Georgia News updated from several news services

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AFP, REUTERS, ITN, SKY NEWS
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/fc/georgia-russia.html

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Sky Held At Gunpoint In Georgia


By Sky News SkyNews - Thursday, August 14 03:10 pm There are looters in Gori, I can vouch for that.

One minute we were driving past a column of Russian armour that, according to Moscow, wasn't supposed to be there.

The next we were being held up at gunpoint and plunged into that moment when it flashes in your mind that your life is in real danger.
A Lada car had suddenly cut us off and three militia brandishing Kalashnikov rifles were dragging us out of our car.

Actually our Georgian driver was dragged from the car; I was in the passenger seat and was shoved out by the butt of a rifle in the arms of a wild-eyed bandit who'd jumped in his place.

The three men were shouting all the time. They were shouting in Georgian which means they were almost certainly Ossetians, possibly Cossacks, who are non-ethnic Russians.

A short stroll down the road the Russian soldiers, lying on the decks of their personnel carriers, awaiting orders, could see this mini-drama unfolding but it clearly wasn't their problem.

At first these men thought we were Georgians and we thought they were going to kill the three of us. But we grappled for passports and waved them shouting that we were English, "Angliski! Anglia! Korrespondent!"

My cameraman Jolyon Mackew was now out from the back seat and all six of us were shouting at each other - but our nationality took the edge off and quite possibly saved the life of our driver, Georgi, who was now held fast by the other two.

He's in his 50s, had agreed to drive us from Poti on the coast to Tbilisi, and now he's lost his car.

There are hangers-on trailing this Russian advance; Ossetians with scores to settle, volunteers with their own weapons, or plain-old mercenaries scenting a quick buck. And this is an ethnic conflict so, just like the Balkans and Chechnya there's blood letting in the air.

These men were killers, that was clear in their demeanour, they just didn't kill us. A Georgian family may have met a very different conclusion.

Under the wind of such a swift invasion command and control is lax at best. Russian frontline troops don't necessarily know the big picture; they won't bother themselves with the freelancers and so people are dying in a ceasefire.

As the first militia man sped off with our car, camera, satellite kit, and personal bags, then came that inevitable same thought.

Should we have pressed them, argued further, faced them down? The answer is simple, absolutely not. When you're covering situations like this one, whether it's Chechnya, Baghdad or Haiti, draw your own line and never cross it.

We were left alone, the three of us, on the roadside, next to a column of Russian armour a mile out of Gori. We walked until we were out of sight and then we ran.

In Gori's centre, rumours were gathering steam that Russian tanks were coming and that there were many more vicious looters on the way into town.

From a distance that sounds ominous, there, in a deserted city smoking from the munitions already dropped into it, it's a prospect of sheer horror.

Without our car and our kit, for a moment we were in the shoes of the citizens of Gori and our impulse, which we followed as soon as we could, was to find a friendly face, jump in his car, and get out of town.

But this is just one prism through which to view this conflict.

The South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, has been smashed by the Georgian strikes, so Gori now suffers its fate. These Caucusus turf wars are always ugly.

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Pressure grows on Russia amid sabotage charges


By Marco Longari AFP - 29 minutes ago GORI, Georgia (AFP) - The United States ramped up the pressure Thursday on Russia to pull out of its conflict with Georgia, amid charges that Russian forces were sabotaging military targets prior to an agreed withdrawal.

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US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, while emphatically ruling out the use of US military force, warned that relations between the United States and Russia could be "adversely affected" for years unless Moscow adjusted its "aggressive posture and actions".

Highlighting the "profound implications" for the entire US-Russia security relationship, Gates also said Russia would have to pay "some consequences" for its attacks on Georgia.

In Georgia, a series of explosions were heard around the Russian-controlled town of Gori , and a US official in Washington said Russian troops were disabling military installations as they moved through the country.

A Georgian interior ministry spokesman said Russian forces were "destroying" Gori and laying mines and also demolishing military infrastructure in the Black Sea port of Poti.

A week after Georgia's offensive against the Russian-backed separatist region of South Ossetia unleashed the conflict, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was en route to Tbilisi where she hoped to consolidate the fragile truce brokered Tuesday by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"It is time for this crisis to be over," Rice said following a meeting with Sarkozy in Paris.

A second C-17 US military cargo plane carrying humanitarian supplies arrived in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, as UN officials and aid organisations complained of a lack of access to affected areas.

Latest estimates by the Georgian and Russian governments put the number of displaced people in the conflict region at nearly 115,000.

Armed gunmen held up UN workers in Gori on Thursday and stole their vehicles.

