Mikheil Saakashvili today return to his favourite message: that to oppose him is to be an agent of Russian domination of Georgia.

In a speech to ruling party MPs the president said the opposition parties who last year organised massive street protests against Mikheil Saakashvili were following Russian orders.

Mikheil Saakashvili has predicted ten million tourists will visit Georgia by 2015 - almost a ten-fold increase - or a 58% annual growth: a figure no major tourist destination has ever been able to sustain over such a period.

The bizarre prediction ranks alongside the Georgian president's June 2010 claim that the country would be as rich as Dubai in "five, six or seven years": meaning a minimum of 39% annual economic growth.

Currently around one million people visit Georgia from abroad ever year - but not all of these are tourists.

It is possible to see large increases in tourism numbers: between 1990 and 2007 Turkey emerged as one of the world's leading tourism destinations, with visitor numbers rising from around 5 million to 22 million in that period: but that is just 9% annual growth.

The world's boom tourist destination in this period was China, with visitors rising from around 10 million to 55 million: 11% per annum growth. Georgia's tourism volumes would have to grow over three times better than that to come close to Saakashvili's target - and all this in a time where economic relations with the traditional tourism source for the Caucasus state, Russia, are in the deep freeze.

Mikheil Saakashvili's apparently anguished reaction to Friday's disaster at the Mindeli coal mine in Tkibuli suggests that he is losing confidence in his prime minister, Nika Gilauri.

Late on Friday three miners were killed at the mine in what was the second major disaster at the pit in just five months.

In March, when the previous explosion killed four colliers, Gilauri rushed to the scene to exonerate the mine owner, the government-linked Georgian Industrial Group (GIG).

Then, as we reported, suspiscions were that the prime minister was keen to get the mine onwers off the hook because GIG were also key shareholders in the country's most popular TV station, the pro-government Rustavi 2.

Now, though, it seems that Saakashvili has taken the opposite tack - balming the pit management for both March's disaster and last Friday's:

“It is apparent that no safety instruction is actually being given before the employees enter the mines because together with March's explosion this is the second case this year in which so many lives have been sacrificed in such a small town. Everything points to a lack of discipline on the site. I really do understand how dangerous being a miner is, but still each staff member should be asked about security issues before starting the working day.”

However, it is also clear that the government are going to do little to actually make GIG pay for the consequences of the disaster: despite - or maybe because of - being able to finance a TV station that it is widely agreed has never made an honest profit and which was recently in receipt of a massive tax subsidy from the state - it is the government who are to pay for new jobs for victims' families and education for their children.

Georgia's rulers have again shown that the centre-piece of their economic policy - the so-called "Economic Liberty Act" which proposed to band tax increases, severly restrict public borrowing and block new business regulations - is dead in the water by admitting that the country's poor air safety record could see its airports blacklisted and that new safety laws are required.

The president introduced the act last autumn and promised its speedy imposition. But since then the government has been forced by the IMF to place its financial provisions on hold, introduce new anti-monopoly legislation and now, it seems, even the president is prepared to describe the country's previous libertarian approach to health and safety issues as a "mistake".

The Georgian authorities claim that low cost airline Ryanair is ready to fly to Georgia if the country's safety standards are improved. Ryanair often demands high levels of state subsidy to open up new routes but nobody seems to have asked Saakashvili or economic minister Vera Kobalia - who claims to have negotiated the idea with Ryanair - what, if any, money they are prepared to pay to get Ryanair to fly in.

Abnti-racist campaigners gather outside the presidential palace in Tbilisi to protest at Mikheil Saakashvili's comments about "niggers" and "savages".

Photograph copyright (c) Mart Wegman, 2010. All rights are reserved. Used with permission.