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Back to Story - Help Russians dig in but still promise Georgia pullout By MIKE ECKEL, Associated Press Writer 23 minutes ago
Russian forces lingered deep in Georgia on Thursday, digging trenches and setting up mortars a day before Kremlin officials promised to complete a troop withdrawal from this former Soviet republic.
But a top Russian general said it could be 10 days before the bulk of the troops left, and the mixed signals from Moscow left Georgians guessing about its intentions nearly a week after a cease-fire deal.
Strains in relations between Russia and the West showed no improvement. NATO, Moscow's Cold War foe, said Russia had halted military cooperation with the alliance, underscoring the growing division in a Europe that had seemed destined for unity after the Soviet Union collapsed.
Western leaders remained adamant that Russia remove its troops and do it quickly.
President Bush told Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili that the U.S. "expects Russia to abide by its agreement to withdraw forces," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. The Georgian leader called Bush Thursday, who is vacationing at his Texas ranch.
While refugees from the fighting over the South Ossetia region crammed Georgian schools and office buildings, a scattering of people left in a half-empty village said they were badly in need of basics.
"There is no bread, there is no food, no medicine. People are dying," said Nina Meladze, 45, in the village of Nadarbazevi, outside the key crossroads city of Gori. She said she stayed because she could not leave elderly relatives behind while other villagers fled to the capital, Tbilisi.
She said the village has been virtually abandoned since the war broke out. "I cannot go on like this anymore, I cry every day," she said.
Russian troops still controlled nearby Gori, which straddles Georgia's main east-west road, and the village of Igoeti about 30 miles west of Tbilisi. On the road between Gori and Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's battered capital, Russian soldiers built high earthen berms and strung barbed wire in at least three spots.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev promised earlier that his forces would pull back as far as South Ossetia and a surrounding security zone by Friday.
Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov reiterated that late Thursday, saying the troops would begin pulling back toward South Ossetia on Friday morning and be finished by day's end.
But the commander of Russian land forces, Gen. Vladimir Boldyrev, said it would take about 10 days for troops not involved in manning the security zones to complete their withdrawal to Russia, moving "in columns in the established order."
That suggested Russian soldiers could still be holding territory in Georgia up to the end of August.
The European Union-sponsored cease-fire says both Russian and Georgian troops must move back to positions they held before fighting broke out Aug. 7 in South Ossetia, which has close ties to Russia. The agreement says Russian forces also can be in a security zone that extends 4.3 miles into Georgia from South Ossetia.
Russian troops are also allowed a presence on Georgian territory in a security zone along the border with Abkhazia, another separatist Georgian region, under a 1994 U.N.-approved agreement that ended a war there.
Around Georgia's main Black Sea port city of Poti — outside any security zone — signs seemed to point to a prolonged presence. Russian troops excavated trenches, set up mortars and blocked a key bridge with armored personnel carriers and trucks. Other armored vehicles and trucks parked in a nearby forest.
Officials in Poti said the city had been looted by the Russians over the past week. Associated Press journalists saw Russian troops carry tables and chairs out on armored personnel carriers Thursday as residents protested. An AP photographer and TV crew were briefly detained by armed soldiers near Poti, who seized their digital memory cards and videotapes.
Poti Mayor Vano Taginadze said Russian troops were setting up new roadblocks and "moving around in the city and looking and searching in different places." Residents in Poti demonstrated against the Russian presence, waving red-and-white Georgian flags and banners and shouting "Russian occupants go home" in English.
Some Russian troops and military vehicles were on the move, including 21 tanks an AP reporter saw heading toward Russia from inside South Ossetia. Elsewhere, tanks, armored personnel carriers and trucks were seen moving in both directions on the road from Gori to Tskhinvali.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner hailed the report of tank movements.
"We are waiting ... for the Russians to respect their word," Kouchner told reporters in Paris. "We waited twice with dashed hopes. This time, it appears that there is at least the beginning of a fulfillment."
Outside the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, several ethnic Georgian villages were burning Thursday — many days after fighting ended — and bore evidence of destruction from looting. Some Ossetians said they were not prepared to live alongside ethnic Georgians anymore.
"It's not they, it's we who will erase them from the face of Earth," said Alan Didurov, 46.
Renowned conductor Valery Gergiev, who is Ossetian, led a requiem concert for the dead Thursday night in Tskhinvali — part of an effort to win international sympathy for Russia's argument that its invasion was justified by Georgia's attempt to regain control of South Ossetia by force.
"We want everyone to know the truth about the terrible events in Tskhinvali ... with the hope that such a thing will never again happen on our land," Gergiev said before the concert, held in front of the badly damaged South Ossetian legislature before a crowd flanked by two armored personnel carriers.
In a move sure to heighten tensions, a U.S. Navy guided missile destroyer loaded with humanitarian supplies headed toward Georgia through Turkey's straits between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. It was the first of three U.S. warships carrying blankets, hygiene kits and baby food to Georgia.
Paul Farley, a spokesman at the U.S. naval base in Crete, said all three would reach Georgia "within the next week." He did not give their exact destination.
The United States has carried out 20 aid flights to Georgia since Aug. 19. The U.N. estimates 158,000 people have fled their homes.
"We anticipate staying as long as there is need and helping to set up the economy, because it's very important that the economy begins to take on its normal aspects. But it depends on our ability to do full assessments throughout Georgia," Henrietta Fore, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, told reporters Thursday in Washington.
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Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Relentless.: You can rest assured I will let you know when you are right.
No need to bother because I already know I'm right... by the way do you know the definition of the word "Shield"? Don't bother, I will:
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This shield Audio Help /ʃild/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[sheeld] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun 1. a broad piece of armor, varying widely in form and size, carried apart from the body, usually on the left arm, as a defense against swords, lances, arrows, etc. 2. a similar device, often of lightweight plastic, used by riot police to protect themselves from rocks and other thrown objects. 3. something shaped like a shield, variously round, octagonal, triangular, or somewhat heart-shaped. 4. a person or thing that protects. 5. a police officer's, detective's, or sheriff's badge. 6. Ordnance. a steel screen attached to a gun to protect its crew, mechanism, etc. 7. Mining. a movable framework for protecting a miner from cave-ins, etc. 8. Electricity. a covering, usually made of metal, placed around an electric device or circuit in order to reduce the effects of external electric and magnetic fields. 9. Zoology. a protective plate or the like on the body of an animal, as a scute, enlarged scale, etc. 10. dress shield. 11. Heraldry. an escutcheon, esp. one broad at the top and pointed at the bottom, for displaying armorial bearings. 12. (initial capital letter) Astronomy. the constellation Scutum. 13. Also called continental shield. Geology. a vast area of ancient crustal rocks which, together with a platform, constitutes a craton. 14. a protective barrier against nuclear radiation, esp. a lead or concrete structure around a reactor. –verb (used with object) 15. to protect (someone or something) with or as if with a shield. 16. to serve as a protection for. 17. to hide or conceal; protect by hiding. 18. Obsolete. to avert; forbid. –verb (used without object) 19. to act or serve as a shield.
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Mach, you have clearly shown your ability to define the word shield. I for one would like to take this time to say: Well done. The way you did that was just flawless. Certainly you employed dictionary.com as a samurai employs a sword. True talent must be commended. Well done... Indeed.
Now if you could just read what I wrote... that would be a trick. To understand what I wrote? You'd be a master.
Posts: 2965 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: WHO is Poland shielding tho Mach? the only tactical way the Polish shield makes sense is if it's used after a pre-emptive strike for mop-up...
Russia still has over 5000, nukes
no foreign nationals will be going any where near the "guts" of those missiles, we haven't even perfected them for ourselves yet...
They have to start somewhere Glass... over time they will get better... if they are as ineffective as you say then the Russians have nothing to fear don't you agree? ...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Relentless.: Mach, you have clearly shown your ability to define the word shield. I for one would like to take this time to say: Well done. The way you did that was just flawless. Certainly you employed dictionary.com as a samurai employs a sword. True talent must be commended. Well done... Indeed.
Now if you could just read what I wrote... that would be a trick. To understand what I wrote? You'd be a master.
Remember that remark about you resembling PMS.. this is one of those moments...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Close Window Signs of pullback by Russian forces in Georgia Friday, August 22, 2008 IGOETI, Georgia - There are signs of a promised Russian pullback from positions deep in Georgia.
No Russian forces could be seen Friday afternoon in and around Igoeti, which had been their closest position to Georgia's capital.
A Russian armored column also was seen moving away from a base in western Georgia and a Georgian official said that forces were leaving the key central city of Gori.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other officials have said Russian forces would pull back to separatist regions and surrounding security zones by day's end Friday.
But there were still signs of preparations for a continued Russian military presence in other areas of Georgia.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
KHOBI, Georgia (AP) - A large Russian armored column has been seen moving away from a base deep in Georgia amid promises of a pullback.
The column of 83 tanks, APCs and trucks hauling artillery was moving away from the Senaki military base and toward the border of Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region Friday afternoon.
Georgian police said the vehicles came from the base.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other officials have said Russian forces would pull back to separatist regions and surrounding security zones by day's end Friday. But there were still signs of preparations for a continued Russian military presence outside those areas.
