ABGEO linked
ABGEO LINKED is a place, where any one of you can submit a post from or about the Caucasus.
Start >>here<<
Any questions? Visit our website abgeo.ca and follow us on twitter.Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation
The Berghof Handbook for Conflict Transformation is a comprehensive and cumulative website resource that provides continually updated cutting-edge knowledge, experience and lessons learned for those working in the field of transforming violent ethnopolitical conflict. The website content comes from two central resources: 1) commissioned Articles by leading experts from current practice and scholarship; and 2) a Dialogue Series on key issues, in which practitioners and scholars critically engage and debate with one another in light of their varying experience. Dialogues, along with a 2004 and a 2011 version of the main body of the Handbook, are also distributed in print.
The Berghof Handbook is not attempting to summarise the consolidated knowledge of a well-established discipline. It is an effort to draw attention to established practices and concepts, as well as to thorny issues and challenges. Instead of presenting a collection of recipes or ready-made tools, our goal is to put these established practices into a broader conceptual framework in order to understand their functions, strengths and weaknesses. http://www.berghof-handbook.net/
Hop before you take a giant leap
American astronaut Neil Armstrong’s famous quote of “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind” during the first lunar landing can be defined as actors (whether it be people, nations, ethnic/religious groups, etc.) should tackle small challenges in a large scheme before moving on to bigger issues. His quote can also help us to understand recent Georgian-Russian relations. Russia earlier this month joined the World Trade Organization after Georgia dropped its objections to Russia joining the UN body in an agreement brokered by Swiss mediators. Both sides did not get what they wanted entirely as they came to a compromise. Georgia and Russia agreeing on something may not sound like a major achievement, but it is a step in the long road to re-normalizing relations between the two countries. Reconciling differences between nations does not happen out over night. They start with small steps. Since the conflict between the two neighbors in 2008, relations have improved from a previous record breaking low. The agreement of Russian membership in the WTO is just one thing in a list of mini-steps toward improving relations such as opening up interest sections in each other countries via the Swiss embassy, allowing limited chartered plane flights between Moscow and Tbilisi, negotiations over the lifting a Russian import ban of Borjomi mineral water and hopefully more improvements in their relationship to come. Historically, small diplomatic maneuvers can have lead to big changes. Take for instance Sino-American relations. The United States and the People’s Republic of China did not have diplomatic relations from the communist takeover of the Chinese mainland until the early 1970s. What helped to thaw decades of total mistrust was a series Ping-Pong or Table Tennis matches between national teams. Now China is America’s second largest trading partner and America is China’s largest trading partner all in the span of about forty years. People usually begin with small projects and eventually move on to bigger things as we progress, in a similar spirit to re-establish diplomatic relations between countries.
-Kyle Logan
IDP voices Georgia
Below is a link to a website called IDP voices, which is an excellent on internally displaced persons in Georgia from Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The website is available in English, Georgian and Russia.
