Anyone who's read my blogs before will guess that I've been very interested in all the developments in the Caucasus since the end of last week. the line up of items for this post will include something on each of the following:

1. Pakistan
2. Zimbabwe
3. Georgia
4. The markets
5. The garden
6. Walks

President Musharraf appears to be in hot water with plans afoot to hold no confidence votes in all of Pakistan's provincial assemblies and for the National Assembly to impeach him. I think he would leave office rather than let that happen but he's a wily survivor so it's not certain that his days are numbered (politically speaking).

Although the head of the armed forces, General Ashfaq Kayani has said that he wishes the army to be above politics,it looks as if relations between the army and the current coalition government are the really important issue. The politicians don't seem to 'get' the idea of a head of state being a focus of loyalty for the armed forces. The army officers 9or many of them) seem to think that the head of state's role is to support them rather than the other way around. And the President doesn't seem to understand the independence of the judiciary. the curious thing is that, though riven with so much conflict, the Pakistani state seems to have sufficient legitimacy and authority to carry on raising taxes.

Pakistan needs some way of fostering the beneficial development of the role of the presidency. So far presidents have not surprisingly squandered the prestige of the office to further their own personal success. As instituting an hereditary head of state isn't an option, the only other way to make heads of state serve their office seems to be to tie the president to the most important parties in the National Assembly. The president's power over setting the date of Assmebly elections needs to end and presidential elections need to coincide with parliamentary ones. Thirdly, Pakistan needs new conventions about who initiates government policy even if this leaves the president in charge of foreign policy. In fact, the current Pakistani government seem to be light on really effective policies. It seems to easy for them to create diversions and smoke screens that disguise the fact that not a lot is happening.

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Zimbabwe is even further from having a working constitution than Pakistan. The talks in Harare under the aegis of President Mbeki are just about a provisional arrangement. Whether or not these arrangements can be made to work for long enough for genuine representative democracy to take root seems open to question. It looks as if the South African government will need to commit itself to underwriting the new government for two years or more.

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The recent developments in Georgia look like the start of a new 'age of uncertainty'. Until last week most people would have had no idea of the geography of South Ossetia. The region together with Abkhazia on the Black Sea coast seem to have been deliberately populated with ethnic Russians as a way of subjugating Georgia in Soviet times. Given the suitability of the Caucusus Mountains as a natural frontier and the Georgians' reasonable suspicions of Russia's good intentions, it's not surprising that the Georgian government wanted the territory to be properly under their control. Presumably, we'll find out over the remainder of 2008 why Mikheil Saakashvili decided this month was the right time to do something about it.

A look at the map strongly suggests that Georgia is hardly viable if the Russians continue to control South Ossetia but Georgia only has a population of about four million so clearly it can not stand up to Russian might. That said, while the Russian military must be well able to deal with Georgia, it seems much less likely that Russians are prepared to die in large numbers while their government throws its weight around along other parts of their country's long frontier.

Of course, the real issue is what the West is going to do about it. Along with various Western Asian nuclear threats this seems to be the really important issue facing democratic countries. This is one of the issues that the West would have been in a better state to respond to if the adventure in Iraq had never been embarked upon in 2003. Ironically, five years ago the anti-appeasement argument was used a lot in support of overturning Saddam Hussain but now we're hearing quite a lot of the opposite - appeasement - argument. Basically, many liberal commentators seem to have been saying that the Georgians are beyond helping.

The idea that Georgia is far beyond the help of the West seems bogus. Georgia is only 250 miles away from Northern Iraq, Turkey is a NATO country with a common frontier with Georgia (although I can't help thinking that there must be some age old emnities between those two countries). In the short and medium turn, there is every likelihood that the events over the last five days will result in the Black Sea becoming a zone of interest and action for the Americans.

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The most surprising aspect of the fighting (after the surprise of it starting) was the cool indifference on the part of the financial markets. Equity markets and the oil market seem in the main to have shrugged it off even though any enduring conflict in this region could be catastrophic for oil and gas supplies.

Not that I'm complaining but if I'd had forewarning of Russians and Georgians fighting I certainly wouldn't have been predicting a sideways drift in the stock markets.

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From great events to the trivial...

We've harvested our first potatoes. They taste very nice but the texture is somewhat waxy. I'm not sure what we're going to do with them all as I'm the only potato eater and we haven't got many places to store them.

The plums are going to be a disappointment this year. Much later than in 2007 for some reason and not nearly so plentiful. Some of them have managed to go straight from completely green to rotten without an intermediate ripe stage. Maybe the wasps are more active this year.

The blackberries in the waste ground at the back of the house have been a compensation.

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I've had one good walk since last posting. This was on Monday a week ago and followed a route from Hambledon Church. It was a lovely morning to be out and about and I was glad I went for the walk before working since it came on to rain in the afternoon. The best part of the walk was the view of the South Downs on the lower, return section of the walk close to Markwick Lane. Presumably because of satnav, Markwick lane is busier than it used to be. Satnav and users don't seem to realise that this road is single track for stretches.