Georgia's security council chief said Friday that Russian forces also were leaving the central city of Gori.
Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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Back to Story - Help Signs of pullback by Russian forces in Georgia By MIKE ECKEL, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 3 minutes ago
Russian military convoys rolled out of three key positions in Georgia and headed toward Moscow-backed separatist regions Friday in a significant withdrawal two weeks after thousands of troops roared into the former Soviet republic.
In Moscow, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the pullback into separatist South Ossetia was finished late Friday — but the United States was less than impressed.
"(Russians) have without a doubt failed to live up to their obligations," U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in Washington. "Establishing checkpoints, buffer zones are definitely not part of the agreement."
Georgia's state minister on reintegration, Temur Yakobashvili, told The Associated Press the formation of a buffer zone outside South Ossetia "is absolutely illegal."
In western Georgia, a column of 83 tanks, APCs and trucks hauling artillery moved away from the Senaki military base north toward the border of Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region on Friday afternoon. Georgian police said the vehicles came from the base, which has been under Russian control for more than a week.
In central Georgia, at least 40 Russian military vehicles left the strategic crossroads city of Gori, heading north toward South Ossetia and Russia. Gori straddles the country's main east-west highway south of South Ossetia, the separatist region at the heart of the fighting. After Russian forces left Gori, cranes began dismantling a Russian checkpoint.
An Associated Press reporter in Igoeti, meanwhile, confirmed that Russian forces had pulled up from their former checkpoints and roadside positions around the village. Igoeti, on the road between Gori and the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, had been the Russians' closest position to the Georgian capital.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had promised to have his troops out of Georgia by Friday — but a top Russian general later amended that prediction, saying it could take at least 10 days before the bulk of Russian troops and hardware could be withdrawn.
The short but intense war near Russia's southern border has deeply strained relations between Moscow and the West. Russia has frozen its military cooperation with NATO, Moscow's Cold War foe, underscoring a growing division in Europe. Georgia's pro-Western leaders are pushing to join NATO, angering a resurgent Russia.
The major fighting began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia, which claims independence and has Russian support. Russian forces quickly drove the Georgians back and drove deep into Georgia.
Under an EU-brokered cease-fire deal, Russian forces are to pull back to positions they held before the fighting erupted, and Western leaders have called for a complete withdrawal from Georgia. But Russia says it will keep troops it calls peacekeepers in South Ossetia and Abkhazia as well as in buffer zones stretching into Georgia proper.
There were still questions about the extent of the Russian pullout on Friday.
Outside Poti, Russian troops were seen digging large trenches Friday morning near a bridge that provides the only access to the city. Five trucks, several armored personnel carriers and a helicopter were parked nearby. Another Russian position was seen in a wooded area outside the city.
The mayor of Poti, Vano Saginadze, said late Friday that two Russian roadblocks remained in or near the city. Poti is far from any zone that Russian troops could be allowed to be in under the cease-fire.
Regardless of the timing and extent of the withdrawal, Russia, Georgia and the West are bound to become embroiled in disputes over the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke from central government control in early 1990s wars after the Soviet breakup.
The Russian parliament was expected to discuss recognizing the independence of the separatist regions Monday.
In South Ossetia, whose capital Tskhinvali suffered the most in fighting, Russian troops were clearly establishing a long-term presence, erecting 18 peacekeeping posts in a so-called "security zone" around the border with Georgia.
Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of Russia's general staff, said Friday the move was aimed at preventing looters and Georgian arms smugglers. He said Russia still expected Georgia to try future military offensives in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where another further 18 peacekeeping posts are to be set up.
The heavily armed soldiers that Russia calls peacekeepers have been working closely with regular Russian troops and their separatist allies against Georgian forces. A total of 2,142 Russian peacekeepers are to be deployed on the Abkhazia de facto border, while 452 will man the South Ossetia de facto border, Nogovitsyn said.
In an interview with The Associated Press, South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity signaled that ethnic Georgians will not be allowed return to the region, charging that ethnic Ossetians were not allowed to return to Georgia after a previous conflict.
Asked whether the ethnic Georgians will be able to come back and where they will settle, Kokoity said, "Exactly, the main question is where, there is nothing left anymore."
That's because deserted ethnic Georgian villages around Tskhinvali have been burned and looted — many days after fighting ended.
In the village of Achabeti, an AP reporter saw Ossetians remove chairs, window frames and whatever else they could carry from abandoned Georgian houses. Many houses stood smoldering in the August heat and another building went up in flames. An excavator was dismantling a destroyed house.
Russian emergency officials arrived in Achabeti to evacuate the elderly who were too frail to flee in an operation they have been conducting in Georgian villages for the past several days. The Georgians were taken to Gori, where officials would attempt to get them in touch with their relatives.
Many of the elderly were happy to be evacuated, having been left behind with no food or care. But some did think it was an ingenious effort by Ossetians and the Russians to deport all Georgians from Ossetia.
"They are erasing this village from the face of earth so that Ossetians would come here," Aliosh Maisuradze, 83, said with tears in his eyes.
The U.N. estimates 158,000 people have fled their homes due to the fighting. The United States has carried out 20 aid flights to Georgia since Aug. 19, and three U.S. warships were heading toward Turkey carrying blankets, hygiene kits and baby food to Georgia.
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Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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Close Window Russia aims to keep control of Georgian port city Saturday, August 23, 2008 POTI, Georgia - Thousands of Georgians demanded that Russian troops leave the outskirts of this strategic Black Sea port on Saturday and took to the streets in protest, while a top Russian general said his country's forces would keep patrolling the area.
The comments by deputy head of the general staff Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, reported by Russian news agencies, showed that despite protests from the United States, France and Britain, Russia was confident enough to occupy whatever part of Georgia it deemed necessary.
"Russian military: You are not a liberating military, you are an occupying force!" one man shouted at the Poti protest. Banners read "Say No to War" and "Russia go home."
On Friday, Russia said it had pulled back forces from Georgia in accordance with a EU-brokered cease-fire agreement.
"There are very specific requirements for Russian withdrawal. Putting up permanent facilities and checkpoints are inconsistent with the agreement. We are in contact with the various parties to obtain clarification," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said he had pressed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during a phone conversation Saturday to quickly remove Russian troops from an axis between the Georgian towns of Poti and Senaki.
Russia's pullback on Friday came two weeks to the day after thousands of Russian soldiers roared into the former Soviet republic following an assault by Georgian forces on the separatist region of South Ossetia. The fighting left hundreds dead and nearly 160,000 people homeless.
It also has deeply strained relations between Moscow and the West. Russia has frozen its military cooperation with NATO, Moscow's Cold War foe, underscoring a growing division in Europe.
On Saturday, residents of the strategic central city of Gori began returning. Chaotic crowds of people and cars were jammed outside the city as Georgian police tried to control the mass return by setting up makeshift checkpoints.
Those who were let through came back to find a city battered by bombs, suffering from food shortages and gripped by anguish.
Surman Kekashvili, 37, stayed in Gori, taking shelter in a basement after his apartment was destroyed by a Russian bomb. Several days ago, he tried to bury three relatives killed by the bomb, placing what body parts he could find in a shallow grave covered by a burnt log, a rock and a piece of scrap metal.
"I took only a foot and some of a torso. I could not get the other bodies out," he said.
His next-door neighbor, Frosia Dzadiashvili, found most of her apartment destroyed, leaving only a room the size of a broom closet to stay in.
"I have nothing. My neighbors feed me if they have food to share," the 70-year-old woman said.
The Russian tanks and troops are now gone from Gori - but other Russian troops are just up the road at a new Russian checkpoint. On Saturday afternoon, several thousand protesters waving Georgian flags approached the Russian position on the outskirts of Gori. Some soldiers came out of their trenches, but there was no clash.
Russian troops also held positions in trenches they had dug near a bridge that provides the only access to Poti. Tanks and armored personnel carriers were parked nearby. Russian troops hoisted both Russian flags and the flag of the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, the union of former Soviet republics that Georgia recently announced it had left.
Emotions ran high as protesters approached a Russian position, but direct confrontation was avoided.
"They have the CIS flag, and that flag is not our Georgian flag," said protester Sulkhan Tolordava. "Georgia is not a member of this organization, so the troops must leave very quickly."
Russia interprets the cease-fire accord as allowing it to keep a substantial military presence in Georgia because of earlier peacekeeping agreements that ended fighting in the separatist areas of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the 1990s.
But even though Poti is completely outside the buffer zone for Abkhazia, Nogovitsyn said Russian troops are not leaving and will patrol the city.
"Poti is not in the security zone, but that doesn't mean that we will sit behind the fence and watch as they drive around in Hummers," Nogovitsyn said, making an acid reference to four U.S. Humvees the Russians seized in Poti this week. The vehicles were used in previous joint U.S.-Georgian military exercises.
Russian forces also set up a checkpoint near Senaki, the home of a major military base in western Georgia that Georgian troops retook on Saturday. AP video footage of the base Saturday showed it had been heavily looted.
And in South Ossetia, Russian troops erected 18 peacekeeping posts in the "security zone" and planned to build another 18 peacekeeping posts around Abkhazia. A total of 2,600 heavily armed troops the Russians call peacekeepers will be deployed in those regions.
