Sunday, September 28, 2008

News Wrap-up

Earlier this week Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili declared a "second Rose Revolution" before the UN and asked the organization to oppose Russia's actions in Georgia. (As a faculty member at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs said, this country needs democratic and market evolution, not revolution.)

Russian-expert Stephen Blank writes about Russia's new foreign policy, the central element of which is the right to intervene with force in any country to protect Russian citizens. The idea threatens global stability.

Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Saakashvili is a threat to peace in the Caucasus.

Human Rights Georgia has a report that the South Ossetian militia will be further restricting access to South Ossetia, an increase in tension between the two sides.

Paul Goble at Window on Eurasia notes that Russians don't support long-term aid for Georgia's break-away provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The Messenger, one of Tbilisi's English-language newspapers, reports that the opposition Conservative Party has called for the government to release the names of dead and missing soldiers. Many opposition people believe that the official toll of 370 dead and missing is far below reality, and that the government is concealing the true extent of how many Georgians were lost.

The New York Times reports August's war left Georgia's economy bruised but not broken. There is fear in Georgia that the war will scare away foreign investors, the driving force behind the country's economic boom.

Georgia's very fractured opposition has agreed to produce a plan for the country's survival.

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