Georgia and Russia cut direct diplomatic ties in a tit-for-tat political feud. The move came as human rights bodies called attention to a potential humanitarian disaster and evidence of ethnic violence during the war.

In the latest sign of deteriorating relations in the Caucasus, Georgia will withdraw all of its diplomats from its Moscow embassy, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said Friday, Aug. 29.

 

"Within the coming days, Georgia will withdraw all diplomats from its embassy in Moscow," the head of the foreign ministry's press department, Khatuna Iosava told reporters. "Consular relations with the Russian Federation will be maintained. It is a downgrade of diplomatic relations, not a complete cut."

 

Georgia had already pulled all but two of its diplomats from its embassy in Moscow earlier in the week. Hundreds of thousands of Georgians live in Russia and cutting diplomatic ties would have left them without consular services, a scenario they now face.

Poland, Latvia and Estonia are pushing for EU sanctions against Russia over its crisis with Georgia, but the French EU presidency said the issue will not be decided at the emergency Brussels summit on Monday.

At a snap meeting in the Estonian capital Tallinn on Thursday, ahead of the European Union's summit on the crisis in Georgia, the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Poland called for humanitarian aid and international observers to prevent the Caucasus conflict from being reignited on the ground.

 

"Georgia requires Europe's support in order to recover from the destruction of the war, which in the short term means extensive humanitarian aid for relieving the problems of war refugees as well as those who have lost their homes," the presidents of the two Baltic countries and Poland said in a the joint statement.

MOSCOW (AP) -- At the outset of this year, Russia proudly proclaimed itself an island of stability at the annual economic gathering in Davos, setting itself apart from the tumult of the global financial crisis.

Then came the war with Georgia, which some here regard as Russia's 9/11.

Within hours of Russia's retaliation to Georgia's move to take back its breakaway republic of South Ossetia, Russia had attracted widespread condemnation and threats of isolation and expulsion from the international community.

"For the first time since the Crimean War, Russia has no allies," said Garry Kasparov, chess grandmaster turned opposition politician. "We are encircled by countries that are either suspicious or alienated and very angry."

On the economic front, investors are hightailing out of Russia, while Western politicians have hinted at sanctions, visa restrictions and even the denial of Russia's right to host the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

Increasingly cut off from the global world, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev risks undoing many of the successes of the past 10 years, ranging from the country's robust economic growth to a growing sense of national prestige and purpose.

Stock markets plunged, and more than $7 billion was pulled out of the country in just three days, exposing the fragility of Russia's nine-year economic boom.

The economy was already under strain.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The European Court of Human Rights cleared the way Thursday for the extradition of a British man to the United States, where prosecutors say he hacked into computers at a variety of military installations including the Pentagon, U.S. Navy, and NASA.

Gary McKinnon had appealed to the court to block his extradition, but the court announced Thursday it was refusing his request.

The U.S. government says McKinnon carried out the biggest military computer hacking of all time, accessing 97 computers from his home in London and costing the government about $1 million.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia easily won its brief war with Georgia, but despite a media blitz to project its side of the story, it concedes it still has a way to go to win the propaganda battle.

Facing an international outcry, the Kremlin finally weighed into the war of spin, granting a flurry of interviews with President Dmitry Medvedev to foreign media about Moscow's gamble in the Caucasus.

Until then Medvedev, who has steered Russia towards the biggest dispute with the West since the Cold War, had not given a single interview to foreign media since the crisis began.

That was in contrast to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili who used dozens of interviews with Western media to compare Russia's actions in his country to the Soviet occupation of eastern Europe.

"Russia completely lost the information war in the first few days," said one prominent Russian journalist who asked not to be named.

French brain surgeons have conducted a world first by destroying a brain tumour on a conscious patient using keyhole laser surgery, it has emerged.

The team from Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris drilled a 3mm hole into the skull of a patient under local anaesthetic, inserting a tiny fibre-optic cable armed with a laser.

The doctors were then able to "see" the metastatic tumour and steer the cable thanks to a MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan, which uses magnetic and radio waves.

Once inside the skull, they carried out a computer simulation of the treatment. Then they activated the laser, which heated and killed the tumour tissue for up to two minutes. The MRI scan allowed them to modify the exact energy output needed from the laser.

The patient remained wide awake throughout and was said to have felt nothing. Once all the cancer cells were dead, the cable was removed and the patient allowed to return home the same day.

Europe's half a billion people depend on the more than 200,000 km of motorways that criss-cross the bloc

EUOBSERVER / FOCUS - Transport of people and goods are crucial for the European economy and its competitiveness as well as for bringing citizens and cultures closer to each other. But the sector is in desperate need of a makeover to deal with its growth, its environmental impact and Europe's dependency on oil imports - which currently costs the bloc one billion euros a dayTransport in the European Union

More than 500 airports, 190,000 km of railways, 200,000 km of motorways. 35,000 km of waterways and 1200 seaports caters for the European Union's half a billion people every single day. The transport sector accounts for some €1000 billion - or over 10 percent of the EU total gross domestic product (GDP) - and employs 10 million people.