Russia, Georgia and the West are certain to continue the diplomatic struggle over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Russian parliament was expected to discuss recognizing the independence of the separatist regions Monday.
In some devastated Georgian towns, the only visitors Saturday were looters, arriving in trucks and cars to take whatever they could find.
In the village of Kekhvi, the ethnic Georgian homes had been burned. An AP reporter saw Ossetian men hauling away cutlery, electronics, blankets, foodstuffs and even Orthodox icons in a looting campaign driven by opportunism and revenge. Some looters even came to pluck ripe peaches off the trees.
"This is not looting, this is trophies," said Garik Meriyev, 32, a stubbled South Ossetian dressed in green camouflage pants, a black baseball cap and dusty jackboots.
He and four other men loaded their yellow Russian-made minibus Saturday with metal pipes, timber and bricks from a burned down house.
"All of this will be destroyed anyway," he said. "But now these things will serve me."
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Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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Which one of these do you agree with or think we are in? :
RUSSIA INVADES, AMERICA BICKERS Putin: Rightly expected Western paralysis.
Posted: 5:08 am August 23, 2008
EVERYONE is distracted by the Olym pics. The squabbling here on the campaign trail consumes the media. Two presidential candidates and a lame-duck president all are weighing in on foreign policy. No wonder Vladimir Putin thought it was a good time to invade Georgia.
Apparently the Russian prime minister knew exactly what he was doing but assumed no one in the West did. And he was right.
Our pundits and politicians are all over the map as Putin is variously portrayed as villain, victim, patriot, tyrant - and more still.
The neoconservatives: We must make Russia pay a terrible price for subverting a democracy. Our policy of promoting liberal governments among the former Soviet republics, with integration into Europe and relations with NATO, was sound, and it cannot be allowed to be aborted by Putin.
Bottom line: Form a ring of democracies around Russia until it sees the light and likewise evolves into a constitutional state.
The paleoconservatives: Putin is only protecting his rightful national interests in his own backyard, which don't really conflict with ours. You have to admire the old brute for taking care of business. Neocons - and no doubt Israelis in the background - provoked that Georgian loudmouthed dandy Saakashvili to stick his head in a noose - so he deserved the hanging he got.
Bottom line: We should cut a deal with our natural ally Putin to keep out of each other's proper sphere of influence - and let each deal as it wishes with these miserable little third-party troublemakers.
The realists: Don't poke sticks at the Bear. We should define what our strategic interests in the region are. Maybe we can protect Eastern Europe, the Baltic republics and the Ukraine - but only if we accept that Georgia just isn't part of the equation. We need to back out of the saloon with drawn pistols, and save as much face as we can.
This is a reminder that we forgot the role of honor and fear in international relations when we encouraged weak former Soviet republics merrily to join the West and gratuitously humiliate Russia.
Bottom line: Don't get caught again issuing promises that we can't keep!
The left wing: Putin's unilateral pre-emption was just like our own in Iraq. His recognition of South Ossetia's independence was no different from our own in breakaway Kosovo. So America is just as bad. Russia's attack is the moral equivalent of America arbitrarily removing the tyrant Saddam. It's all about Big Oil and pipelines anyway - along with Bush, Cheney, Halliburton et al.
Bottom line: Another long overdue comeuppance for the American Empire.
The liberal mainstream: Both sides are at fault. We understand Georgia's plight, but also sympathize with Russia's dilemma. We should consult the United Nations, involve the European Union and encourage European diplomacy. We can learn from the multilateral NATO teamwork in Afghanistan.
Bottom line: Make sure that international institutions don't confuse an empathetic America with cowboy George Bush.
The Europeans: Prioritize! 1) Don't jeopardize gas supplies from, and trade with, Russia; 2) Avoid any confrontation in any form; 3) Make sure that Bush does not do something stupid to draw us too far in, but at least does something to avoid leaving us too far out.
Bottom line: Luckily, Tbilisi is still a long way from Berlin and Paris!
The rest of America: My lord, Putin is acting just like Brezhnev! But they told us that he just wanted to democratize and reform Russia, integrate with NATO and the EU, and help fight radical Islam! So why did he get angry with Georgia when it just wanted to do the same things he was supposed to be doing? That backstabber wasn't honest with us!
Bottom line: Now what?
The more Russia promises to leave Georgia, the more it seems to stay put. One reason may be that Putin keeps counting on us either to be confused, contradictory or angrier at ourselves than at Russia over his latest aggression. And given our inability to speak with one voice, he seems to be absolutely right.
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Close Window Russia recognizes breakaway Georgian regions Tuesday, August 26, 2008 MOSCOW - Russia formally recognized the breakaway Georgian territories at the heart of its war with Georgia on Tuesday, heightening tensions with the West as the United States dispatched a military ship bearing aid to a port city still patrolled by Russian troops.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Georgia forced Russia's hand by launching an attack targeting South Ossetia on Aug. 7 in an apparent bid to seize control of the breakaway region.
In response, Russian tanks and troops drove deep into the U.S. ally's territory in a five-day war that Moscow saw as a justified response to a military threat in its backyard and the West viewed as a repeat of Soviet-style intervention in its vassal states.
"This is not an easy choice but this is the only chance to save people's lives," Medvedev said Tuesday in a televised address a day after Russia's Kremlin-controlled parliament voted unanimously to support the diplomatic recognition.
Western criticism came almost immediately.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the decision to recognize the independence of two breakaway regions in Georgia is "extremely unfortunate."
She said the U.S. regards Abkhazia and South Ossetia as "part of the internationally recognized borders of Georgia" and will use its veto power in the U.N. Security Council to block any Russian attempt change their status.
Britain, Germany and France also criticized the decision.
Russian forces have staked out positions beyond the de-facto borders of the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The two territories have effectively ruled themselves following wars in the 1990s.
While Western nations have called the Russian military presence in Poti a clear violation of an EU-brokered cease-fire, a top Russian general countered Tuesday that using warships to deliver aid was "devilish."
"The heightened activity of NATO ships in the Black Sea perplexes us," Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said in Moscow. The United States says its ships are carrying humanitarian aid but suspicion persists in Russia that they are delivering military materiel clandestinely.
Many of the Russian forces have pulled back from their positions in Georgia, but hundreds at least are estimated to still be manning checkpoints that Russia calls "security zones."
Two of those checkpoints are near the edge of Poti, one of Georgia's most important Black Sea ports - one by a bridge that provides the only access to Poti. The Russian military is also claiming the right to patrol in the city.
An AP cameraman was treated roughly by Russian troops Sunday when he tried to film Russian movements around Poti. Other AP journalists have reported on Russian looting in the city. Georgian officials have said much of the port's infrastructure - radar, Coast Guard ships, other equipment - was destroyed by the Russians.
Angering Russia, the United States sent the missile destroyer USS McFaul to the southern Georgian port of Batumi, well away from the conflict zone, to deliver 34 tons of humanitarian aid on Sunday.
The McFaul left Batumi on Tuesday but would remain in the Black Sea area, said Commander Scott Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 6th Fleet in Naples, Italy.
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas, meanwhile, was headed for Georgia with a shipment of aid.
Embassy spokesman Stephen Guice did not give details on which ship would aim to enter Poti, but it appeared likely the smaller Coast Guard ship would aim to dock, with the McFaul possibly remaining on guard at sea.
"We can confirm that U.S. ship-borne humanitarian aid will be delivered to Poti tomorrow," Guice said.
In Moscow, the deputy head of the Russian military's general staff lashed out at the U.S. naval operation.
"We are worried" about aid being delivered on warships, Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said. "This is devilish."
"This aid could be bought at any flea market," he added.
While he did not link it with the U.S. ships, Nogovitsyn said a unit of Russian naval ships was off Sukhumi - the capital of another separatist Georgian region, Abkhazia, on the Black Sea north of Poti. He said the ships were observing the pullout of Russian troops from Georgia.
Nogovitsyn told reporters that 10 ships from NATO nations were currently in the Black Sea and that eight more are to join them soon.
"They have very serious arsenal on their ships," Nogovitsyn said. "The Black Sea is just a small pool for their arms with the range of 2,500 kilometers."
The Georgian defense ministry said a Russian large landing ship, the Yamal, was seen in the Black Sea off Poti on Tuesday morning and another was in the sea farther north off Abkhazia, which is also under the control of Russian troops.
The United States and other Western countries have given substantial military aid to Georgia, angering Russia, which regards Georgia as part of its historical sphere of influence. Russia has also complained bitterly about aspirations by Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.
Medvedev said Georgian Presdent Mikhail Saakshvili was so bent on ganiang control of South Ossetia that he resorted to "genocide."
"Georgia chose the least human way to achieve its goal - to absorb South Ossetia by eliminating a whole nation," Medvedev said.
Russia's military presence seems likely to further weaken Georgia, a Western ally in the Caucasus region, a major transit corridor for energy supplies to Europe and a strategic crossroads close to the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia and energy-rich Central Asia.
After Russia's parliament urged recognition of the breakaway territories on Monday, the U.S. State Department said recognition would be "unacceptable" and President Bush urged the Kremlin against it.
