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Day: January 17, 2024
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Depression And Suicide – OpEd
The numbers are shocking: Around 800,000 depressed and miserable people commit suicide per annum worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that most of this, an estimate of 75% of suicides, occurs in poor and middle-income countries. It means there seems to be a relationship between being poor and jobless—and mounting bills to pay—and suicidal behavior.
In the new millennium, at least 3 million Filipinos suffered from one kind of mental, neurological, and substance use disorder (from the 2020 Report of the Philippine Department of Health). From this number, seven Filipinos take their own lives every single day—that one depressed Filipino commits suicide every three and a half hours. And for every suicide carried out, there are a hundred more who attempt to end their dear lives by all sorts of bloody means.
However, being rich and famous or having an extravagant lifestyle is absolutely not a reliable barometer of true happiness either. Some of those in the high-income echelon of society, or those who chase after fame and fortune all their lives, thinking that these material treasures would bring lifetime delight and fulfillment, just feel empty inside. Depression and, at times, suicide make them realize that money can’t buy us happiness and that Hollywood stardom doesn’t guarantee serenity.
The dazzling galaxy of the rich and famous doesn’t always look like what it seems. Unknown to us, life is way too tough for them. Stars shine, oh yes, and they know how to enjoy the perks of stardom. However, bearing more pressure than us, some celebrities are down in the mouth.
“Depression is like wearing tinted glasses,” writes Stephen Altrogge. “Everywhere you look, things look dark. Bleak. Black. Hopeless. Helpless. When depression strikes hard, it leads to suicide.
Depressed individuals live like they are inside a pressure cooker 24-7. Borrowing the scary words of Dante Alighieri when he reached the gates of Hell, the waiting room for the suicidals says, ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.’”
Consider Hollywood stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robin Williams. We liked it when we watched them smile a lot, not knowing they were weeping inside. They made us laugh, but they were broken in their hearts. And, mind you, celebrities at times could be cruel to themselves. They could show the world that they didn’t fear death, and too bad they sought death.
Because depression perturbs both the body and the soul, the remedy of firing up neurons into synapses or balancing all chemicals in the brain is not enough. Nothing is enough to fill in what is lacking. If I may ask, does the human heart crave for something more, say, of a spiritual kind?
I once had a chance to attend a classical concert in San Francisco, CA, featuring the old but glorious compositions of the Russian artist Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), acknowledged as the most impressive composer of all time. Little do people know that the celebrated composer of the greatest ballet and orchestral classics like Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet, 1812 Overture, and Swan Lake suffered from manic depression and was self-tortured by an unbearable guilt about being gay. The legend whom music lovers loved was mentally unhealthy.
Michael Jackson had depression, his daughter Paris Jackson told Rolling Stone. She also revealed her own struggle with both melancholy and severe anxiety.
Isn’t suicide, much influenced by the culture of death, the very opposite of the normal survival instinct to discover a cure for cancer or, say, the hopeless search for the fountain of youth and chalice of immortality?
Because the suicide tendency perturbs both the body and the soul, the remedy of firing up neurons into synapses or balancing all chemicals in the brain is not enough. Human emptiness is not completely satisfied by medication, guidance counseling, or mental care. This is when, believe it or not, God comes into one’s anxious life (my personal opinion).
Today, with the assistance of the pathological sciences, Christianity recognizes the decreased culpability of a person in certain circumstances and the hope for God’s mercy. “Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.” The Catholic Church now allows a funeral Mass and burial in a Catholic cemetery for those who take their own life.
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Off To A Bad Start – OpEd
The U.S. government is off to a bad start for its 2024 fiscal year. Data published by the U.S. Treasury Department for the first three months of FY 2024 indicates the federal government’s spending is increasing considerably faster than its revenue.
Through December 2023, the government’s cumulative tax collections are up by $82 billion over what it collected through the same month in FY 2023. Unfortunately, spending rose even faster, increasing by $171 billion.
