. This and more in our weekly briefing.

Employers are now effectively required to demand proof of vaccinations from their workers. But the country’s health care system is now being pushed to the limit.

The government hopes to boost vaccination rates, but a new anti-vaccine campaign is on the rise.

The new rules come as the country is trying to stave off a third wave of the virus and vaccination numbers remain in the low single digits.

With an art school and international animation festival, a Georgian Orthodox bishop is trying to revive a village on the de facto border with South Ossetia.

Bunin has also been banned from entering Uzbekistan.

Georgia’s mortality rate is among the world’s highest, and just under 6 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

The country already leads in vaccination rates in the South Caucasus. Many expect the new rules to drive a black market for fake vaccination passports.

Iranians have been flooding into Armenia to get COVID vaccines, causing Tehran to complain and Yerevan to tighten the rules.

Vaccine hesitancy in Uzbekistan is high, bred by social media conspiracies that seem credible in a country without accountable authorities.

Yet another fashionable slogan means nothing when it’s needed most.

New pressure from Washington will make China look even closer at Central Asia.

The surprise resignation has delayed the crisis, but there is still no end in sight to the country’s political impasse.

The coronavirus inoculation program is the first in the Caucasus and Central Asia, starting out with Chinese vaccines but incorporating Russian and Western ones at later stages.