A Bit More Detail

• Window on Eurasia notes the post-Soviet collapse of the numbers of learners of the Russian language, here.


• Window on Eurasia reports the claim of a Russian politician that in 1991, securing the nuclear arsenal of Ukraine was a bigger priority than trying for borders changes, here.


• Window on Eurasia notes how Belarus cannot protect itself from Russia, here.


• Window on Eurasia explains why the Soviet Union let the Armenians and Georgians keep their alphabets, here.


• Window on Eurasia explains how Russia's naval and marine power is not doing well, here.

• VICE considers how mass transit issues in Queens will be changed by the Amazon HQ2 relocation there.


• The Edmonton alternate paper Vue Weekly will be closing down this month, Global News reports.


• The ongoing disastrous fires in California have left San Francisco with the worst recorded air quality of any city in the world, Global News reports.


• Guardian Cities looks at how the disaster-prone city of Manizales, in Colombia, prepares for catastrophes.


• Guardian Cities looks at how, after years of unregulated construction and growth, the Georgian capital of Tbilisi is trying to prepare for smarter growth.

• Prospect Magazine shares Ivan Rogers' inside perspective on how David Cameron's misunderstanding of the political priorities in the wider EU was (mostly) responsible for the ill-judged decision to hold a referendum on Brexit.


• Haaretz shares Oz Katerji's devastating criticism of many left-wing intellectuals for turning a blind eye to genocides they find politically inconvenient. (Noam Chomsky, stand up please.)


• Eric Lee suggests that the moderate Menshevik government that ruled Georgia for a few brief years offers insight into a more humanistic way that the Russian Revolution could have taken, over at Open Democracy.


• Irena Guidikova suggests that initiatives taken at the level of the cities are most important for the integration of immigrants, that helping them build networks and acquire social capital must be central to any project, over at Open Democracy.


• Matt Novak at Gizmodo's Paleofuture notes that, after substantial work, copies of the Voyager Golden Record are finally available for purchase.

• Bulgaria and Macedonia have at last signed a treaty trying to put their contentious past behind them. Greece next?


• The legacies of Stalinist deportations in Moldova continue to trouble this poor country.


• The plight of the ethnic Georgians apparently permanently displaced from Georgia has been only muted by time.

• blogTO notes that yesterday was a temperature record here in Toronto, reaching 12 degrees Celsius in the middle of February.


• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly writes about the pleasure of using old things.


• Joe. My. God. notes the death of Roe v Wade plaintiff Norma McCorvey.


• Language Hat notes that, apparently, dictionaries are hot again because their definitions are truthful.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money considers if the Trump Administration is but a mechanism for delivering Pence into power following an impeachment.


• Steve Munro notes that Exhibition Loop has reopened for streetcars.


• The NYRB Daily considers painter Elliott Green.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes that North Carolina's slippage towards one-party state status is at least accompanied by less violence than the similar slippage following Reconstruction.


• Window on Eurasia warns that Belarus is a prime candidate for Russian invasion if Lukashenko fails to keep control and notes the potential of the GUAM alliance to counter Russia.

Donald Trump flew to the Black Sea resort town of Batumi in 2012 and, standing alongside then Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, announced a deal licensing his name to a $250-million 47-story residential Trump Tower to be built by a local developer called Silk Road Group.

Six months later, Saakashvili’s party lost parliamentary elections and later his term ended. He left Georgia, afraid his newly empowered opponents might jail him. Batumi’s Trump Tower seemed doomed -- until now.

“The project will go ahead, talks are on,” Giorgi Ramishvili, Silk Road’s founder, told Georgian television Tuesday. “As soon as the transition period is over some time in January, we can talk.”

Reached by phone, Ramishvili declined to elaborate. “I cannot say anything else without the green light of partners,’’ he said.