Just as unfortunately, these figures put the size of the gap between the federal government’s spending and revenue during the first three months of FY 2024 at $510 billion. That compares with a budget deficit of $421 billion during the first three months of its 2023 fiscal year. That is a 21% increase.
Tax collections have increased, but the budget deficit grew larger because government spending rose even faster.
What’s going wrong with the U.S. Government’s fiscal situation?
A month ago, analyst Michael Maharrey identified the source of the federal government’s fiscal problems:
The Biden administration blew through $588.84 billion in November, up 18% from November 2022. That pushed total spending to nearly $1.06 trillion through the first two months of fiscal 2024.
This underscores the fact that the fundamental issue isn’t that the US government doesn’t have enough money. The fundamental problem is that the US government spends too much money. Despite the pretend spending cuts, the debt ceiling deal didn’t address that problem. Even with the new plan in place, spending will go up. No matter what you hear about spending cuts, the federal government constantly finds new reasons to spend more money.
This month, the editorial board of Issues and Insights has also weighed in on the cause of the U.S. government’s growing fiscal problems:
The current surge is entirely driven by out-of-control spending. Revenues are so far coming in slightly above last year’s but spending in the first quarter ballooned by $170 billion.
Spending on entitlement programs is up a relatively modest 4%. Defense spending is up 11%. Discretionary spending, however, is 23% higher so far this year than last – thanks in large part to Biden’s spending sprees.
But the real drain on the Treasury is the stunning rise in interest payments. So far in FY 2024, they are up by 50%.
How bad will it get?
When the Biden administration released its FY 2024 budget proposal, it projected its full-year deficit for FY 2024 would be over $1.8 trillion. It is on pace to exceed $2.0 trillion.
The real test will come in April as taxes for the income that Americans earned in 2023 come due. Because 2023 has been a better year for investments than 2022 was, the federal government should collect a lot more in both capital gains taxes and corporate income taxes than it did in April 2023. That boost will provide the government’s best chance to close the widening gap between its spending and revenue.
But only if its spending doesn’t grow faster in the meantime.
This article was published by The Beacon
Nearly all stock market wealth in this country is now owned by the super rich. The wealthiest 10 percent hold about 93 percent of all household stock market wealth in this country, Axios reported recently — a record high.
The Institute for Policy Studies analyzed Fed data and found that the lion’s share of these gains went to the richest 1 percent alone. This elite group owns 54 percent of public equity markets, up from 40 percent in 2002.
The bottom half of the country? They own just 1 percent.
There’s been a lot of chatter about the “democratization” of the public stock market. The Fed estimates that 58 percent of U.S. households have some money in the stock market, mostly through retirement funds like IRAs and mutual funds.
But that hype is missing a key trend: nearly all that wealth controlled by the wealthiest 10 percent of us. As Gillian Tett observed in the Financial Times, “If nothing else, these rising concentrations merit far more public debate, since they challenge America’s self-image of its political economy and financial democracy.”
How do we boost the wealth ownership of the bottom half of households? One bold solution is to establish children’s savings accounts, also known as “Baby Bonds.”
Senator Cory Booker and Representative Ayanna Pressley have introduced the American Opportunity Act, a federal baby bond bill. Under this proposal, children would be provided with a $1,000 savings account at birth, with annual contributions up to $2,000, depending on family income.
At the age of 18, the proceeds of these accounts would become available to recipients for educational expenses, purchasing a home, or making investments that provide for long-term returns. For example, those funds could be invested in mutual funds and retirement funds to increase the nest eggs for non-wealthy individuals.
A number of states, like Connecticut, and a few cities, like Washington, D.C., are already creating baby bond programs. Others have introduced legislation to create them.
Connecticut has a far-reaching program aimed at reducing the state’s racial wealth divide and boosting the wealth of all low-income households. Starting in July 2023, Connecticut began depositing $3,200 into a trust in the name of each new baby born into a household eligible for Medicaid. The program is known by the acronym HUSKY after the popular state college mascot.
