Field Reports
UNDEMOCRATIC MEDIA LAW VETOED IN KAZAKHSTAN
By Marat Yermukanov (5/5/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The controversial media law was adopted by parliament on March 18 after a long-run public discussion in the country. Expressing the mood of the majority of journalists, leading opposition parties complained that most of their suggestions aimed at granting more freedom of speech to journalists were discarded by parliament in the process of drafting the law. Far from being a substantial improvement over the law adopted in 2001, the new media law restricted further journalistic activities.IMPLEMENTATION OF SAAKASHVILI’S NATIONAL REFORM PROGRAM IN IMERETI REGION
By Theresa Freese (5/5/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
On 24 April, Gia Giorgadze, the former head of the governing bloc’s National Movement-Democrats office in Imereti region, officially became acting Kutaisi Mayor. The former mayor, Nugzar Poliani, had publicly announced his resignation four days earlier after several months of public pressure from a group of local NGOs, the regional prosecutor’s office, and the Ministry of Finance for alleged corruption related to his private business and abuse of state finances.Since the Revolution, Mayor Poliani had been a lame duck: He had won his seat during the 2002 local elections as a member of the opposition party, New Rights, and then switched sides to support the former president, Eduard Shevardnadze, reportedly under pressure from the then-governing bloc, For New Georgia.
PRISON SYSTEM REMAINS THE MAJOR SOURCE OF DRUG ADDICTION, HIV/AIDS AND TB IN KYRGYZSTAN.
By Aziz Soltobaev (5/5/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The Kyrgyz Government allocates only 40% of the budgeted sum for nutrition in prisons to the Central Prison Service Department (CPSD), justifying this with the lack of finances in the state budget. Prisoners receive additional food from relatives and other prison attendants, but that still does not rescue them from malnutrition. This problem directly impacts on the dissemination of TB, because malnutrition weakens the organism’s resistance to external diseases and viruses.WILL SAAKASHVILI MANAGE TO GET RID OF ABASHIDZE?
By Giorgi Vashakidze (4/21/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Bags of sands have been lined up in front of the interior ministry of Ajaria and over fifty armed men have been deployed to guard the territory. One tank and a Grad-type rocket launcher has been stationed on a stadium near the Ajarian Supreme Council by the directive of the Ajarian authorities. The main issue for the central government remains the disarmament of illegal armed formations in the autonomous republic.Visit also
Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Greater Central Asia as A Component of U.S. Global Strategy, October 2024.
Analysis Laura Linderman, "Rising Stakes in Tbilisi as Elections Approach," Civil Georgia, September 7, 2024.
Analysis Mamuka Tsereteli, "U.S. Black Sea Strategy: The Georgian Connection", CEPA, February 9, 2024.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, ed., Türkiye's Return to Central Asia and the Caucasus, July 2024.
Book Svante E. Cornell, ed., "The Changing Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Caucasus" AFPC Press/Armin LEar, 2023.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr, Stepping up to the “Agency Challenge”: Central Asian Diplomacy in a Time of Troubles, July 2023.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.