Faced with Russian tanks and armoured vehicles, Georgian troops pulled back to positions along the road leading into Gori, as expectations that the Russian military would pull out from the strategic city proved premature.

The town, halfway from Tbilisi and South Ossetia's main city, has become the centre of the battle of wills over the French-brokered ceasefire.

The truce includes a commitment not to resort to force, to end hostilities definitively and provide free access for humanitarian aid.

Russian troops and armour rolled into South Ossetia last Friday in response to the Georgian bid to regain control of the renegade province which broke from Tbilisi in the early 1990s.

Russian troops then pushed on into other parts of Georgia while aircraft bombed targets across the country.

Both sides have traded charges of truce violations, with Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili accusing Russia of carrying out "ethnic cleansing" operations around South Ossetia.

Moscow has also accused Tbilisi of atrocities and said it violated the truce by failing to pursue an "active withdrawal" from South Ossetia, where Moscow says 2,000 civilians were killed in the fighting.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held talks with the leaders of South Ossetia and the other Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia, after which he vowed that Moscow would act as a guarantor for their aspirations for independence.

In Washington, meanwhile, US President George W. Bush assured his Ukrainian and Lithuanian counterparts of his ironclad commitment to stand with Georgia.

"To begin to repair the damage to its relations with the United States, Europe, and other nations, and to begin restoring its place in the world, Russia must keep its word and act to end this crisis," he demanded.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov telephoned Rice on Wednesday to insist that Moscow was sticking to the peace plan, and "strongly rejected" suggestions to the contrary, his ministry said.

In an opinion piece published in Thursday's Washington Post, the Georgian president urged the West to send peacekeepers to Georgia.

"Only Western peacekeepers can end the war," Saakashvili said. "I have staked my country's fate on the West's rhetoric about democracy and liberty."

France is shortly to submit a draft UN Security Council resolution on the Caucasus conflict, incorporating the ceasefire plan, and the French foreign ministry called Thursday for the council to rapidly adopt the text.

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Georgia News


Tentative Russian pullout as NATO warns over ties

AFP - 2 hours 31 minutes ago GORI, Georgia (AFP) - A trickle of Russian armour left the key Georgian town of Gori on Tuesday as NATO warned that the conflict meant there could be no more "business as usual" in relations. More »

• Nato vows to strengthen Georgia ties
  
  ITN - Tuesday, August 19 03:52 pm Russia has said its main withdrawal from Georgia will not occur for another three days as Nato cools its relations with Moscow. More »
• Nato 'Toughens Line On Russia'
  
  SkyNews - Tuesday, August 19 02:45 pm Nato nations have agreed to toughen language towards Russia due to Moscow's failure to withdraw its troops from Georgia - as Russian troops finally appeared to be leaving. More »
• Nato to strengthen Georgia ties
  
  ITN - Tuesday, August 19 02:19 pm Nato has vowed to strengthen its ties with Georgia in the wake of the Russian invasion. More »
• NATO ministers strive for balanced line on Georgia, Russia
  
  AFP - Tuesday, August 19 01:59 pm BRUSSELS (AFP) - NATO foreign ministers threw their weight behind a battered Georgia at a crisis meeting Tuesday, demanding a withdrawal of Russian troops but stopping short of imposing a diplomatic freeze on Moscow. More »
• Russia starts to withdraw from Georgia
  
  ITN - Tuesday, August 19 01:25 pm Russian troops, tanks and armoured vehicles have started to withdraw from the Georgian town of Gori, witnesses on the ground have said. More »
• Russia warns of Georgia withdrawal delays
  
  AFP - Tuesday, August 19 12:04 pm TBILISI (AFP) - Russia's army remained entrenched in Georgia Tuesday and a top official warned that withdrawal could be delayed, as the main Western military alliance met in crisis session to discuss the conflict. More »
• Nato urges Russia to leave Georgia
  
  ITN - Tuesday, August 19 11:53 am Russia's armed forces are still in Georgia despite pressure from Nato to withdraw. More »
• NATO foreign ministers to send firm message to Moscow
  
  AFP - Tuesday, August 19 11:51 am BRUSSELS (AFP) - NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels are set to back Georgia's territorial integrity and send a strong message to Russia over its military action there, officials said Tuesday. More »

• Defiant Russians still in GeorgiaITN - Tuesday, August 19 10:21 am
• Rice: Nato To Get Tough On RussiaSkyNews - Tuesday, August 19 10:13 am
• Russia warns Georgia withdrawal may not be quickAFP - Tuesday, August 19 08:43 am
• World still waiting for Russia's pullback from GeorgiaAFP - Tuesday, August 19 07:09 am
• World still waiting for Russia's announced force pullback from GeorgiaAFP - Tuesday, August 19 03:05 am