Recipients will be able to redeem that capital between the ages of 18 and 30 if they remain Connecticut residents. The HUSKY bonds are projected to grow to between $10,000 and $24,000 in value, depending on when they are withdrawn. The funds will be tax-exempt to the beneficiaries and available for investments such as higher education or job training, homeownership, and small business start-ups.
Other states that have either introduced baby bond legislation or are seriously considering it include California, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Nevada, Washington, Wisconsin, and Vermont.
Innovative programs like these can help bust up the dangerous concentration of wealth at the top of our country’s economic ladder. In an age of unprecedented inequality in this country, it’s an idea whose time has come.
This op-ed was adapted from a longer commentary at Inequality.org and distributed for syndication by OtherWords.org.
By Felix K. Chang
(FPRI) — The sustained attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels since November 2023 have given a fresh boost to a budding Central Asian trade network known as the “Middle Corridor” and, in so doing, created an opportunity for China and Iran, as shippers have been forced to consider alternative routes for their cargoes.
Only a month earlier, in October 2023, representatives from Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan met to discuss how they could hasten the development of the Middle Corridor’s second major conduit, called the “Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan route.” During the same month, an Iranian minister spoke about the benefits of a third transit-trade route, a spur to connect the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan route to Iran. Such transit-trade routes are valuable because they speed the flow of goods across national borders, and thus stimulate economic growth.
As it was originally conceived in the late 2000s, the Middle Corridor’s main transit-trade route ran from Europe—through Turkey, the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea, and Kazakhstan—to China. The countries along the path of that route referred to it as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR). Since then, they have worked to make it a viable alternative to Eurasia’s other major east-west trade routes—the Trans-Siberian railway in Russia (or the “Northern Corridor”) and the Indian Ocean (or the “Southern Corridor”). Though more work remains to be done on the TITR, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine shone an international spotlight on it. Suddenly, Europe sought a new overland trade route to East Asia that bypassed Russia, and the Middle Corridor fit that bill.
Capitalizing on the interest, Middle Corridor countries have tried to hasten their development of other transit-trade routes. Of those, the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan route has made the most progress. Surely, it would help the two countries to develop economically and reduce their reliance on Russia. But the potential addition of a transit-trade spur from the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan route to Iran (and possibly to the Gulf) could make China and Iran the biggest beneficiaries of the wider scheme. The combination of the two transit-trade routes could offer Iran an economic lifeline and a closer link to China, its most important great-power ally. By the same token, the combination of those routes could enable China to expand its trade footprint and its influence in Africa and the Middle East. Perhaps more important for Beijing, it could help China to overcome its “Malacca Dilemma” and thus better position itself in its rivalry with the United States.
Fear of Missing Out in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
In December 2022, a freight train loaded with ninety-one, twenty-foot shipping containers left the outskirts of Tashkent bound for Turkmenistan’s port of Turkmenbashi with little fanfare. Their cargo of copper was the first shipment to travel through the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan route. At Turkmenbashi, the shipping containers were transferred onto a ship and taken across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan’s port of Baku, where they were transported along the TITR across Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, and finally to Europe. The shipment was the culmination of years of effort by Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan that had laid the groundwork for their eponymous route. Having seen how the Middle Corridor helped Kazakhstan to attract foreign investment and realize parts of its Bright Path (Nurly Zhol) economic development strategy, Turkmen and Uzbek officials hoped that the Middle Corridor would do the same for their countries.
To be sure, interest in trade networks is not new for Turkmenistan. It has long sought conduits for its exports, most notably of oil and natural gas. Thus, unsurprisingly, it had been an early supporter of the Middle Corridor. As one Turkmen officialput it “Turkmenistan is making efforts to implement transit on several routes” simultaneously. In fact, Turkmen officials discussed a possible transnational highway to China in 2023. Demonstrating its commitment to the Middle Corridor, Ashgabat invested $1.5 billion to expand its key intermodal transshipment port at Turkmenbashi during the 2010s. In anticipation of greater trade across the Caspian Sea, Ashgabat wanted Turkmenbashi’s port facilities to be able to handle as much as seventeen million tons of cargo, including 400,000 shipping containers, every year.
