By Blanka Hancilova and Jaba Devdariani (1/14/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Before resigning in November, Georgian President President Eduard Shevardnadze sought to isolate the opposition triumvirate of Mikheil Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze by sending his envoy Aslan Abashidze to Baku and Yerevan in order to paint the opposition as a dangerous nationalist clique which could endanger the Armenian and Azeri minorities in Georgia and the stability of the South Caucasus as a whole. Following Shevardnadze’s resignation, the new Georgian leadership first sought to sooth Georgian relations with Russia. On December 28 – 29, State Minister Zurab Zhvania embarked on a trip to Baku and Yerevan.By Robert M. Cutler (1/14/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Real GDP fell throughout the first half of the 1990s in all newly independent states, declining by about half in Kazakhstan. The country was also adversely affected towards the end of the decade by the Asian and Russian crises as well as by fluctuating world market prices for energy. However, Kazakhstan\'s economic performance has significantly improved since late 1999, due partly to capable macroeconomic engineering, partly to the rebound of world energy prices, and partly to spillover effects from energy-sector growth taking hold in the domestic economy.By Abraham Cohen (12/17/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Since the mid-1970s, countries in both Eastern and Western Europe as well as the Slavic republics of the former USSR (Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) have experienced a steady and accelerating decline in population, leading to aging and a shortage of workforce, especially in low paid and unqualified branches of the economy, as well as increasingly, problems with conscripts to military service. In Western Europe, this led to the migration to Europe of more than fifteen million immigrants, mainly from Turkey, francophone Arab countries and Eastern European countries. Still, the enlarged European Union of 25 members and 350 million people will be in need of millions of new workforce in coming decade in order to sustain the system of social welfare and pensions.By Fariz Ismailzade (12/17/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and the United States have engaged in a mixture of geopolitical competition and cooperation in the Caucasus region. Considering the region as its own backyard, Russia looked with suspicion to American efforts to engage the newly independent countries of the Caucasus into western military, political and economic institutions. The U.The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.
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