 RFE/RL Caucasus Report 5/7/2010 A review of RFE/RL reporting and analysis about the countries of the South Caucasus and Russia's North Caucasus region. For more stories on the Caucasus, please visit and bookmark our Caucasus page . |
 Armenian Moves To Contain Toxic Site Responding to dire warnings from ecologists, Armenian authorities have moved to clean up a toxic-waste burial site near Yerevan that appears to have been dug up by unknown intruders several months ago. More  Norwegian Filmmaker Leaves Azerbaijan With Less Than He Came In With Noted Norwegian journalist and filmmaker Erling Borgen recently visited Azerbaijan to produce a documentary on freedom of expression -- or the lack thereof -- under the authoritarian leadership of President Ilham Aliyev. He left with first-hand experience. More  Eastern Partnership? Never Heard Of It European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called it a “new start” in the EU’s relations with its Eastern neighbors. But one year after the signing in Prague of the Eastern Partnership with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, the European Union seems to have all but forgotten what was then touted as a landmark initiative. More  U.S. Hopes To Keep Armenia-Turkey Reconciliation Process Alive RFE/RL Armenian Service director Harry Tamrazian says the Obama administration has not signaled any willingness to give up on the process, and some level of active engagement by U.S. officials is likely to continue. More  After Just A Year, Are Wheels Coming Off EU's Eastern Partnership? A year after its celebrated inception, the European Union's Eastern Partnership for Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan has sunk into the kind of obscurity that tends to envelop unloved EU projects. More  Biden Delivers Message Of Reassurance To Europe U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's keynote address to European lawmakers in Brussels came amid suspicions in many EU capitals that Washington's attention is drifting away from the Old Continent. More  Inside The World of Georgia's 'Partly Free' Press Freedom House recently rated the Georgian media as "partly free," needing just a couple more points in order to slip into the shameful "not free" category. Since Georgia claims to be an essentially European democracy (albeit it with some shortcomings), the "partly free" rating is completely unacceptable. More  Armenian Court Upholds Journalist's Jail Term Armenia's highest criminal court has upheld a prison sentence for a newspaper editor and opposition leader for his alleged role in 2008 postelection violence in Yerevan. More  The EU's Imperial Understretch While there is no question its gospel of reform is well-meant, the European Union seems utterly oblivious to the fundamental paradox at the heart of its neighborhood policy -- that what it does presupposes a stability that can only be secured by radically different means. More  Interview: Georgia's 'Little War' Raises Big Questions Was the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia a fight over small separatist provinces? Or did it represent something larger? The latter, says Ronald Asmus, executive director of the Brussels-based Transatlantic Center of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and author of the recently released "A Little War That Shook The World: Georgia, Russia and the Future of the West." Asmus tells RFE/RL that leaders in Europe and the United States have yet to grasp the war's full meaning. More |