"Georgia's territorial integrity and borders must command the same respect as every other nation's, including Russia's," Bush, who is sending Vice President Dick Cheney on a visit to Georgia next month to show support, said late Monday.
Russia says the West undermined its own arguments for the sanctity of Georgia's borders by supporting Kosovo's declaration of independence from traditional Russian ally Serbia in February.
Georgia lashed out at Russia, as expected.
"Russia is trying to legalize the results of an ethnic cleansing it has conducted, to oppose it to the West," Georgia's state minister on reintegration, Timur Yakobashvili, told The Associated Press. "But it will result in Russia's isolation from the world."
Britain rejected the Russian move, with the Foreign Office saying it did "nothing to improve the prospects of peace in the Caucasus."
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said France regrets Russia's decision and is committed to the territorial integrity of Georgia.
In practical terms, Russian recognition seems unlikely break the isolation of the two breakaway regions.
Neither region has much to export, or much of an economy. Both rely heavily on Russia for pensions and government subsidies. Most people in the two regions have been given Russian passports, and already consider themselves citizens of Russia.
But it marked an initial step toward what could become modern Russia's first push for territorial expansion.
In London, British oil company BP PLC announced Monday it has reopened the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which runs through Georgia.
The pipeline, which provides some 1 million barrels per day of Caspian Sea crude to international markets, had been closed for more than two weeks after a fire on its Turkish stretch. Kurdish rebels claimed responsibility for the blaze.
BP's ability to export Caspian oil had been seriously curtailed by both the fire on the Turkish stretch of the BTC line and the fighting with Russia in Georgia.
The London-based company shut down its Baku-Supsa oil pipeline - which runs through the center of Georgia from Baku in Azerbaijan to Supsa on Georgia's Black Sea coast - on August 12 because of security concerns. That line, which had been pumping about 90,000 barrels a day, remains closed.
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Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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Russia says U.S. ships arms to Georgia, U.S. denies
11:20 a.m. August 26, 2008
MOSCOW – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday accused the United States of shipping arms to Georgia on U.S. naval vessels, but Washington denied the charge.
Medvedev made the charge in an interview on the BBC when he was asked if Russia was mounting a blockade of ships off Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti where the American warship USS McFaul is due to deliver humanitarian aid.
Close Window US, Russia anchor military ships in Georgian ports Wednesday, August 27, 2008 BATUMI, Georgia - A U.S. military ship loaded with aid docked at a southern Georgian port Wednesday, and Russia sent three missile boats to another Georgian port as the standoff escalated over a nation devastated by war with Russia.
The dockings came a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recognized two Georgian rebel territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, prompting harsh criticism from Western nations.
Georgia reacted Wednesday by recalling all but two diplomats from its embassy in Moscow.
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas, carrying 34 tons of humanitarian aid, docked in the Black Sea port of Batumi, south of the zone of this month's fighting between Russia and Georgia. The arrival avoided Georgia's main cargo port of Poti, still controlled by Russian soldiers.
The U.S. Embassy in Georgia had earlier said the ship was headed to Poti, but then retracted the statement. Zaza Gogava, head of Georgia's joint forces command, said Poti could have been mined by Russian forces and still contained several sunken Georgian ships hit in the fighting.
Poti's port reportedly suffered heavy damage from the Russian military. In addition, Russian troops have established checkpoints on the northern approach to the city and a U.S. ship docking there could be perceived as a direct challenge.
Meanwhile, Russia's missile cruiser, the Moskva, and two smaller missile boats anchored at the port of Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, some 180 miles north of Batumi. The Russian navy says the ships will be involved in peacekeeping operations.
Although Western nations have called the Russian military presence in Poti a clear violation of an European Union-brokered cease-fire, a top Russian general has called using warships to deliver aid "devilish."
Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn warned that NATO has already exhausted the number of forces it can have in the Black Sea, according to international agreements, and warned Western nations against sending more ships.
"Can NATO - which is not a state located in the Black Sea - continuously increase its group of forces and systems there? It turns out that it cannot," Nogovitsyn was quoted as saying Wednesday by the Interfax news agency.
Western leaders assailed Russia for violating Georgia's territorial sovereignty.
"We cannot accept these violations of international law, of accords for security and cooperation in Europe, of United Nations resolutions, and the taking ... of a territory by the army of a neighboring country," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Wednesday.
President Bush, meanwhile, urged Russia to reconsider its "irresponsible decision."
"Russia's action only exacerbates tensions and complicates diplomatic negotiations," Bush said in a statement Tuesday from Crawford, Texas, where he is on vacation.
Many of the Russian forces that drove deep into Georgia after fighting broke out Aug. 7 in the separatist region of South Ossetia have pulled back, but hundreds at least are estimated to still be manning checkpoints that Russia calls "security zones" inside Georgia proper.
The U.S. and other Western countries have given substantial military aid to Georgia, angering Russia, which regards Georgia as part of its historical sphere of influence. Russia also has complained bitterly about aspirations by Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.
In Tbilisi, boxes of aid were sorted, stacked and loaded onto trucks Wednesday for some of the tens of thousands of people still displaced by the fighting. Some boxes were stamped "USAID - from the American People."
Tim Callaghan, head of the USAID response team, told an AP television crew that aid workers would "continue to assess the needs" of those affected by the fighting and "provide other assistance as required."
The United Nations estimated that nearly 160,000 people had to flee their homes, but hundreds have returned to Georgian cities like Gori in the past week.
Russia's ambassador to Moldova, meanwhile, said the country's leaders should be wary of what happened in Georgia and avoid a "bloody and catastrophic trend of events" in the separatist, pro-Russia region of Trans-Dniester. The ambassador, Valeri Kuzmin, said Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia because of "Georgia's aggression against South Ossetia."
Trans-Dniester broke away from the former Soviet republic of Moldova in 1990. A war broke out between Moldovan forces and separatists in 1992 leaving 1,500 dead. Trans-Dniester is supported by Russia but is not recognized internationally. Russia has 1,500 troops stationed there to guard weapons facilities.
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Associated Press writer Jim Heintz in Tbilisi, Georgia, contributed to this report.
Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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Close Window Western nations warn Russia to `change course' Wednesday, August 27, 2008 TBILISI, Georgia - Western leaders warned Russia on Wednesday to "change course," hoping to keep a conflict that already threatens a key nuclear pact and could even raise U.S. chicken prices from blossoming into a new Cold War.
Moscow said it was NATO expansion and Western support for Georgia that was causing the new East-West divisions, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lashed out at the United States for using military ships to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia.
Meanwhile, Georgia slashed its embassy staff in Moscow to protest Russia's recognition of the two separatist enclaves that were the flashpoint for the five-day war between the two nations earlier this month.
The tensions have spread to the Black Sea, which Russia shares unhappily with three nations that belong to NATO and two others that desperately want to, Ukraine and Georgia. Some Ukrainians fear Moscow might set its sights on their nation next.
In moves evocative of Cold War cat-and-mouse games, a U.S. military ship carrying humanitarian aid docked at a southern Georgian port, and Russia sent a missile cruiser and two other ships to a port farther north in a show of force.
The maneuvering came a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had said his nation was "not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War." For the two superpowers of the first Cold War, the United States and Russia, repercussions from this new conflict could be widespread.
Russia's agriculture minister said Moscow could cut poultry and pork import quotas by hundreds of thousands of tons, hitting American producers hard and thereby raising prices for American shoppers.
Russians sometimes refer to American poultry imports as "Bush's legs," a reference to the frozen chicken shipped to Russia amid economic troubles following the 1991 Soviet collapse, during George H.W. Bush's presidency.
And a key civil nuclear agreement between Moscow and Washington appears likely to be shelved until next year at the earliest.
On the diplomatic front, the West's denunciations of Russia grew louder.
Britain's top diplomat equated Moscow's offensive in Georgia with the Soviet tanks that invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring democratic reforms in 1968, and demanded Russia "change course."
"The sight of Russian tanks in a neighboring country on the 40th anniversary of the crushing of the Prague Spring has shown that the temptations of power politics remain," Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.
Western leaders have accused Russia of using inappropriate force when it sent tanks and troops into Georgia earlier this month. The Russian move followed a Georgian crackdown on the pro-Russian South Ossetia.
Many of the Russian forces that drove deep into Georgia after fighting broke out Aug. 7 have pulled back, but hundreds are estimated to still be manning checkpoints that Russia calls "security zones" inside Georgia proper.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a phone call to immediately fulfill the EU-brokered cease-fire by pulling all troops out of Georgia.
The Kremlin rejected Western criticism, and Tuesday even suggested the conflict could spread. It starkly warned another former Soviet republic, tiny Moldova, that aggression against a breakaway region there could provoke a military response.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Russia of trying to redraw the borders of Georgia. His foreign minister went further, suggesting Russia had engaged in "ethnic cleansing" in South Ossetia, one of the two Georgian rebel territories.
And the seven nations that along with Russia make up the G-8 issued a statement that underlined Russia's growing estrangement from the West.
The seven - United States, Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Japan and Italy - said Russia's decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries violated the Georgia's territorial integrity.
