The opposition regularly accuses the Saakashvili administration of manipulating the news output of the country’s national TV channels, but even Georgia’s leading pro-opposition website was amazed by this new Tehran-Tbilisi hook-up, commenting that “not since Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize has real life outdone satire so effortlessly”. Saakashvili recently said that the allegations that the Georgian media isn't free were "total bullshit" cooked up to con "naive foreigners". Freedom House might well take issue with that - its latest report rated Georgia as 'partly free' - but despite all its faults, the Georgian media environment is paradise compared to the situation in Iran.

Georgians, of course, are sometimes quick to blame their old enemy for anything that goes wrong. But there’s certainly a sense that, with the electoral defeat of Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine earlier this year, and now the death of Lech Kaczynski, this country has lost two of its closest international allies, and is feeling a little more alone than it has done for a while.

As shown on TV here, this is the trailer for veteran Hollywood action movie director Renny Harlin's take on the Georgia-Russia war, starring Andy Garcia as Mikheil Saakashvili (with a rather peculiar accent). The feature film, which is due out later this year, has been described as an "anti-war" movie, but it was financed by Georgians and is intended to portray the Georgian view of the conflict in August 2008, as the propaganda war between Tbilisi and Moscow for moral supremacy in the international arena continues. According to its producers, who include a Georgian government minister, it's the most expensive film ever to be made in this impoverished former Soviet republic. They deny that any funding came from the state, although opposition critics claim that may not be entirely true.

(This is a cross-post from my other blog, This is Tbilisi Calling.)

Impoverished Nauru, all 21 square kilometers of it, used to make its money from selling phosphates derived from sea bird droppings. When fossilised guano ran low, it established itself as a tax haven and dabbled in money-laundering. More recently, it has earned money by acting as a detention centre for refugee ‘boat people’ making the perilous journey across the Pacific to seek asylum in Australia.

Struggling to stave off total destitution, Nauru has also developed its own special form of ‘guano diplomacy’. In 2002, it derecognised Taiwan in return for a $150 million ‘aid’ package from China. This week, it recognised both Abkhazia and South Ossetia after reportedly securing some $50 million of Russian ‘aid’.

Many people in Abkhazia were excited by the Nauru declaration, seeing it as another step towards international legitimacy after struggling to break away from Georgia for the past couple of decades. They’d never heard of the place, of course, but Nauruans have probably never heard of Abkhazia either. Most countries in the world, however, still see Abkhazia as part of Georgia, and the Georgian authorities said that Nauru was just selling itself for money.

In its Moscow-sponsored search for international recognition, Abkhazia has now lined up four ‘friends’ – Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru. It is also hoping to win over Belarus and Ecuador, and presumably various other small, impoverished states which are in need of Russian ‘aid’ and don’t care if they offend the US and the EU as long as they get some cash – as well as countries whose ideological agenda is anti-American. It’s not clear whether Robert Mugabe and Kim Jong Il have yet been approached, although the Abkhaz are believed to be lobbying Iran.

Strange scenes outside the Georgian parliament: the entire façade of the building seems to have been transformed into a giant advertising hoarding to promote various urban reconstruction projects and new luxury hotels. It’s part of a new billboard campaign (slogan: ‘I Love Georgia’) which appears to be intended to boost public confidence as the country’s economy goes through tough times. Foreign investment fell by more than three-quarters in the first half of 2009, and the Georgian economy could shrink by up to 4 per cent this year, according to the finance ministry. The war with Russia in August 2008, political turmoil, street protests and the global financial crisis have all had an effect on an economy which was growing rapidly just a couple of years ago.

Fuel-smugglers, embargo-busters, accusations of piracy and threats of armed retribution: the temperature off the Black Sea coast of Georgia seems to be heating up towards boiling point. When I was in the disputed Black Sea region of Abkhazia  a couple of weeks ago, people were worried about possible gasoline shortages because Georgian coastguards had seized a ship carrying fuel which was bound for the region. The Abkhaz called the Georgians pirates, but the Georgian authorities pointed to their own legislation, which outlaws trade with the unrecognised republic.

The media-savvy Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, has of course long understood the power of PR, and has several Western companies promoting his case to the international press – as does Russia, which was slow to launch a PR offensive during last year’s conflict but has since pressed home its case with vigour. Intriguingly, some Georgian opposition leaders have also hired British publicists in an attempt to advance their cause after losing the power struggle on the streets earlier this year, and they’ve also launched their own multimedia website, offering video clips and blogs – a kind of answer to the Georgian government’s own propaganda site (sorry, information service). Economically, Georgia may be going through hard times, but the spin trade, it seems, continues to thrive.

The Black Sea region of Abkhazia broke away from Georgian government control after a civil war in the early 1990s; Russia recently recognised it as an independent state, but Georgians still consider it part of their sovereign territory. Any international investment there without permission is seen by Georgia as a crime; hence the anger at the proposal from the Turkish associate of the Italian fashion firm.

Now it seems the Georgians have carried the day, in fashion terms at least, with reports that Benetton Turkey won’t open the store in Abkhazia after all, leaving the rebellious Abkhazians without a source of chic knitwear products. A statement said the company had reversed its decision to "decrease tension that would have nothing to do with a commercial firm".

It’s a small consolation for Georgia, however, which lost the only little piece of Abkhazia it controlled – a remote mountain gorge – during the war with Russia last year. Tens of thousands of Georgians who fled the original conflict still live in dilapidated temporary accommodation, 15 years afterwards, many of them still dreaming of going back to their homes, but now having to face the depressing likelihood that it may never be possible.

But according to the Associated Press, some former South Ossetian officials are deeply unhappy about the post-war situation, alleging that "tyranny and official corruption" have flourished. "What has happened practically a year after the war? Nothing. Not one apartment has been rebuilt, not one business has recuperated," claimed a former security council chief who is now in opposition. Citing the same former-officials-turned-dissidents, analyst Paul Goble also suggested in a recent column that South Ossetia is now a kind of 'black hole'; an area "free from law".

The allegation of widespread institutional corruption has been strongly rejected by the South Ossetian authorities, who insist that only around a fifth of Russia's promised reconstruction aid has actually arrived and therefore, in the words of the information minister, "there is literally nothing to steal". Either version of the 'truth', however, appears to represent bad news for people living in the conflict zone as they try to recover from the wartime devastation - not to mention the many thousands of people who were driven out of South Ossetia by the fighting and have little prospect of ever going home.

(The photograph which accompanies this entry shows the sign for Stalin Street in the centre of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali. I took the photo in 2006, and the Georgian version of the street name is clearly visible between the Ossetian and Russian-language versions - although that, of course, may now have changed.)

The Eurasian Media Forum is run by Dariga Nazarbayeva, the daughter of Kazakhstan's president; she's also a media magnate and a leading political player in her own right. At a forum on blogging, a young woman stood up in front of the powerful Nazarbayeva and condemned a proposed new law which campaigners claim will put serious restrictions on internet journalists and bloggers and potentially allow the authorities to block sites on political grounds. Wearing a home-made T-shirt which read:Shhh! Censorship in the Room”, Yevgenia Plakhina said that six other activists had just been detained while trying to stage a protest against the planned legislation.

The Eurasian Media Forum is partly meant to demonstrate to the 'international community' how open and free Kazakhstan is becoming, despite its post-Soviet political system. Plakhina's unexpected intervention showed, at least, that while young people are willing to take risks and stand up for their beliefs, there is hope. More on the incident from my colleague Shaun Walker here.