Q & A Archive

On Oct. 27, voters in Georgia picked Giorgi Margvelashvili to replace outgoing President Mikheil Saakashvili, affirming the prominence of the Georgian Dream party, which ousted Saakashvili’s United National Movement in parliamentary elections last year. In an email interview, Cory Welt, associate director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the George Washington University and an adjunct fellow at the Center for American Progress, discussed the ramifications of the vote for Georgia’s democracy WPR: What does the successful presidential vote, in addition to last year’s parliamentary transfer of power, indicate about the strength of Georgian democracy? Cory Welt: […]

The World Health Organization confirmed this week that there has been an outbreak of polio in Syria, where war has devastated the health care system and there is little hope of doing much to stop the spread of infectious disease. Trend Lines spoke with three experts about the issues of restricted access, the targeting of health care workers and the inability to move people and supplies across borders. “This is clear evidence of the collapse of the health care system in Syria and the terrible humanitarian consequences,” said Elizabeth Ferris, co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement, explaining that […]