Word: georgians
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...report was written over nine months by Heidi Tagliavini, a Swiss diplomat leading the inquiry, with the help of 19 European military, legal and history experts tasked with investigating the "causes and roots" of the conflict. The war lasted just five days: Russian forces quickly repelled the Georgian assault and advanced deep into Georgian territory, pulling back only when a cease-fire was brokered. Yet soldiers remain on the border between the two countries to this day, and tensions have not subsided. (Read "One Year On, Could Russia and Georgia Fight Another...
...Georgia was "the culminating point of a long period of increasing tensions, provocations and incidents," the report says. In the run-up to the war, Russia issued passports to South Ossetian citizens, which the investigators say "runs against the principles of good neighborliness and constitutes an open challenge to Georgian sovereignty and an interference in the internal affairs of Georgia." More ominously, the report notes that there seemed to be an "influx of volunteers or mercenaries" from Russia to South Ossetia in early August 2008. (See pictures of the Russians in Ossetia...
...Beyond Tbilisi and Moscow, the report was welcomed as a basis for both sides to start anew. Ulrike Lunacek, an Austrian member of the European Parliament who sits on a committee focused on Georgian affairs, says it is important to look beyond mere finger-pointing. "It is not helpful to start a blame game - both sides played their role and share the blame. And both sides need to do something to resolve the issue," she says...
...Lawrence Sheets, Caucasus project director of the nonprofit organization Crisis Group, is skeptical about whether the report will change anything. "Russia has firmly re-established its geopolitical position in the region, so there is almost no prospect of Georgian reunification," he says. Since the cease-fire, Russian troops have effectively sealed the border between South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia, and increased their military presence in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But while Moscow has recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations, only Nicaragua and Venezuela have followed suit...
...presentation by planners from the firm Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture and Engineering suggested that the new buildings could feature state-of-the-art technologies that would make both the neo-Georgian and more modern Houses ecologically efficient with facilities that contribute less to Harvard’s carbon footprint...