The Georgian development is one of many Trump deals suddenly in a new light now that they are associated with the incoming U.S. president. Experts say some may find financing or approval more easily, raising concerns over conflict of interest. Trump has said he will outline his plan to remove himself from his business Thursday, but deals he’s signed with business partners around the world are unlikely to be torn up.

• Centauri Dreams considers the oceans of Pluto and Enceladus.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes a disintegrating exoplanet.


• The Dragon's Tales notes that the American military can't afford Iron Man suits.


• Language Hat notes a study of fragmented language.


• Language Log looks at multilingual signage in Manhattan.


• The Map Room Blog shares a typographic map of San Francisco.


• Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen reports from the Belgian neighbourhood of Molenbeek.


• Steve Munro looks at SmartTrack.


• The New APPS Blog considers Brexit in the context of regulations and austerity.


• Torontoist notes the importance of Pride for people just coming out.


• Understanding Society looks at how organizations deal with their errors.


• Window on Eurasia argues Georgia is sacrificing its relations with the North Caucasus.

• The BBC notes an attack on a vegan restaurant in Tbilisi by meat-eating nationalists.


• Bloomberg notes a slur by a German populist against a non-white soccer player, reports on Sweden's economic boom, Looks at rail investment in India, and notes Southeast Asia is beating out China as a destination for Japanese investment.


• Bloomberg View looks at reform in Tunisia's Islamist movement and notes the lack of private foreign investment in Greece.


• The CBC notes anti-gentrification sentiment in the Montréal neighbourhood of St. Henri, resulting in the looting of a gourmet grocery store.


• MacLean's interviews Sebastian Junger on his theory that PTSD is rooted in the problems of modern individualism.


• The National Post looks at an anthropologist's discovery of ancient hobo graffiti.


• Open Democracy notes the Europeanization of Estonia's Russophones.


• The Toronto Star contrasts the responses of the NDP and the Conservatives to their election defeats, and notes how older Chinese couples are now using fertility treatments to have their second child.

• Centauri Dreams imagines how a mission to Planet Nine might work.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes a literal gap in our mapping of nearby brown dwarfs.


• The Dragon's Tales analyzes the makeup of Saturn's moon Tethys.


• The Everyday Sociology Blog offers advice on resume writing for sociology majors.


• Joe. My. God. notes Bruce Springsteen's cancellation of a North Carolina concert in solidarity with queer people there.


• The Map Room Blog maps exposure to lead across the United States.


• Marginal Revolution wonders why American mobility is declining.


• Window on Eurasia notes Moscow's approach to conflict resolution involves setting up frozen conflicts, and looks at the new Iran-Russia rail corridor running through Azerbaijan.

The Turkish government is seeking to revive GUAM in order to form an alliance of states against Russia broader than the pan-Turkic groupings it had promoted in the past, Aleksey Fenenko says; but he adds that Ankara faces real difficulties in doing so and that Moscow has the means to block any such geopolitical effort.

In today’s “Nezavisimaya gazeta,” the instructor on world politics at Moscow State University says that “Turkish diplomacy is trying to revive a block like GU(U)AM” consisting of “countries which have difficulties with Russia” and which thus could help Ankara in its conflict with Moscow (ng.ru/cis/2016-02-26/3_kartblansh.html).

GUAM was formed by Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova. Uzbekistan later joined and left the organization: hence, its acronym. Like Latvia, Turkey already has observer status in the group and like its members it wants to make the organization into “an alternative” to the Moscow-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

The idea of creating such a grouping of states arose in the mid-1990s. In June 1996, Moldova and Georgia issued a joint statement. And in October 1997, they were joined by Azerbaijan and Ukraine in calling for a system of mutual consultations in order to “’counter Russian hegemony.’” That became GUAM at a meeting in Yalta on July 7, 2001.

But despite the aspirations of its organizers, the group has not become a truly effective grouping of states, Fenenko says. They are divided on many issues, and Uzbekistan has pointed to its dissolution by leaving as a result of differences with the others over relations with the United States.