Two weeks ago, officials had told The Associated Press that the G-7 were weighing whether to effectively disband what is known as the G-8 by throwing Moscow out.
Georgia's prime minister put damage from the Russian war at about $1 billion but said it did not fundamentally undermine the Georgian economy. Georgia, which has a national budget of about $3 billion, hopes for substantial Western aid to recover.
The United Nations has estimated nearly 160,000 people had to flee their homes, but hundreds have returned to Georgian cities like Gori in the past week.
In the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, boxes of aid were sorted, stacked and loaded onto trucks Wednesday for some of the tens of thousands of people still displaced by the fighting. Some boxes were stamped "USAID - from the American People."
In the Black Sea, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas, carrying 34 tons of humanitarian aid, docked in Batumi. The missile destroyer USS McFaul was there earlier this week delivering aid, and the U.S. planned to leave it in the Black Sea for now.
A spokesman for Putin, quoted by Interfax news agency, observed: "Military ships are hardly a common way to deliver such aid."
The U.S. has used military ships to deliver humanitarian aid before, including in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami.
The U.S. Embassy in Georgia had earlier said the Dallas was headed to the port city of Poti but then retracted the statement. A Georgian official said the port in Poti could have been mined by Russian forces.
Poti's port reportedly suffered heavy damage from the Russian military. In addition, Russian troops have established checkpoints on the northern approach to the city, and a U.S. ship docking there could have been seen as a direct challenge.
Meanwhile, the Russian missile cruiser Moskva and two smaller missile boats anchored at the port in Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, some 180 miles north of Batumi. The Russian Navy says the ships will be involved in peacekeeping operations.
Russian Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn warned that NATO has already exhausted the number of forces it can have in the Black Sea, according to international agreements, and warned Western nations against sending more ships.
"Can NATO - which is not a state located in the Black Sea - continuously increase its group of forces and systems there? It turns out that it cannot," Nogovitsyn was quoted as saying Wednesday by Interfax.
Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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Moscow has issued an extraordinary warning to the West that military assistance to Georgia for use against South Ossetia or Abkhazia would be viewed as a "declaration of war" by Russia.
The extreme rhetoric from the Kremlin's envoy to NATO came as President Dmitry Medvedev stressed he will make a military response to US missile defence installations in eastern Europe, sending new shudders across countries whose people were once blighted by the Iron Curtain.
And Moscow also emphasised it was closely monitoring what it claims is a build-up of NATO firepower in the Black Sea.
The incendiary warning on Western military involvement in Georgia - where NATO nations have long played a role in training and equipping the small state - came in an interview with Dmitry Rogozin, a former nationalist politician who is now ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance.
"If NATO suddenly takes military actions against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, acting solely in support of Tbilisi, this will mean a declaration of war on Russia," he stated.
Yesterday likened the current world crisis to the fevered atmosphere before the start of the First World War.
Rogozin said he did not believe the crisis would descend to war between the West and Russia.
But his use of such intemperate language will be seen as dowsing a fire with petrol.
Top military figure Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Studies in Moscow, alleged that the US and NATO had been arming Georgia as a dress rehearsal for a future military operation in Iran.
"We are close to a serious conflict - U.S. and NATO preparations on a strategic scale are ongoing. In the operation the West conducted on Georgian soil against Russia - South Ossetians were the victims or hostages of it - we can see a rehearsal for an attack on Iran."
He claimed Washington was fine tuning a new type of warfare and that the threat of an attack on Iran was growing by the day bringing "chaos and instability" in its wake.
With the real architect of the worsening Georgian conflict - prime minister Vladimir Putin - remaining in the background, Medvedev followed up on Rogozin's broadside with a threat to use the Russian military machine to respond to the deployment of the American anti-missile defence system in Poland and the Czech republic.
Poland agreed this month to place ten interceptor missiles on its territory, and Moscow has already hinted it would become a nuclear target for Russia in the event of conflict.
"These missiles are close to our borders and constitute a threat to us," Medvedev told Al-Jazeera television. "This will create additional tension and we will have to respond to it in some way, naturally using military means."
The Russian president said that offering NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet republics, would only aggravate the situation.
Moscow has consistently expressed its opposition to the U.S. missile shield, saying it threatens its national security.
The U.S. claims the shield is designed to thwart missile attacks by what it calls "rogue states," including Iran.
Meanwhile, Russia - seen by the West as flouting international law - today demanded NATO abide by an obscure agreement signed before the Second World War limiting its warships in the Black Sea.
"In light of the build-up of NATO naval forces in the Black Sea, our fleet has also taken on the task of monitoring their activities," said hawkish deputy head of Russia's general staff, Anatoly Nogovitsyn.
The Montreux Convention, as it is called, sets a weight restriction of 45,000 tonnes on the number of warships that countries outside the Black Sea region can deploy in the basin.
"Can NATO indefinitely build up its forces and means there? It turns out it cannot," said Nogovitsyn.
NATO has said it is undertaking pre-arranged exercises in the Black Sea involving US, German, Spanish and Polish ships. Two other US warships sailed to Georgian waters with humanitarian aid.
Georgia is poised to sever diplomatic relations with Russia, or reduce them to a bare minimum.
"We will drastically cut our diplomatic ties with Russia," said a top official.
President Mikhail Saakashvili said he was frightened to leave Georgia to attend the EU summit on the crisis.
"If I leave Georgia, the Russians will close our airspace and prevent me from returning home," he said.
Russia sought Chinese backing for its action - but the Communist regime in Beijing appeared reluctant to offer support, instead issuing a statement saying it was "concerned" about recent developments.
NATO called for Russia to reverse its decision on recognition for the two enclaves, both Georgian under international law.
But the new 'president' of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoyty, called for Russian military bases on his territory.
French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner warned today that an marauding Russian bear could trample over other ex-Soviet states.
"That is very dangerous," he said, pointing at Ukraine and Moldova.
Close Window Georgia to sever diplomatic ties with Russia Friday, August 29, 2008 TBILISI, Georgia - A Georgian Foreign Ministry official says Georgia is to recall all diplomatic staff from its embassy in Moscow because of the Russian military presence in Georgia.
Nato Chikovani says Georgia will withdraw its staff on Saturday, following a parliamentary vote in favor of the move on Thursday.
Russian news agencies cite Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nestrenko as criticizing the move, saying it will not benefit bilateral relations.
Georgia is angry at the lingering presence of Russian troops in Georgia despite Russia's promise to withdraw in accordance with an EU-brokered cease-fire.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
TSKHINVALI, Georgia (AP) - Russia intends to eventually absorb Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia, a South Ossetian official said Friday, three days after Moscow recognized the region as independent and drew criticism from the West.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the region's leader, Eduard Kokoity, discussed the future of South Ossetia earlier this week in Moscow, South Ossetian parliamentary speaker Znaur Gassiyev said.
Russia will absorb South Ossetia "in several years" or earlier, a position was "firmly stated by both leaders," Gassiyev said.
In Moscow, a Kremlin spokeswoman said Friday there was "no official information" on the talks.
The vice speaker of Georgia's parliament, Gigi Tsereteli, said the statement cannot be taken seriously.
"The separatist regimes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the Russian authorities are cut off from reality," he said in Tbilisi. "The world has already become different and Russia will not long be able to occupy sovereign Georgian territory."
"The regimes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should think about the fact that if they become part of Russia, they will be assimilated and in this way they will disappear," he added.
Moscow's recognition Tuesday of South Ossetia and another separatist province, Abkhazia, came on the back of a short war that began Aug. 7, when Georgia launched a military offensive to retake South Ossetia. Russia responded by rolling hundreds of tanks into the Moscow-friendly province and pushed the Georgian army out.
Russia blasted the offensive as blind aggression, saying the move deprived Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili of the moral authority to defend Georgia's territorial integrity.
Georgia and the West in turn criticized Russia for pressing further into Georgia proper and for ignoring a cease-fire brokered by the European Union.
But a high-ranking official in French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office says that for now "we don't foresee any sanctions decided on by the European Council."
European Union leaders are holding a summit Monday and some member countries have pushed to punish Russia over the crisis with Georgia. But Sarkozy's office believes Europe must concentrate on pressuring Russia to apply a cease-fire agreement.
France currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
The official spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because of office policy. He elaborated on remarks by France's foreign minister, who has said sanctions were being considered.
Meanwhile, Russia and South Ossetia plan to sign an agreement on the placement of Russian military bases in South Ossetia, the province's deputy parliamentary speaker Tarzan Kokoiti said. How many bases that involves will become clear on Sept. 2, when the document is set to be signed, he said.
He said South Ossetians have the right to reunite with North Ossetia, which is part of Russia.
"Soon there will be no North or South Ossetia - there will be a united Alania as part of Russia," Kokoiti said, using another name for Ossetia.
"We will live in one united Russian state," he said.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of instigating the fighting in Georgia and said he suspects a connection to the U.S. presidential campaign - a contention the White House dismissed as "patently false."
Putin said that Russia had hoped the U.S. would restrain Georgia, which Moscow accuses of starting the war by attacking South Ossetia on Aug. 7. Instead, he suggested the U.S. encouraged the nation's leadership to try to rein in the separatist region by force.
