I think that Russia, China, India in fact the world as a whole is appalled at the events taking place, invasions using military means and/or professionally produced elections cleverly designed to emotionally overwhelm the voter and literally in many cases strip him of his freewill to choose.
I do not see Russia or China fighting just yet, I believe they would like more time. Although time is our enemy, time is their friend.
This is way out of control. In fact a catastropic war of such a magnitude that Bush is racing toward cannot be controlled. This is something I don’t think he understands.
I remember posting this a while ago. The link is no longer active. This says it all regarding the strategic importance of Georgia to the United States. This is not a conspiracy this is a long term plan.
For its size, this nation of 4.4 million people holds disproportionate interest for Russia, its northern neighbor, and for the United States, which has poured in $1 billion in aid in the last decade. That puts Georgia in the same league, per capita, as America's biggest aid recipients, Israel and Egypt. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/international/europe/15GEOR.html?th
Wages in Georgia far below subsistence minimum - statistical office
Text of report by Georgian news agency Prime-News
Tbilisi, 24th August: The average monthly wage in Georgia was 75 lari in the first six months of this year. The average wage in the public sector was 58 lari. Prime-News was told at the State Statistics Department that these figures are 17.6 and 5.5 per cent higher than in the first six months of 1999.
The average monthly wage amounts to 66.5 per cent of the subsistence minimum for an able-bodied man and 75.8 per cent of the subsistence minimum for an average consumer. For the average wage in the public sector, the percentages are 51.4 and 58.6 respectively.
The current exchange rate is 1.97 lari to the dollar.
Source: Prime-News news agency, Tbilisi, in Georgian 0710 gmt 24 Aug 00
A win for Victor Yushchenko in Ukraine could curtail Moscow's strategic naval supremacy, writes Jeremy Page in Sevastopol
December 07, 2004
IF there is one good reason why Russia is battling to keep Ukraine in its strategic orbit, it is floating in the tranquil waters of the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
Russia's southern fleet has used this deepwater harbour as a base to patrol the Black Sea and beyond ever since Catherine the Great annexed Crimea in 1783.
Even after Ukraine won independence from the Soviet Union, the fleet maintained its presence here -- after splitting its ships with the new Ukrainian navy -- and hatched a deal to rent the port until 2017.
Russia now fears it will have to withdraw the fleet for good if Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition leader who advocates joining NATO and the EU, wins the rerun of the presidential election to be held on December 26.
Prime Minister Victor Yanukovich, who the Supreme Court ruled could not claim victory from the November 21 poll, may not even stand again the next time around.
It is a prospect most Russians find hard to stomach -- a final humiliation in their own backyard following the arrival of US troops in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Georgia, and NATO warplanes in Lithuania earlier this year.
It is also a key reason why Moscow might support Ukraine's Russian-speaking southern and eastern regions seeking autonomy -- or even independence -- from Kiev should Mr Yushchenko become president.
"We used to have the most modern, most powerful fleet in the world here," said Mikhail Prokofiel, 64, who served in the Black Sea fleet for 28 years. "Even Turkey's navy is more powerful than ours today. And if Yushchenko wins, the Black Sea fleet might leave all together. I cannot believe it."
Mr Yushchenko, anxious not to antagonise Ukraine's main trade partner and energy supplier, has promised not to review the deal with Moscow before 2017, but the Kremlin has already drawn up contingency plans. Earlier this year, Sergei Ivanov, the Russian Defence Minister, announced plans to start building a new naval base in 2005 at the southern Russian port of Novorossiysk.
He insisted that the Black Sea fleet would remain in Sevastopol, for which Moscow paid $US6.4 million ($8.2 million) in rent in 2003 and is expected to pay $US12 million this year. "Two bases are always better than one," he said.
His announcement nonetheless caused an outcry in Russia. "It takes decades, even centuries, to create a fleet's infrastructure," said Admiral Eduard Baltin, commander of the Black Sea fleet from 1993-96. "The Black Sea fleet is vital if Russia is not to lose its influence in the region."
The problem is that Russia's section of the Black Sea coast lacks any large, sheltered bays like Sevastopol that could accommodate the entire southern fleet, believed to number about 250 vessels.
Larger ships would have to leave the Black Sea altogether, while others would have to be taken into open water in bad weather, analysts say. Under such conditions, Russia's navy would struggle to fulfil the role it played in the past decade, monitoring events in the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans.
Russia is also -- albeit reluctantly -- integrating with NATO as the alliance expands eastwards. They held joint naval exercises this year, but that does little to appease Russia's strong nationalist lobby on which President Vladimir Putin relies.
The fleet's withdrawal from Sevastopol would be all the more painful since many Russians still consider Crimea part of their territory -- as it was until the Soviet leader, Nikita Krushchev (himself a Ukrainian), ceded it to Ukraine in a goodwill gesture in 1954.
They are still angered by the decision to give up a prize for which their ancestors died in the Crimean War and which has since become an integral part of Russian cultural and political history.
In imperial times, Russian tsars passed winters in Yalta in the magnificent Livadia Palace. It was there that Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt carved up the world at the end of World War II.
In Soviet times, beach holidays in Crimea were a treasured perk and the region is still a popular tourist destination for Russians. More important, however, nearly 70 per cent of the population here is Russian, and many would support integration with Russia if Mr Yushchenko won.
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