Similarly, an important part of Uzbekistan’s economic development strategy has been to build a globally integrated market economy. As a result, Tashkent has worked to overhaul not only its national railways, but also its financial and legal systems for over half a decade. In 2017, it allowed its currency to freely float. Then in 2019, it removed capital controls. Uzbekistan has also supported tax and regulatory reform to further raise the country’s economic competitiveness. All these moves would facilitate trade and encourage foreign investment.
Opportunity for China and Iran
In parallel with Turkmen and Uzbek efforts to advance their east-west transit-trade route, there has been talk of a spur route that would connect the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan route to Iran. Such a combination of routes would certainly create opportunities for China and Iran, especially if the spur to Iran was extended to the Persian Gulf or Arabian Sea. For one, the combination would give Iran a new trade conduit, one that it has long sought given that 85 percent of its international trade travels by sea. Commenting on his country’s potential link to the Middle Corridor, Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development noted that his country “has unique geographical advantages and transit opportunities that can be used” to boost regional trade. Indeed, Iran has already sought to become a transportation hub for its neighbors. In early 2022, Iran began to transport cargo through its ports and railways to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
But a link to the Middle Corridor would also be strategic for Iran. More than just another transit-trade route, such a link could help Iran to mitigate the effects of Western economic sanctions on it. The link would enable Iran to trade more freely with China—a country with which Tehran has had a “comprehensive strategic partnership” since 2016 and signed a twenty-five-year cooperation agreement in 2021—along a route that is beyond the physical control of the United States and administered by countries that have been lukewarm towards sanctions monitoring. Plus, considering China’s surging demand for raw materials from Africa and the Middle East, the link could serve as a profitable transit-trade route between the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan route and the Iranian ports of Bandar Imam Khomeini in the Persian Gulf and Shahid Rajaie on the Arabian Sea, offering Iran an economic lifeline.
Another beneficiary of such a transit-trade route would be China. The country’s key role as the Middle Corridor’s eastern terminus was always likely to expand Chinese influence in Central Asia. At one time, that had been something Moscow tried to keep in check by orchestrating Russian-dominated initiatives like the Eurasian Union, a European Union-like organization for post-Soviet countries. But Russia’s need for Chinese support after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine has given Beijing a freer hand to reshape Central Asian trade flows. So far, China has focused its attention on the TITR, allowing other routes, like the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, to languish. However, if a transit-trade route from the Middle Corridor through Iran proves to be successful, it could easily capture China’s interest and help to enhance its influence in not only Central Asia, but also Africa and the Middle East.
Strategically, combining the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan route and a transit-trade spur to Iran could improve China’s ability to deal with potential contingencies. Such a combination could lower China’s reliance on the seaborne transport of cargo across the Indian Ocean. Doing so would help mitigate what former Chinese General Secretary Hu Jintao once called China’s “Malacca Dilemma”—the vulnerability China feels because much of its trade, particularly its imported oil and natural gas, passes through the Malacca Strait, a chokepoint that the United States could throttle. It is a concern that resurfaced with Beijing’s increasing tensions with Washington over Taiwan and the South China Sea. Having trade routes that bypass the Malacca Strait would reduce American leverage over China and strengthen China’s position in its rivalry with the United States. Though an earlier Chinese attempt to create such a trade route by using the Belt and Road Initiative to finance the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor foundered, the combination of transit-trade routes through Central Asia and Iran could give Beijing a second chance.
Implications of Middle Corridor Expansion
The prospects for the Middle Corridor’s expansion today are as good as ever, especially if Houthi attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea persist. But the Middle Corridor still has a ways to go. Although trade volume along the TITR has soared, reaching roughly 1.5 million tons in 2022, it remains a small fraction of the 144 million tons of cargo that Russia’s Trans-Siberian railway transported in 2020. Moreover, much of the corridor’s status as a viable east-west trade route rests on the safety and reliability of its path over the Caucasus Mountains, which has been threatened by periodic bouts of conflict between the Caucasian countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan, including in September 2023. Should hostilities intensify or spread, freight insurance rates through the region would likely rise, making the Middle Corridor less attractive to shippers. Both hurdles will likely encourage Middle Corridor countries, particularly Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, to support a transit-trade spur to Iran as an alternate outlet.
