Georgia , Russia and The USA: Who's to blame?

Georgia

USA

Russia

The USA encourage Georgia to take control of South Ossetia, imply that they will provide military support.

USA want missile defence system in Eastern Europe.

Russia surrounded on their Western border by US allies (ex Soviet states).

Russia threatened, Russia invade Georgia to "protect Russian citizens" in South Ossetia.

Other Eastern European countries now feel threatened by the Russian bear.

USA get their missile defence shield in Poland.

Winner = USA

Loser = Georgia

Russia don't give a shit what the world thinks of them.

Oil By Upton Sinclair

Coming Soon

The Full Montezuma- Around Central America With The Girl Next Door By Peter Moore

Peter Moore + The girl next door + Central America = some seriously funny travel writing.

Peter Moore is like your Dad! He wants to climb EVERY mountain, see EVERY ancient ruin, go to bed early and get up even earlier. Despite all this the man writes a cracking travel book that makes you laugh and inspires you to travel.
Mr Moore, you feel like you have to call him Mr, backpacks around Central America with the Girl Next Door (GND). He only met her a few months before asking her to join him on his latest adventure, its testament to his great enthusiasm for travelling that he was able to do this. They strike you as a couple who are not very compatible, Mr Moore wants to experience everything there is to offer in Central America albeit on a budget whilst the GND seems happy to sit on a beach all day. Alas there are some very heartfelt moments between the two but you can not get over the niggling feeling that the two would not have been together very long if they were not on a six month trip. This of course turned out to be the case, a quick check on Peter Moore's website confirms that they did in fact split six months after returning home.

Diary of a Chilean Concentration Camp by Hernan Valdes

Whilst the coup in Chile against the socialist Presidency of Salvatore Allende resulted in great bloodshed, Hernan Valdes, a renowned writer, believed he was safe. Valdes expressed support for the Allende Government but was not a member of any political party, perhaps that is why it came as such a shock that he found himself arrested on a February evening in 1974. This was a full 5 months after the coup. Valdes was taken to Tejas Verdes, a concentration camp used by the junta since September 1973 to house dissidents. Valdes account of his time in the camp is both vivid and humbling, the conditions were awful further demonstrated in the diary by the unrelenting and mindless cruelty of the guards . Valdes makes clear that, whilst the cruelty the prisoners experienced at the hands of the guards pained them, it was the uncertainty of their status that troubled him the most. Had anyone noticed he was missing? Were they attempting to have him released? Did the junta plan to have him executed? An excellent portrayal of life in a concentration camp, written with the observation of a writer, taking into account every detail no matter how minor or trivial it might seem. The emotion that Valdes expresses truly shows the distressing life that many Chileans had to suffer under the military junta of Pinochet.

Oracle Bones- A Journery Through Time In China By Peter Hessler

Peter Hessler is the Beijing correspondent for the New Yorker and regular contributor to National Geographic. Hessler takes the reader on, as the title suggests, a journey through time. The author interlinks general Chinese history with modern day realism. Hessler encounters the Chinese generation that is powering the country's massive economic expansion, the young men and women who leave their rural homes to find work in the cities of Bejing, Nanjing and Chongqing. What they find is expertly told by Hessler, they could be described as the anonymous generation because so many of them find work in the endless factory lines but seem to have no life outside of their work, some even have to sleep in their factories and are forcibly prevented from leaving. One exception is Hessler's former student at an English school, William Jefferson Foster aka "Willy" ,who writes regular letters to Hessler engaging the author and subsequently the reader in his life and work. His funny anecdotes about listening to Voice of America are lively and portray a sense of hope that prevails in some of this Chinese generation that their parents could never aspire to. "WIlly" does unfortunately encounter the ever prevalent Chinese corruption and this forms another important chapter within Hessler story on modern China. The reader is also introduced to "Polat" a Uighur emigre. Polat is a man of all trades who Hessler knows as a black market money changer amongst other things. Polat's story of discrimination and eventual flight to political asylum in the US is compelling. The title Oracle Bones refers to the earliest known writing in East Asia, inscriptions from the Shang dynasty more than three thousand years ago. Oracle Bones, following on from Hessler's River Town, establishes Hessler as one of the foremost Western writers on modern day China. Hessler displays a real and thoughtful insight into the ever changing and evolving Chinese society.

Available from all good book shops and some rubbish ones to.

Blood River- A Journey To Africa's Broken Heart By Tim Butcher

Former Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher has been obsessed with the Congo River ever since he was assigned to Africa in 2000. His obsession soon evolved into a trip following the footsteps of H.M Stanley's famous expedition in the 1870s. Butcher set out on his trip with a backpack and a few thousand dollars hidden in his shoes. His plan was to travel the length of the Congo River, for the uninformed reader the Congo River runs through one of the world's most dangerous countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The DRC has been in a near state of war since the early 1960s with rebels fighting the Government with support from Rwanda and Uganda amongst others. Butcher expertly covers the history of the DRC from the cruel Belgium colonial period right through to the present day civil war. This gives an excellent background to his journey, the sights and sounds that Butcher encounters are a direct result of the Belgium colonial period and the subsequent battles for the country's precious natural resources. The towns, once containing brimming, vibrant, and a bustling populace, Butcher travels through are all run down and scarred by the result of 50 plus years of war. Ever since Belgium granted the DRC independence it has been in a near constant state of war. Tim Butcher covers all of this superbly but also adds personnel insight, his mother once travelled the Congo River as a young lady and this can be seen in Butcher's own obsession with the Congo River. An excellent addition to the sparse resources on Africa's broken heart.

Available from all good book stores and some rubbish ones to.

The Country Under My Skin- A Memoir of Love and War By Gioconda Belli

I stumbled across this book whilst browsing Amazon.co.uk for books on Nicaragua. The Country Under My Skin is the the autobiography of Gioconda Belli, renowned Poet, novelist and a former member of the Sandinista Government. What is striking about Belli in the first instance is her bourgeois upbringing and her journey to the Sandinista movement. As a member of "Nicaraguan pampered high society", a frank admission by the author, Belli could be forgiven for living a life of blissful ignorance. To her enormous credit, Belli chose not to do so. She joined the underground resistance movement the Sandinista fighting the dictatorship of US backed Somoza, upon which she encountered many other revolutionaries who not only became a second family but in many cases lovers. Belli's love life is intertwined with her revolutionary life, in fact the two can be described as inseparable. Her description of the US government's support of the Contras is intriguing but also her own disillusionment with her own Sandinista Government is worth noting. What follows is how Belli fell in love the revolutionary life but also how she fell out with the Saninista after they gained power and the country was plunged into a crippling civil war. The Country Under My Skin displays a hope of a better time and a distinctly more optimistic time.



Available from all good book shops and some rubbish ones to.