Word: south
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...Everything that was will remain the same, they were just a game," says Alexei Malashenko, a scholar-in-residence at Moscow's Carnegie Institute. He points out that Kokoity has not only the support of his own Unity party, but also that of the only other two parties in South Ossetia's 34-seat legislature, the communists and the People's Party. The only democratic opposition is outside parliament altogether...
...present South Ossetia is only recognized by Russia and Nicaragua; the rest of the world still views it as part of Georgia. In a concrete reminder of its Western aspirations, Georgia has been hosting month-long NATO military exercises, which including drills in riot control and neutralizing suicide bombers. Moscow roundly condemned the exercises, which President Dmitry Medvedev described as an "act of overt provocation." (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory...
...Unlike Georgia's other separatist region, Abkhazia, which has a port and a coast attractive for tourists, South Ossetia has scant economic activity, making it largely dependent on Russia. Kokoity has frequently expressed hopes that South Ossetia would join North Ossetia, across the border in Russia proper, to recreate Alania - the land South Ossetians see as their ancestral homeland. But Russia, mindful of international disapproval for changing borders by force, has announced no plans to absorb the region into the Russian Federation...
...Before the August war, many South Ossetians made ends meet by trading food with neighboring Georgia, but the economy survived largely due to Russia's assistance and the illegal trade of arms, drugs and counterfeit money. That trade has fallen off since the tension on Georgia's border with South Ossetia and now unemployment is soaring under the separatist region's red, white and yellow flag. Kokoity's extra-parliamentary opposition, such as Vyacheslav Gobozov of the Fatherland Party, accuses him of theft and corruption...
...Many South Ossetians have left to find work elsewhere. Alan, who didn't want to give his surname, works in Moscow as a driver and sends money home to his family in Tskhinvali. He says that the region cannot continue the way it is. "There are no jobs except for construction-repair jobs, and those positions that are available are paid close to nothing," he says. "Young people leave South Ossetia as soon as they turn...