Certainly, a Middle Corridor expansion that includes a link between the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan route and Iran would further cement the strategic bond between Beijing and Tehran—something that will likely worry Washington. What may equally concern the United States is the possibility that such an expansion could move Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan away from their traditional strategic neutrality and closer into China’s orbit. At the very least, the link would provide both countries with an economic incentive to ensure the unimpeded trade flow between China and Iran. That, of course, would complicate any American efforts to levy economic sanctions on either China or Iran in the future.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that seeks to publish well-argued, policy-oriented articles on American foreign policy and national security priorities.
- About the author: Felix K. Chang is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Chief Operating Officer of DecisionQ, an artificial intelligence engineering company.
- Source: This article was published by FPRI
By Nicholas Chkhaidze
Russia’s intentions to station a portion of its Black Sea navy in the separatist Abkhazia may push the Russia-Ukraine conflict dangerously close to Georgia. So far, Georgia has handled the security challenges posed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, the shifting topography of the war is fueling the Georgians’ worries of getting trapped in the crossfire.
Aslan Bzhania, the leader of separatist Abkhazia, recently stated that Russia will soon establish a naval facility in Ochamchire, roughly 24 miles from the administrative boundary line with Georgia. The objective is to “improve the defensive capacity of both Russia and Abkhazia,” he told the Russian newspaper Izvestiya.
The persistent fog of war surrounding Ukraine’s counteroffensive is apparently prompting Russia to withdraw a large portion of its Black Sea navy from the annexed Crimean Peninsula in search of safer choices.
The majority of the navy has withdrawn to Novorossiysk, Russia, although part of it may be deployed closer to the southeast, to Ochamchire. It is alleged that warships in Ochamchire would take part in strikes on Ukraine’s civilians, making them valid targets for the Ukrainian military. The Ochamchire port is not sufficiently deep to handle Russia’s largest battleships, but it can anchor smaller ships/vessels and begin setting up resupply and logistical activities.
Following a number of rocket assaults on its Black Sea navy forces and fleet by Ukraine, Russia’s withdrawal toward the east of the Black Sea implies that the Russian military, in this case, the navy, may be restrained. Ukraine’s effective missile attacks on the Russian navy have rendered Crimea an unwelcome operating environment for Russia. Currently, the Kremlin is contemplating a permanent movement towards the east, away from the occupied Ukrainian territories. This suggests that Russia is concerned about its ability to continue moving further west in Ukraine, or because Russia is prepared to move its forces away from Ukraine and toward the occupied territory of Georgia.
While the government of Georgia has been cautious with Russia since its war on Ukraine, Georgia has expressed alarm over the installation. “These acts represent an unjust assault on Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and yet another aggressive move toward justifying the illegal occupation of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali regions,” the Georgian MFA stated in a press release.
However, Georgia is unable to thwart Moscow’s ambitions for its two occupied puppet entities, Abkhazia and Tskhinvali. Russia keeps a substantial force in both de-facto territories and keeps their economy viable, despite their status as sovereign republics. Bzhania, in addition to declaring intentions for the naval facility, expressed his willingness to become part of the Union State set up between Russia and Belarus.
A continuous Russian naval presence in Abkhazia may turn the territory into an extra front, or flexible reserve, enabling the war against Ukraine, and perhaps stretching the battle into Georgia. An Abkhazian navy station would not only allow Russia to carry out assaults from the Georgian shoreline, but it would also make Tbilisi face the danger of turning into a target for anti-Russian strikes.
Russia will also gain new leverage to hinder Black Sea economic activity, and establish indirect influence over the construction of the Anaklia deep sea port project, seen as a fundamental knot for bolstering regional connectivity in the framework of the Middle Corridor project expansion. Therefore, it is natural to assume that the establishment of this base can pose a threat to pan-Eurasian supply chains and trade routes, which will be enhanced through the construction of the Anaklia deep sea port, a project that fundamentally undermines Russia’s role in Eurasian trade operations.
