By John C. K. Daly

December 12th, 2016, The CACI Analyst

On October 2, China and Georgia signed a preliminary free trade agreement (FTA), scheduled to take effect from the end of 2017, China’s first substantive FTA negotiations in Eurasia. The FTA’s 17 sections include trade goods, services, intellectual property rights and emerging issues like e-commerce, with the two parties agreeing to remove all tariffs for most of the two nations’ commodity trade, as well as pledging to open many service sector markets and improve bilateral trade laws while identifying key areas for enhancing cooperation. 

By George Tsereteli

December 8th, 2016, The CACI Analyst

Despite the negative political discourse, pessimism and apathy shown by a historically low voter turnout in Georgia’s parliamentary elections in October, there are tangible reasons to be cautiously optimistic. When compared to other post-Soviet nations, Georgia is far ahead in terms of many economic and governance indicators. The main question moving ahead is how the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party will use its newly-gained supermajority in parliament. The hope is that the ruling party will lead in an inclusive and non-unilateral way – respecting opposition viewpoints – while enacting responsible policies and reforms. 

By Rizwan Zeb

November 30th, 2016, The CACI Analyst

The terror attack in late October on a police training center in Balochistan’s capital Quetta, and the August suicide attack in the same city, indicate that despite certain headway in operation Zarb-e-Azb, terror groups in Pakistan are still capable of conducting devastating attacks and that the country’s war on terror is far from over. However, the greatest challenge that Pakistan currently faces is a lack of consensus on the terror problem and that Pakistan’s political leadership has yet to accept ownership of this war.