18 November 2011
On 13 November, South Ossetia held its fourth Presidential election since independence, and expectations were low, given the authoritarian tendencies of President Kokoity and the fact that many opposition candidates had been excluded unfairly or because they didn't satisfy the harsh 10-year residency requirement. It was predicted by some that …
Read the rest of this entry
15 November 2011
Contested States in World Politics
Deon Geldenhuys
Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke
April 2009
305 pages
ISBN: 978-0-230-57552-3
A commonly heard argument against recognition of Kosovo or Abkhazia is that it would create an immense precedent, given that there are hundreds of separatist movements in the world. If Kosovo or Abkhazia, then …
Read the rest of this entry
12 May 2010
What started as a brawl following a Georgian TV talk show has taken a definite turn for the surreal now that one of the central figures in the controversy has fled to Tskhinval , of all places. Even before this latest development, the situation was quite confusing.
The TV station in …
Read the rest of this entry
8 February 2010
The list of countries who recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia has been increasing ever so slowly over the course of the last two years - at the rate of about one country every six months - so that the question arises: who's next?
Belarus was long seen to be the country that …
Read the rest of this entry
23 December 2009
The Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets claims that after the August 2008 War, Russia was originally planning for Abkhazia and South Ossetia to form a confederation, and to recognise them as one state. The crux of the plan though was that the confederation would have been open for new members, specifically …
Read the rest of this entry