It is a truth universally acknowledged, that cigarettes are bad for human health. Yet, whenever the government tries to regulate the consumption of cigarettes by increasing their price, it gets a very mixed reaction from the public. Some people (mostly non-smokers) welcome these policies, while others accuse the government of being greedy and proclaim the policies ineffective. Who is right and who is wrong in this debate? Let’s take a closer look at the facts.

Marriage is a phenomenon strongly intertwined within our culture and everyday life. It is almost a “must do” thing in Georgian traditional society, and it has to be approved either by religious authority or by the state, or both. A recent study about Georgian youth entitled “Generation in Transition, Youth Study Georgia – 2016” by Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung, shows the 14-29 age cohort’s perceptions, awareness, and approaches towards marriage.

“The fundamental problem for Georgian security is that Russia holds all the major cards and no one is reshuffling the deck in Georgia’s favor”, writes Neil MacFarlane in his 2016 article on Georgia’s security situation. Georgia has a mighty neighbor that is not democratic, does not respect the right of self-determination of nations, and, most importantly, actually brings its military power to bear whenever Russian (legitimate or illegitimate) interests are not sufficiently honored.

“The Arab Spring was a revolution of the hungry.” As stated by The Boston Globe’s journalist Thanassis Cambanis in his 2011 article claiming that in countries where access to food was an issue, “hitting the dinner table” is not a good idea. In order to demonstrate the importance of food prices, he went even further and reminded his readers that when food price inflation in Egypt reached almost 19%, the president of the country had to resign.

According to the preliminary statistics released by GeoStat, Georgia’s real GDP growth was 2.2% year over year (YoY) in 2016. This result fell behind the World Bank’s, IMF’s, and EBRD’s last growth projections of 3.4%. The NBG’s 3.5% growth projection from November also overestimated Georgia’s economic growth in 2016.