But the increase in traffic in the last few decades has created serious congestion problems in urban areas across the bloc, which in turn cause health problems and delays that could at the present rate cost the 27-member bloc one percent of its GDP by 2010 and therefore dent Europe's economic competitiveness on the global market.

Sir Ian Blair was facing a battle to survive as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police last night after Britain's most senior Asian officer publicly accused him of racial discrimination.

Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, the third most senior officer at Scotland Yard, said he would take the force to an employment tribunal in a case that would name Sir Ian and others. Mr Ghaffur claimed he was discriminated against "over a long period of time" and "victimised" by other Met commanders after his grievances were made public earlier this year.

His allegations of racial and religious discrimination will increase pressure on Sir Ian ahead of next month's inquest into the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes during a bungled anti-terror operation on the Tube. If the court rules that the innocent Brazilian was killed because of systemic failures within the Met, it would be widely seen as making Sir Ian's position untenable.

Dear Beppe,
In the heart of this torrid summer and in this land of Calabria, working with the young people in the cooperatives of bishop Brigantini (in Locride) and in Arca di Noè {Noah's Ark} (in Cosenza), I've just been hit by the news like a lightning attack in a serene sky, the news that Berlusconi's government is giving its blessing to the privatization of water. In fact on 5 August, the Italian Parliament voted for article 23 bis of minister G. Tremonti's legal decree number 112 that in comma 1 states that the management of water services has to be done according to the rules of the capitalistic economy. All this with the support of the opposition, in particular of the PD, in the person of the shadow minister Lanzillotta. (A decision that I find outrageous, but doesn't surprise me, given the response of the honourable Veltroni to the letter about water that I sent him during the election campaign!)
Thus, the Berlusconi government with the absence of the opposition, has decreed that Italy is today among those countries for which water is merchandise.

sigh...a sternly worded missive from the EU may be in order.

Peace is not the absence of war -- peace is the absence of fear. Ursula Franklin

The UK is facing its worst economic crisis in 60 years, Chancellor Alistair Darling has admitted.

He told the Guardian newspaper that the economic downturn would be more "profound and long-lasting" than most people had feared.

Using strong language, Mr Darling acknowledged voters were angry with Labour's handling of the economy.

Darling.Is.Doomed™

Britain has failed in its duty to stop the US from committing "shameful acts" in the treatment of suspects detained during the war on terror, one of America's most respected intellectuals warns today.

In an interview with The Independent, Professor Noam Chomsky calls on the Government to use its special relationship with Washington America to secure the closure of Guantanamo Bay.

Claiming that he has heard only "twitters of protest" in the UK , the emeritus professor of linguistics also asks British "thinkers" to be more conspicuous in their opposition to the erosion of civil rights since the 9.11 attacks on the US.

In the wake of the invasion of Iraq, Prof Chomsky, a leading opponent of the Vietnam conflict, has been the most prominent among US intellectuals critical of the war with the Iraq and the treatment of terror suspects sent to Guantanamo Bay and other prison camps around the world.

If the struggle in the Caucasus was ever over oil and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) agenda towards Central Asia, the United States suffered a colossal setback this week. Kazakhstan, the Caspian energy powerhouse and a key Central Asian player, has decided to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Russia over the conflict with Georgia, and Russia's de facto control over two major Black Sea ports has been consolidated.

At a meeting in the Tajik capital Dushanbe on Thursday on the sidelines of the summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Kazakh President Nurusultan Nazarbayev told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that Moscow could count on Astana's support in the present crisis.

In his press conference in Dushanbe, Medvedev underlined that

his SCO counterparts, including China, showed understanding of the Russian position. Moscow appears satisfied that the SCO summit also issued a statement on the Caucasus developments, which, inter alia, said, "The leaders of the SCO member states welcome the signing in Moscow of the six principles for regulating the South Ossetia conflict, and support Russia's active role in assisting peace and cooperation in the region." The SCO comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

There were tell-tale signs that something was afoot when the Kazakh Foreign Ministry issued a statement on August 19 hinting at broad understanding for the Russian position. The statement called for an "unbiased and balanced assessment" of events and pointed out that an "attempt [was made] to resolve a complicated ethno-territorial issue by the use of force", which led to "grave consequences". The statement said Astana supported the "way the Russian leadership proposed to resolve the issue" within the framework of the United Nations charter, the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and international law.

WASHINGTON: Katrina was a natural disaster that turned into a political one for the Bush administration. Gustav, now on course for the Gulf Coast almost three years to the day since Katrina struck, could offer the chance for redemption or point-scoring in the presidential campaign.

If the administration fumbles the response again, the Democrats will pounce, especially given that Gustav could make landfall during the Republican National Convention, which opens Monday in St. Paul, Minnesota.

If the response meets the public's approval, Republicans can crow.

And if the storm never reaches shore? Wait until next time.

Since Katrina, which struck New Orleans Aug. 29, 2005, the public pays closer attention to government responses to  hurricanes.

