Can you get Democracy Now on your local NPR or college radio station? It is an excellent alternative source of info, affiliated with Pacifica. We get it here in ultra-conservative Colorado Springs, so surely it's available where you are...

...After the Soviet Union dissolved, there remained areas in which, despite the fact that new states were created, there were tensions. One of those is the Ossetia or South Ossetia, which is where we've seen the fighting, and the other one, inside Georgia, is Abkhazia. There were agreements signed in the early 1990s that sort of solidified these as semi-independent territories. In one, there is a UN peacekeeping force, and then in South Ossetia, there is essentially independence, and, you know, they sort of ran their operations separate from the Georgian government.

And then, tensions began to increase over the past few months, because the president of Georgia has promised to retake--his words--retake the--particularly South Ossetia. That was a problem, because, by now, 90 percent of Ossetians there were holders of Russian passports. They had voted to become part of the Russian Federation. There was clear movement in the direction of this enclave, closer and closer ties with Russia...

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/11/up_to_2_000_killed_as

In Chicago:

• Chicago WRTE 90.5 FM Noon M-F
  
• Chicago WZRD 88.3 FM 7am & 8am Tues-F
  
• Chicago WLUW 88.7 FM at Loyola University 9am M-F
  
• Chicago CAN TV, Ch. 19 7am M-F