While Georgian experts are worried that Russia’s war against Ukraine could produce a chain reaction in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali, and Russia’s military presence on Georgia’s Abkhazian coastline is causing concern. While it was believed that Ukraine would divert Russia’s attention away from the rest of its military activities, the possibility of building a naval base within Abkhazia suggests that Moscow continues to maintain other regions occupied by them. The Kremlin will keep using its conquered areas. In addition to that, the prolonged existence of this naval facility demonstrates that Russia is ready for a protracted conflict in Ukraine.
Besides the South Caucasus, the creation of yet another Russian station in the Black Sea amid Ukraine’s war demonstrates Russia’s desire to blockade Ukraine, particularly its agricultural traffic to Africa and Asia. This puts the Caucasian states’ imports and/or exports at risk. As a result, the new naval base constitutes an implied threat to expand the conflict into other areas. If and when this war escalates or other crises in the Caucasus erupt, this facility will be critical for offering an infrastructure for Russian demonstration of force.
Moscow’s most recent moves to bolster its influence in the area appear sloppy and unpredictable. Supporting breakaway administrations while expecting a growth of pro-Russian attitudes in Georgia looks contradictory. The more the Kremlin exploits the occupied territories against Tbilisi, the more it weakens the position of the Georgian Dream government that is trying to maintain neutrality. These policies have also discredited some of the pro-Russian reactionary/radical parties in Georgia. The decision to build this base additionally conveys a signal to the marionette regime in Abkhazia, which has grown increasingly concerned about Russia’s deteriorating standing in the area in light of their deadlock in Ukraine’s and Azerbaijan’s latest anti-terrorist campaign in Karabakh. Fundamentally, this decision underlines Russia’s willingness to potentially annex Abkhazia through establishing such a base, possibly even in a de-jure fashion, even more so exacerbated by the Union State offer made by Bzhania and the fact that more and more Abkhazian lands are being transferred and given to the Russian elite and even Putin himself.
In a conversation with Abkhazia’s de-facto Security Council Secretary, Sergei Shamba and Vakhtang Kolbaya, former chairman of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, Shamba pointed out that the Georgian-Abkhaz hatred and differences should not burden younger generations, offering encouragement to make use of prospects for mutually beneficial peaceful relations. Sergei Shamba’s words and involvement in this discourse were treated with much uncertainty in occupied Abkhazia, where Georgians are widely despised.
There is a notion, which has no factual foundation but could be entertained, that the Kremlin ordered the puppet government of Abkhazia to come to terms with Georgia, speculating that Moscow wanted to restore railroad connectivity through the Abkhazian land and open the Sukhumi airport with the cooperation of Tbilisi. These potential peace talks will most probably have a negative effect on both Georgia and pan-Eurasian connectivity, as this probably seeks to undermine the supply chains and trade operations of the Middle Corridor. It will undermine Georgia’s regional position and geopolitical standing, particularly the hopes Tbilisi puts on Anaklia’s would-be deep sea port in terms of its importance in the framework of the Middle Corridor and other important trade routes and corridors.
The endgame of the Russian Federation in this particular case would be to create its very own supply route/corridor, which goes as follows, according to a Russian businessman close to the Kremlin: Iran-Azerbaijan-Georgia (Marneuli)-then going through Abkhazia-reaching Russia as an endpoint. By doing this, Russia is solidifying its position in the South Caucasus and driving out China, thereby reducing Chinese influence by having more leverage over supply chains and trade routes in the region. It can also serve as a bargaining chip for the Russians vis-à-vis the Chinese to demand something more in return for safe trade routes.
On top of that, in light of Russians making various efforts to ensure that the railway connection is established between Russia and Armenia, the Abkhazian normalization issue should be ringing alarms, as it could change the status quo of South Caucasian connectivity.
This article was published at Geopolitical Monitor.com
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