JERUSALEM, Aug 29 (IPS) - Israel continues to be a favourite destination for the trafficking of women for the sex industry, also known as the white slave trade, and for a form of modern day slavery where migrant labourers from developing countries are exploited.

The U.S. State Department placed Israel in Tier 2 position in its 2007 Trafficking in Persons report. And an Israeli court ruled against the country's work visa policy, which forces foreign workers into indentured labour with a single employer.

"Israel was only upgraded to Tier 2 last year," Romm Lewkowicz, a spokesman from Israel's Hotline for Migrant Workers, an advocacy group which defends the rights of foreign workers, told IPS.

The U.S. State Department divides countries into three tiers. Tier 1 is for countries that have successfully implemented measures to control trafficking (most Western countries fall into this category). Tier 2 is for countries that are trying to eradicate this modern day slavery but still fail to meet the necessary standards. Tier 3 is reserved for countries that have not addressed the issue at the most basic level.

In 2006 Israel was on the U.S. State Department's Watch List for people trafficking.

MW:When politicians or members of the foreign policy establishment talk about "integrating" Russia or China into the "international system"; what exactly do they mean? Do they mean the dollar-dominated system which is governed by the Fed, the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO? Do countries compromise their national sovereignty when they participate in the US-led economic system?

Michael Hudson: By "integrating" they mean absorbing, something like a parasite integrating a host into its own control system. They mean that other countries will be prohibited under WTO and IMF rules from getting rich in the way that the United States got wealthy in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Only the United States will be permitted to subsidize its agriculture, thanks to its unique right to grandfather in its price supports. Only the United States will be free from having to raise interest rates to stabilize its balance of payments, and only it can devote its monetary policy to promoting easy credit and asset-price inflation. And only the United States can run a military deficit, obliging foreign central banks in dollar-recipient countries to give it a free ride. In other words, there is no free lunch for other countries, only for the United States.

Other countries do indeed give up their national sovereignty. The United States never has adjusted its economy to create equilibrium with other countries. But to be fair, in this respect only the United States is acting fully in its own self-interest. The problem is largely that other countries are not "playing the game." They are not acting as real governments. It takes two to tango when one party gets a free ride. Their governments have become "enablers" of U.S. economic aggression.

A humming "Segway" tour -- on a trendy electric vehicle from California -- is one way to see Paris during the summer in the 21st century. But for those seeking culture, our correspondent recommends touring the French capital on an electric bike.

The group of tourists looks like a gaggle of futuristic robots in a Star Wars movie. Leaning forward slightly on their peculiar two-wheeled vehicles, which require no pedaling, these visitors to Paris roll at a leisurely pace across the Champs de Mars, in front of the Eiffel Tower. When they reach the trees, the helmeted crew suddenly spreads out and sprints -- at about 15 km/h (9 mph) -- through the trees to the Peace Monument, ending up at the École Militaire.

The Malta Tourism Authority said yesterday it has no policy aiming to turn the north of Malta into an entertainment hub and that it is conscious of the importance of the promotion of a sustainable tourism policy which respects the environment.

It was referring, without saying so, to remarks by its chairman, Sam Mifsud, in a court case, when he said that the authority was keen on shifting the entertainment industry towards Bugibba and St Paul's Bay. The remarks provoked various statements.

The MTA said that the present day procedures in place in assessing tourism projects and the issuance of tourism policy compliance certificates (TPCCs) "involves not just a technical and tourism-oriented review of applications, but also a scrutiny of each application and how such applications conform to the 23 main objectives laid down in the Tourism Policy document and the tasks set out in the Tourism Plan 2007-2011, of which environmental considerations form an important component."

The autobiography of an acting chimpanzee is going head to head with a cold war love story and a novel about the assassination of a Pakistani dictator in this year's Guardian first book award.

Me Cheeta: the Autobiography, is billed as the true story of Cheeta the Chimp, star of Hollywood blockbusters, told "in his own words". The book documents the life and times of a chimpanzee who has outlived all his co-stars from the 1939 film Tarzan to reach the ripe old age of 75. He withdrew from the limelight in 1964 after biting his Doctor Dolittle co-star Rex Harrison, and has retired to an old chimps' home in Palm Springs, California.

The book is not published until October 1, but judges for the award, now in its 10th year, were so startled by the early version they were sent that they included it on the 10-strong longlist, revealed today. The judging panel demanded a signed, sworn statement from Me Cheeta's publishers, Fourth Estate, declaring that whoever wrote the book was indeed a first-time author.

A self-help guide which tells women to wear sexy clothes while cooking and cleaning as well as follow men's orders has become a hit in America.

The Re-education Of The Female, by first-time author Dante Moore, advises women to follow their man's orders.

Despite the chauvinist opinions, copies have been flying off the shelves in the US.

One piece of advice reads: "Here's a little secret, ladies. Men never really ask for anything. They command. And believe me, what you won't do, ten broads around the corner will."

Mr Moore, a 33-year-old computer engineer, who has never married, continues: "The fatter you get, the more you decrease your potential single-man pool. Let me give you an example.