Kurt Volker, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, said Friday that the fighting was prompted by Russian pressure and shelling from South Ossetia.
"We did have lots of contacts with Georgia over a long period of time. And the nature of that has always been to say 'don't let yourself get drawn into a military confrontation here,'" Volker said. "Georgia found it too hard to hold that line when they were seeing what Russia was preparing to do."
--
Associated Press Writers Misha Dzhindhzikhashvili and Jim Heintz in Tbilisi, Georgia; Laurent Pirot in Paris; and David Nowak and Maria Danilova in Moscow contributed to this report.
Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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Putin said that Russia had hoped the U.S. would restrain Georgia, which Moscow accuses of starting the war by attacking South Ossetia on Aug. 7. Instead, he suggested the U.S. encouraged the nation's leadership to try to rein in the separatist region by force.
i think Putin has a pretty good handle on US politics
look up Randy Scheunemann...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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Close Window Georgia to sever diplomatic ties with Russia Friday, August 29, 2008 TBILISI, Georgia - Georgia severed diplomatic ties with Moscow on Friday to protest the presence of Russian troops on its territory, and its president cast the far-confrontation over his country's fate as "a fight between the civilized and the uncivilized worlds."
With European Union leaders set to huddle on how to deal with an increasingly assertive Russia, Vladimir Putin angrily warned Europe not to do America's bidding and said Moscow does not fear Western sanctions.
Russia has faced isolation over its offensive in Georgia and its recognition of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. No other country has followed suit and recognized the regions' independence. The United States and Europe have condemned Russia's actions but are hard pressed to find an effective response.
Georgia's diplomats in Russia will leave Moscow on Saturday, Georgian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nato Chikovani said. Georgia's leadership followed through on a call from lawmakers who voted unanimously late Thursday to break off ties with Russia, branding it an "aggressor country."
"We found ourselves in an awkward situation when a country militarily invading and occupying our country, then recognizing part of its territories, is trying to create a sense of normalcy" by maintaining diplomatic relations, Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said in Sweden.
"I think it is the right decision," Tbilisi resident Irakli Makharadze said. "What else should we do in the situation when the country is fighting against us, is occupying our territories, destroying everything and killing our people? We could not react differently."
The diplomatic break will require Georgia and Russia to negotiate through third countries if they negotiate at all - a sticky situation because Russia sees Western nations as biased in Georgia's favor. Georgia, which had pushed for a greater role for international organizations, could see it as advantage.
But it may bring little practical change, because there were few signs of any productive diplomacy even before the war.
Trade between Russia and Georgia are also minimal, following Russian bans in 2006 on Georgia's major exports - wine and mineral water - and other products. Only a fraction of foreign investment in Georgia comes from Russia, while a Russian ban on direct flights to and from Georgia was lifted this year but flights halted again as the war erupted.
Russia criticized the decision, in line with its portrayal of Georgia as a stubborn troublemaker. "Breaking off diplomatic relations with Tbilisi is not Moscow's choice, and the responsibility lies with Tbilisi," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said, according to the Russian news agency.
Adding to the tension, a lawmaker in South Ossetia said Russia intends to eventually absorb the province at the center of the five-day war, which broke out Aug. 7 when Georgia attacked South Ossetia in a bid to wrest control from separatists. Russia sent in tanks, troops and bombers, and has maintained a powerful military presence.
Russia further angered the West and startled even its staunch supporters by recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Pointedly visiting Poti, a Black Sea port still shadowed by Russian forces who have set up positions nearby, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili gloated about the lack of global support for Moscow's move to redraw the borders of his country.
"Russia ... has achieved one thing," he said. "Earlier this issue got little attention from our friends, today it is a topic for the whole world." He thanked China and Central Asian countries for not following Russia's lead and noted that Barack Obama had mentioned Georgia along with Afghanistan and Iraq in his speech at the U.S. Democratic convention.
"Today it is a fight between the civilized and the uncivilized worlds," Saakashvili said. He called the Russians "occupiers."
"They didn't come up here to seize a few villages or to ethnically cleanse although they did all of this," Saakashvili told reporters in Poti. "They came here also to destroy the rest of the country and that's what they were doing, hitting the most sensitive targets."
Putin rejected that and lashed but at Georgia and its Western supporters.
Russia defended the honor and the lives of its citizens with its war in Georgia, Putin said in an interview with Germany's ARD television, and he argued that it stuck to its mandate to help keep peace in South Ossetia.
"Such a country will not be in isolation," Putin said in an excerpt shown on state-run Russian television.
European Union leaders will not decide to impose sanctions on Russia at their summit next week in Brussels, even though some EU countries have pushed for them, French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said Friday. Putin turned to a sausage analogy to say Moscow is not afraid.
"If we defend our lives, they will take away our sausage?" he said. "What's our choice? Between sausage and life? We choose life."
Putin also tried to drive a wedge between Europe and the United States.
"If European countries want to serve the foreign policy interests of the United States, in my view they won't win anything from this," he said, accusing Europe of doing America's bidding by supporting Kosovo's independence declaration in February.
He suggested Western emphasis on the sanctity of Georgia's borders is hypocritical, saying that a U.N. resolution on Serbia's territorial integrity was "thrown in the garbage."
"Why? Because the White House gave the order and everyone carried it out," Putin said.
Putin also accused the West of double standards over its support for Saakashvili, pointing to the violent dispersal of opposition protests in Georgia last year and the "criminal act" of Georgia's offensive against South Ossetia.
"And this is, of course, a democratic country with which one should conduct dialogue, and that should be taken into NATO and maybe the EU," he said sarcastically.
Russia has bitterly opposed Saakashvili's drive to bring Georgia into NATO.
The interview came a day after Putin told CNN that the U.S. pushed Georgia into war with South Ossetia and that he suspects it was done to affect the outcome of the U.S. presidential election - a contention the White House dismissed as "patently false."
Kurt Volker, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, said Friday that the fighting was prompted by Russian pressure and shelling from South Ossetia.
"We did have lots of contacts with Georgia over a long period of time. And the nature of that has always been to say 'don't let yourself get drawn into a military confrontation here,'" Volker said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. "Georgia found it too hard to hold that line when they were seeing what Russia was preparing to do."
Long-standing tensions between Georgian peacekeepers stationed in South Ossetia and Russian and South Ossetian troops escalated on Aug. 1 when South Ossetia said Georgians shot six people. Over the next several days, each side repeatedly accused the other of launching further attacks.
South Ossetia rejected a proposal for an Aug. 6 conflict-resolution meeting. South Ossetia says its capital came under Georgian shelling that night.
Georgia's president called a cease-fire the next evening. But hours later, the full-scale barrage of Tskhinvali began. South Ossetia accused Saakashvili of treachery, but Saakashvili said he called for the assault following attacks by South Ossetian forces and because of reports that Russian troops were moving in.
South Ossetian parliamentary speaker Znaur Gassiyev said Friday that Russia will absorb South Ossetia within "several years" or even earlier. He said that position was "firmly stated" by both the province's leader, Eduard Kokoity, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in talks in Moscow earlier this week.
The statement stoking Georgian suspicion that Moscow's intent all along has been to annex the South Ossetia.
In Moscow, a Kremlin spokeswoman said Friday there was "no official information" on the talks.
South Ossetia broke away from Georgia's central government during a war in the early 1990s, and many see integration into Russia as a logical next step for the province with closer ethnic ties to North Ossetia, in Russia, than with Georgia.
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Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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I think Glass called this one right when he suspected Neo-Con hijinks. This has clearly been an attempt to steer the election... as well as other agendas I am reluctant to discuss.
Posts: 2965 | Registered: Aug 2005
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How terribly sad that we can honestly and sincerely suspect the Administration (along with it's cronies) of OUR Government to engage in the manipulation of a foreign and sovereign nation to bring war there in order to facilitate and secure its own political gains back home. It has earned that reputation.....
I am ashamed.
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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No it has not earned that reputation. It's called mental illness. The notion that Putin invaded Georgia to swing the US election to the Republicans is laughable. It would be serious if people who bought into such wild conspiracy theories mattered but fortunately there are more than enough sensible people in the US to keep them from mattering.
I recommend "Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco. It's an uneven book, great in parts but boring in others. Despite the shortcoming, it's a fascinating view into the conspiracy theory and how even an otherwise normal and sane person, once fallen into the trap of seeing a conspiracy, can be unable to escape, so alluring is the sense of seeing behind the curtain, of being privy to secret facts. Once in that frame of mind, every fact can be brought within the conspiracy, there is no disproving it. Those pointing to reality are simply part of the conspiracy or blind to its deeper truths.
The "neocons" (and none of the people using the term even have a clear idea of what a "neocon" might be, not even me) are a great example of what this sort of sloppy thinking can lead a person to.
Here's a hint: Occam's Razor. The more complicated a conspiracy theory is, the less likely it is to be true. The more people who would have to know about it, the less likely it is to be true. The more it requires the uninvolved to act in a particular way, the less likely it is to be true.
