Actually I can hardly see how any of those situations is going to be a long term problem.
North Korea is going to change leadership in a couple of years, and they aren't retarded or suicidal enough to attack other countries on themselves. Although they are a dictatorial regime, one that has all the proper strings attached, they are more worried about staying on power than on world change. To tell the truth there are many other groups or regimes that scare me way more than NK.
Somalian pirates really isn't anything new, they are around since the 90's. Sure, they got more notoriety ever since that last year UN's resolution to take them out. But nothing new. A few people with guns assaulting some ships isn't exactly a world danger. On a side note, I find it both intriguing and funny to see people associating a new President to the increase on piracy acts.
Pakistan is continuing to fight Talibans and other extremist on their soil. It would actually be easier for them to just ignore the whole thing and pretend that they didn't exist, but instead they really put their hands into rotting them out. We've got to admire their determination in be willing to fight a war in their own backyard. Although things seem grin on Afghanistan, they were worse a few years ago, for what I've read from the latest US's war strategy, they want to pick many learned lessons from Iraq and use them on there. With both Pakistan's help, nation rebuilding and troops boost I believe that they can pull this out and diminish the Taliban's threat greatly.
After the last Israel incursion on the Gaza Strip, the Hamas seems more willing to keep talks with both the Fatah and Israel, although it was a terrible event, which led to destruction and death, it seems that Israeli action somehow paid off. The Fatah might be too weaked to react, specially if they want to be able to survive as a group. At least for now. Anyway, the political scene is looking as good as one could hope for.
The economy is not going to melt or disappear. What are're passing through It is only another economic cycle, and nothing too much unexpected. I've got friends who already knew for years that something like this was on the way, the bubble were quite evident and the only thing no one knew was the time of the burst. The economy will, as always, regenerate itself, companies will restructure, business will either fail or grow, governments will apply lots of regulations in the next few years, and eventually someday everything will go back to how we're today.
This is actually a great time to start your own business or to grow one that you already own. Are're bound to have cheap credit and lots of government incentives. (and European's if you live in Europe like me)
Oh, almost forgot. What about Georgia? Regional conflict. It was not really clear what happened. To tell the truth I'm more leaned to believe the Russian's version. Sure, they overkilled the Georgian side, but why wouldn't they? They claim to have justification and I've seen a couple of confirmations from refugees on television. Even on Fox News if you can believe that. None of the sides are exactly angels, and both were politically motivated to do what they did, but I find it unacceptable the behaviour of Georgia. (If they actually did everything the Russian's said they did of course, one never knows).
To sum it all, life is great.
