Tadzhikistan’s Parliament removed the acting president by an overwhelming vote Thursday and replaced him with the country’s third leader since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Sound carries well in the coastal foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, which at sunrise these days means rifle fire and bursting shells mixed in with crowing roosters and coughing tractor engines.

While most of the rest of Georgia was to vote Sunday in parliamentary elections, refugees returning to the north of the breakaway Abkhazia region were concerned about bread and bullets rather than ballots.

GUDAUTA, Georgia — Besieged towns in Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazian region were clearing roads of explosives and attempting to open supply lines Friday during a lull in the hostilities.
”Destruction [...]