-------------------- Me Trade Pretty One Day. Posts: 815 | From: NYC | Registered: May 2006
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LOL kermit, i assure you i've read that and a couple others by Umberto including Name of the The Rose and the island of the Day before.
have you actually read up on Randall J Scheunemann?
here: Randall J Scheunemann (196?) is an American lobbyist. He is the President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which was created by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), of which he is a board member. He was Trent Lott's National Security Aide and was an advisor to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Iraq. He is 2008 Presidential candidate John McCain's foreign-policy aide. He lives in Fairfax Station, Virginia.
In 1998, Scheunemann went to work for the public relations firm Mercury Group.[1]
During the 2002 and early 2003 campaign by the George W. Bush administration to generate public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Scheunemann had a close association with Iraq exile Ahmad Chalabi.[2]
Until May 2008, Scheunemann was co-owner of a two-person Washington, D.C. lobbying firm, Orion Strategies, LLC.[3] The firm has lobbied on behalf of the Open Society Policy Center, the Caspian Alliance and the National Rifle Association,among others.[4]
While the foreign affairs advisor to Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Scheunemann was also a registered foreign agent (lobbyist) for the Republic of Georgia[5] [6]
On April 17, 2008, McCain spoke on the phone with Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili about Russian efforts to gain leverage over two of Georgia's troubled provinces. That same day, McCain issued a public statement condemning Russia and expressing strong support for the Georgian position. Also on that same day, Georgia signed a new, $200,000 lobbying contract with Scheunemann's firm, Orion Strategies. Scheunemann remained with Orion Strategies until May 15, when the McCain campaign imposed a tough new anti-lobbyist policy and he was required to separate himself from the company.[7]
In mid-July 2008, The Sunday Times linked Scheunemann to Stephen Payne, a lobbyist covertly filmed as he discussed a lobbying contract and offered to arrange meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and others, and recomended donations to the George W. Bush Presidential Library. Payne said Scheunemann had been "working with me on my payroll for five of the last eight years." [8]
i've been actively studying the politics of the neo-cons for over 5 years now.
they had a large web-site with dozens of policy letters written and openly published.
it's not a "conspiracy theory"...
they made/make plain policy statements that are easily understood by anybody with the time and interest to read them...
it takes ZERO imagination to place them in the middle of the plans to intitiate the war in Iraq and ZERO imagination to place them right in Georgia.. since it is all public record.
as for Occam's razor? i agree, and at first? i thought the same, but the problem is that the more i learned, the more questions i found to ask.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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Close Window UN: Georgians effectively blocked from homes Saturday, August 30, 2008 TBILISI, Georgia - Russian troops remaining in Georgian territory are effectively preventing Georgians from returning to their homes, a UN representative said Saturday.
Melita Sunjic, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner of Refugees in Georgia, told The Associated Press that although it was not clear if Russian soldiers were actually preventing refugees from returning, the warnings block them from going home.
"If they say 'we can't guarantee your safety,' you don't go," she said.
Some 2,000 refugees are at UNHCR camps in Gori, and thousands of others may in the region. They hope to return to villages in the so-called "security zones" Russia has claimed for itself on Georgian territory south of the border with the separatist republic of South Ossetia.
Fighting broke out Aug. 7 when Georgian forces began heavy shelling of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, hoping to retake control of the province. Russian forces poured in, pushed the Georgians out in a matter of days and then drove deep into Georgia proper.
Under an EU-brokered cease-fire, both sides were supposed to return their forces to prewar positions, but Russia has interpreted one of the agreement's clauses as allowing it to set up 7-kilometer (4-mile) deep security zones, which are now marked by Russian checkpoints.
Refugees coming into Georgia from those zones say they are being terrorized, beaten and robbed by South Ossetians.
Georgia has severed diplomatic ties with Moscow to protest the presence of Russian troops on its territory. It claims, as does the West, that Russia is violating the EU agreement. The Georgian government announced Friday that diplomatic staff would leave Georgia's Moscow embassy Saturday, though Georgian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Khatuna Iosana said they had not left as of 6:30 p.m. local time (14:30GMT).
"We found ourselves in an awkward situation when a country militarily invading and occupying our country, then recognizing part of its territories, is trying to create a sense of normalcy" by maintaining diplomatic relations, Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said in Sweden earlier.
Russia condemned the diplomatic cutoff, which will require Georgia and Russia to negotiate through third countries if they negotiate at all. That would make for a sticky situation because Russia sees Western nations as biased in Georgia's favor. Georgia, which had pushed for a greater role for international organizations, could see it as advantage.
But it may bring little change, because there were few signs of productive diplomacy even before the war.
Trade between Russia and Georgia is also minimal, following Russia's imposition in 2006 of bans on Georgia's major exports - wine and mineral water - and other products. Only a fraction of foreign investment in Georgia comes from Russia. A Russian ban on direct flights to and from Georgia was lifted this year but flights halted again when the war erupted.
Russia has faced isolation over its offensive in Georgia and its recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. No other country has followed suit and recognized the regions' independence. The United States and Europe have condemned Russia's actions but are hard-pressed to find an effective response.
With European Union leaders set to huddle on how to deal with an increasingly assertive Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has angrily warned Europe not to do America's bidding and said Moscow does not fear Western sanctions.
Adding to the tension, a lawmaker in South Ossetia said Russia intends eventually to absorb the province.
South Ossetian parliamentary speaker Znaur Gassiyev said Friday that Russia will absorb South Ossetia within "several years" or even earlier. He said that position was "firmly stated" by both the province's leader, Eduard Kokoity, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in talks in Moscow earlier this week.
The statement stoked Georgian suspicion that Moscow's intent all along has been to annex South Ossetia.
In Moscow, a Kremlin spokeswoman said Friday there was "no official information" on the talks.
South Ossetia broke away from Georgia's central government during a war in the early 1990s, and many see integration into Russia as a logical next step for the province with closer ethnic ties to North Ossetia, in Russia, than with Georgia.
---
Associated Press writers Misha Dzhindhzikhashvili in Tbilisi, Georgia; Yuras Karmanau in Tskhinvali, Georgia; David Nowak and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Laurent Pirot in Paris and Malin Rising in Stockholm contributed to this report.
Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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Back when it was all the rage of the RNC and its parishioners to tout the invasion of Iraq as necessary evil to rid the world of a nuclear bomb and nerve gas toting madman that only King George the Recent had been wise enough and brave enough to collar just in the tiniest nick of time to save humanity and even the wild beast of nature from inevitable extinction, I remember your argument, above, being used against anyone suggesting that maybe there were no WMDs in Iraq , while insisting that the Administration had absolute and undeniable proof that Saddam had been a major force in 9/11.
AND GUESS WHAT????
All the claimed logic and reason you concoct to justify your position against it being too unreasonable and too complicated to pull off amount to about as much as the foam on the surface of a bottle of pi--.
They did it!
Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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The notion that Putin invaded Georgia to swing the US election to the Republicans is laughable. It would be serious if people who bought into such wild conspiracy theories mattered but fortunately there are more than enough sensible people in the US to keep them from mattering.
here's another falacy that's in the collective mind...
Russia's "invasion" was not an invasion from their point of view, they were defending Russina PASSPORT holders...
too many people are overlooking the will of the Russian "ehtnic" people living in Georgia/South Ossetia.. there's alot of them..
Democratically? South Ossetia wants OUT of Georgia... when the Kosovo people wanted out? we granted that...
if you search thru pre-8-8-08 PR's you'll find that Russia was in fact REQUESTED as a peacekeeper by BOTH side of the Georgia-South Ossentia "dispute"...
look at the politcail timing of this thing:
July 9? (one month before this blew up?) Rice was meeting with Mikheil Saakashvili (Georgia President)
Remarks With Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili Secretary Condoleezza Rice Tbilisi, Georgia July 10, 2008
PRESIDENT SAAKASHVILI: Madame Secretary, I’m very pleased to host you here in Tbilisi. I think your visit is a strong investment to ever stronger Georgia-U.S. partnership. I think this is a partnership based on our common security interests, our own common economy -- economic interests. U.S. is number one investor in Georgia. But primarily, this is a partnership based on values, all the mutual values that we -- that unite us, values that’s based on democracy, freedom and support for democracy and freedom worldwide. I think Georgia is a success case of President Bush democracy and freedom agenda. And I think that we are going to continue this way, with all the ups and downs we might have. But it is a success story.
this whole thing STINKS and it is most definitely the tail-wagging-the-dog again...
furtehrmore? the situation in Kosovo is the reverse of this one, and WE pushed that one too...
historically speaking? the Ossetians have NEVER been "ethnically" Georgians, and don't want to be... they have allied themselves to Russia for about 200 years...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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Close Window Russia support for separatists could have ripples Sunday, August 31, 2008 LONDON - Russia's conflict with Georgia and recognition of its small breakaway territories as independent states may have broad repercussions for separatist movements in the former Soviet sphere and around the world.
The crisis could give a jolt of energy to other breakaway regions, especially those with links to Russia, or embolden China to pursue a tougher line in Tibet and Taiwan in the absence of tough Western measures.
"Any country that has a potential separatist movement will view the events in Georgia through its own unique prism," Richard Holbrooke, the former U.S. envoy who mediated peace in Bosnia in the mid-1990s, told The Associated Press.
