In tonight’s edition: Georgia is posturing for some odd reason, Pakistan: still a mess, and unemployment looks not quite so bad for the moment…
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As has been mentioned a couple of times in recent postings, we’re at the one year anniversary between Russia and Georgia’s war, the same war that saw Georgia thoroughly spanked as Russia barely expended any muscle in dispatching Georgians out of two sections of the country that preferred to have a friend in Moscow than a friend in the EU. Doing its best job in not remembering the past, Georgia is trying to flex its muscle, for the hell of it.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Georgia’s actions, including a troop buildup on the borders of two separatist Georgian regions, are cause for “serious concern” a year after a war between the two countries.
“Georgia’s actions continue to cause serious concern, from the unceasing threats to restore its ‘territorial integrity’ by force and daily warlike rhetoric to its concentration of armed forces on the borders with South Ossetia and Abkhazia and serious provocations in border areas,” Medvedev said in a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Excerpts from the letter were posted today on the Kremlin Web site.
If need be, Moscow can once again flick the Georgian fly off its shoulder. Whatever the cause the Georgians think they have, right or wrong as they may be, one has to realize that unless you’re going in with the backing of Brussels or Washington, you’re not going to wind up doing much of anything except getting routed. This lesson hasn’t been learned yet, but hopefully it’s all just a phase and diplomacy can guide both sides in the future.
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Pakistan is a country that has been an absolute mess for years, with the formally government-backed Taliban turning on its source country after being booted from Afghanistan in 2001. Allowed to fester and gain its control in Pakistan’s largely lawless western areas, the Taliban has been able to spread back into Afghanistan and encroach on Pakistan’s capital – moves that have brought see-sawing violence through cities across the country, resulting in displacement of thousands, and many deaths. With the apparent killing of a top Taliban leader, it appears that the following has been added to Pakistan’s plate of instability: inner-Taliban conflict.
Pakistan says it is investigating unconfirmed reports of a deadly shooting between two rival Taliban commanders seeking to replace the group’s leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was allegedly killed in a U.S. missile strike.
Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Saturday the reports suggest a fight broke out during a meeting (shura) between Wali-ur-Rehman and Hakimullah Mehsud, and that one of them is dead.
But another Taliban commander, Noor Sayed, denied there had been any such confrontation.
The succession meeting was reportedly held in the semi-autonomous tribal region of South Waziristan bordering Afghanistan, where Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi says Baitullah Mehsud was killed Wednesday.
In theory this is a touch of good news, since a fractured Taliban is less likely to make a move on Islamabad and overthrow the government there, but the chance for more violence elsewhere – especially in the western proviences – continues to run high, if not getting higher.
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Hark! There’s one sort-of kind-of good-but-not-really bit of news out there! The unemployment rate fell… slightly!
Major stock indexes jumped more than 1 percent Friday after the government said the nation’s unemployment rate unexpectedly fell in July for the first time in 15 months and that employers cut fewer jobs. Bond prices fell, driving yields higher as investors left the safety of Treasurys.
The Labor Department report handed investors the best evidence yet that the economy could be climbing out of the recession. Analysts widely consider unemployment the biggest obstacle to a recovery in the economy, which is driven by consumer spending.
The surprise figures injected new life in a monthlong rally and provided validation for traders who have been betting since March that the economy is healing. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 114 points to cap its fourth straight weekly gain. The Dow is at its highest level since early November.
I do love that terminology though… “highest since November” – still need another 50% jump to get back to tasting “the way things were” when this all began in 2007. A 0.1% decline in the unemployment rate doesn’t mean that the sun has risen and everything is all better, but at least the bleeding isn’t at as severe of a rate. Could this be the peak of the worst in unemployment? Possible, but not likely – people are still losing their homes and the entire slow turning wheel that has ground us down over the past many months has too much inertia to just stop in its tracks. Could this be a pause in unemployment and there’s still a second spike higher? Possible, but not for sure – we may just linger here for years as the economy stagnates before finding its new direction.
