Well, and also Turkish President Abdullah Gul is coming to visit.
It’s hard to overstate how bizarre and awesome this is. But first, some context. This visit is happening because of three things: football, local politics, and war. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: September 2008
Happy talk
Russia-Georgia is likely to be one of the main foreign policy issues “debated” at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. Dick Cheney is in Baku this evening and here is a statement from George Bush announcing a package of aid measures. It includes the assertion —
The people of Georgia withstood the assault from the Russian military
“Withstood”? Of course people were resilient. But does anyone doubt for a moment that if the Russians really wanted to take Tblisi, they could have? Anyway, in addition to a $1 billion package from the US which Congress will have to approve (and Barack Obama’s running mate Joe Biden will no doubt champion), Georgia is also expected to get a $750 million loan facility from the IMF, which if exercised would fairly quickly make it one of the Fund’s biggest borrowers.  One more thing about Cheney’s visit to Baku: President Aliyev never mentioned Georgia in the statements to the press. No doubt these things get more complicated the closer you are to them.
Rallying ’Round
Central Tbilisi is filling up with people coming out for an officially sanctioned (and organized) but also popularly supported rally for Georgia and against Russia. In the main roads, a human chain is forming, one that takes in the main cathedral and Parliament, as well as business areas, residential neighborhoods and bridges across the Mtkvari. It’s a conscious recollection of the human chains and other protest actions in the Baltics in their run-up to independence from the Soviet Union, and the messages are the same: “Yay us!” and “Ivan go home!”
The Fury of Gustav
It’s been a while since I mentioned it here, but I grew up in the southern part of Louisiana. Not terribly near the coast, but still way down south. Most folks have left the coastal areas now, and that’s a good thing. The next 12 to 24 hours are going to be very rough, as hurricane Gustav makes landfall somewhere near Houma, Louisiana. It’s not all that far from where Katrina made landfall three years ago this week. Though for levees, settlements, floods and homeowners, a small change can mean a decisive difference.
Hurricane Gustav at 1am Eastern Time on Sept 1, 2008.
For our readers who don’t have an immediate mental geography of the southern United States, the diameter of the red area (this a radar image, so the red indicates very bad weather conditions indeed) is about 200km. The top sustained wind speeds will be over 190 kph (about the speed that Mercedes was going when it made your car shake as it whooshed past on the autobahn), with gusts up toward 240 kph (good cruising speed for a TGV). Katrina is fresh enough in people’s minds that compliance with the evacuation call was very good, but this could still be a devastating storm.