"But the greatest cause for concern lies in the Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova," all former Soviet states.
With the exception of the Balkans, post-Soviet era Europe has grown accustomed to the notion of territorial integrity as stable - if not sacrosanct.
Russia's push into Georgia and its recognition of the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have undermined this status quo - and may start to warm up so-called "frozen conflicts" in Moldova's Trans-Dniester region and Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh, where Moscow backs separatist movements.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is encircled by Azerbaijan but controlled by ethnic Armenian forces. Russia has close historical and economic ties to Armenia, which surrendered control of key sectors of its economy to Russia in exchange for debt forgiveness.
For the Kremlin, the stakes in oil-rich Azerbaijan have been raised by Washington's plan to build a military base there - a project that has incensed the Russians, who have a large military installation in Armenia with hundreds of personnel, fighter jets and air defense systems.
Russia also continues to back the breakaway Russian-speaking province of Trans-Dniester, that has split from Moldova over its feared reunification with Romania.
Russian troops remain stationed in the province to guard a huge stockpile of Soviet-era military equipment. It's a situation with eerie echoes to South Ossetia - the flashpoint of the Russia-Georgia conflict - where Russia kept "peacekeepers" before the eruption of this month's war.
"By illegally recognizing the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Dmitry Medvedev - Russia's president - made clear that Moscow's goal is to redraw the map of Europe using force," Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili wrote in an editorial that appeared in the Financial Times on Friday.
Perhaps nowhere are concerns about Russian designs in its "near-abroad" so acute as in Ukraine.
The country the size of France with a population of 46 million has long held a special place in Russian hearts and Moscow has been humiliated by its drive to join the European Union and NATO.
Many now fear Moscow has its sights on the strategic Crimea peninsula on the Black Sea - once one of the glories of the Russian empire.
Russia has not explicitly declared it wants to regain control of Crimea but nearly 1.2 million of the region's 2 million residents are ethnic Russians, many of whom believe Crimea should be Russian.
Russia has a lease that gives it control of the Sevastopol military base until 2017 and has hinted that it does not want to leave when the lease runs out.
The events in the Caucasus have been watched closely by a resurgent China, which has tried to extinguish separatist movements in Tibet and its far western province of Xinjiang, where Beijing says radicals are trying to set up an Islamic state.
For Beijing, the Russia-Georgia conflict may be double-edged.
On one hand, the spectacle of South Ossetia and Abkhazia making a big leap toward independence with Moscow's backing may send chills through the Chinese ruling elite as it struggles with its own separatist movements.
On the other, the Kremlin's use of military might to reassert dominance in a region it considers own backyard could set a valuable precedent for Beijing as it maneuvers to assert its will in places like Taiwan - which China has vowed to take back by force if necessary.
That may account for Beijing's ambivalent response to Russia's request for support at a meeting last week in Tajikistan.
China, along with four Central Asian nations, refused to endorse the invasion or recognize the breakaway provinces - but also criticized the West and signed a statement praising the "active role of Russia in promoting peace and cooperation" in the region.
"We have our Western friends and those in Central Asia who are not in agreement with Russian actions. But we also have a strong relationship with Russia," said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at People's University in Beijing.
"So China just needs to take a middle road."
In Turkey, which borders both Georgia and Armenia and hosts pipelines for Caspian Sea oil, Kurds in the country's southeast near the frontier with Iraq have been fighting for self-rule in parts of Turkey's east and southeast.
So far there are no signs the Georgia conflict will give a psychological boost to the Kurds' flagging struggle or provide the Turkish government reason to consider a harsher crackdown.
In Spain, the Basque separatist group ETA's fight for an independent homeland has steadily lost support after a long and deadly battle that has killed hundreds in terror attacks. Any sign of separatists triumphing elsewhere in Europe may help revive morale among Spain's separatists.
"The Georgian conflict isn't likely to have a direct effect on the emergence of new separatist or secessionist movements but it has the potential to create a long-term precedent," said Nicu Popescu with the European Council on Foreign Relations.
(This version CORRECTS SUBS 4th graf to correct that Moldova does not border Russia. Multimedia: An interactive with profiles and demographic data on former Soviet states with separatist movements is in the -international/separatists folder.)
Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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Russia says Washington fanning Georgia instability By Tabassum Zakaria and Guy Faulconbridge 1 hour, 30 minutes ago
Russia accused the United States of stirring up instability in Georgia on Wednesday, hours after U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney landed in the region to show support for Washington's ex-Soviet allies.
The United States has condemned Russia for sending troops and tanks into Georgia last month but Moscow has countered by alleging that Washington helped spark the conflict by failing to rein in its ally Georgia.
Cheney flew into Azerbaijan, Georgia's oil-producing neighbor which has close ties to the United States, on the first leg of a tour that will also include Georgia and Ukraine.
"We need to wait until Mr Cheney is actually in Georgia to see how he assesses the situation," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told a news briefing.
"But all these calls on Tbilisi (by the United States) about the need to restore all of its destroyed military capability and so on do not in any way promote the stabilization of the situation in the region," he said.
Underlining Washington's backing for Georgia, the USS Mount Whitney, the sophisticated command warship of the U.S. Sixth Fleet, was "en route to Georgia" loaded with more than 17 tons of humanitarian aid, a navy spokesman said.
President George W. Bush's administration will announce on Wednesday a package of roughly $1 billion dollars in aid to help rebuild Georgia, an administration official said. The International Monetary Fund has approved a $750 million stand-by loan for Georgia, Economic Development Minister Eka Sharashidze said.
ENERGY CORRIDOR
Azerbaijan and Georgia are links in the chain of a Western-backed energy corridor bypassing Russia which the West fears could be in jeopardy after the Kremlin sent its troops deep into Georgia.
Cheney met representatives of BP and Chevron, two oil majors involved in a pipeline that pumps up to one million barrels of crude a day -- or about one percent of world output -- to world markets from Azerbaijan, through Georgia.
The oil company executives "gave their assessments of the energy situation in Azerbaijan and the broader Caspian region -- especially in light of Russia's recent military actions in Georgia," said Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney.
Cheney's visit is aimed at "sending a regional signal that American hasn't walked away from the region," said Janusz Bugajski, director of the New European Democracies Project at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Russia drew Western condemnation by sending its forces deep into Georgia and later recognizing the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.
Russia said it was morally obliged to attack Georgia to prevent what it called genocide after Tbilisi tried to retake South Ossetia by force. Moscow says it is in full compliance with a French-brokered ceasefire.
CONCILIATORY
Kremlin criticism of Washington contrasts with the more conciliatory language it uses about the European Union, which on Monday threatened to suspend talks on a partnership pact but rejected sanctions against Russia, its biggest energy supplier.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the EU's rotating presidency, is to visit Moscow and Tbilisi next week for talks on the standoff.
The Kremlin said Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev discussed Georgia in a telephone call on Wednesday.
Medvedev said the EU had adopted a "generally balanced" approach on Georgia, but he expressed regret that the 27-member bloc did not identify Tbilisi as the aggressor in the conflict, a Kremlin statement said.
In an effort to show Russia could still act as honest broker in separatist conflicts, Medvedev was expected to press for a peaceful settlement when he meets the head of a breakaway region in ex-Soviet Moldova on Wednesday.
Posts: 6008 | From: phoenix az | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
No offense Bond because I agree with you on most if not all your opinions... but could you post your thoughts more then newspaper articles... all of us pretty much read these articles ourselves offline already...
-------------------- Let the world change you... And you can change the world.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Posts: 4669 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Venezuela to host Russia navy exercise in Caribbean 1 hour, 23 minutes ago
CARACAS (Reuters) - Several Russian ships and 1,000 soldiers will take part in joint naval maneuvers with Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea later this year, exercises likely to increase diplomatic tensions with Washington, a pro-government newspaper reported on Saturday.
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Quoting Venezuela's naval intelligence director, Salbarore Cammarata, the newspaper Vea said four Russian boats would visit Venezuelan waters from November 10 to 14.
Plans for the naval operations come at a time of heightened diplomatic tension and Cold War-style rhetoric between Moscow and the United States over the recent war in Georgia and plans for a U.S. missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland.
Cammarata said it would be the first time Russia's navy carried out such exercises in Latin America. He said the Venezuelan air force would also take part.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an outspoken critic of Washington, has said in recent weeks that Russian ships and planes are welcome to visit the South American country.
"If the Russian long-distance planes that fly around the world need to land at some Venezuelan landing strip, they are welcome, we have no problems," he said on his weekly television show last week.
Chavez, who buys billions of dollars of weapons from Russia, has criticized this year's reactivation of the U.S. Navy's Fourth Fleet, which will patrol Latin America for the first time in over 50 years.
The socialist Chavez says he fears the United States will invade oil-rich Venezuela and he supports Russia's growing geopolitical presence as a counterbalance to U.S. power.
Chavez has bought fighter jets and submarines from Russia to retool Venezuela's aging weapons and says he is also interested in a missile defense system.
(Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Posts: 3255 | From: Los Angeles California | Registered: Jan 2006
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by the way do you know the definition of the word "Shield"? Don't bother, I will: 
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