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OVER the weekend, photographic proof emerged that the Russians used mur derous Chechen mercenaries to do their dirtiest dirty work in Georgia: The ragtag unit in question is so vicious that, last April, Chechnya's Russian-installed "president" demanded it be disbanded. War snaps taken by Russian photojournalist Arkady Babchenko have been circulating among intelligence personnel. The shots reveal far more to the West than Babchenko realized. Amid photos of the horrors of war, grateful South Ossetians and triumphant Russian troops, one series leapt out at me as a former intel officer: Bearded irregulars riding atop Russian-built armored vehicles (old BMPs, for...

More than 130 Georgian civilians are being held captive by South Ossetian authorities in the regional capital, Tskhinvali, after being rounded up and herded into a single room in the interior ministry headquarters here, the Guardian has learned. The prisoners, who were plucked off the streets according to their nationality soon after hostilities broke out 10 days ago, are being kept indefinitely in the hope of exchanging them for Ossetian civilians allegedly abducted by Georgian soldiers during the conflict. One interior ministry official confirmed the plan, saying: "We hope there will be an exchange soon." The 131 "hostages" are being...

“The soldiers told us they had an order from Putin - leave or be killed.” Manana Dioshvili showed no emotion as she described how Russian troops forced her to flee her home. Her former neighbours nodded in agreement, huddled together in a kindergarten whose windows had been blown out by a Russian bomb. “That's how they explained themselves to us,” she recalled of the moment they fled the ethnic Georgian village of Kurta, near the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali. “They said, ‘Putin has given us an order that everyone must be either shot or forced to leave'. They told...

AS the Russian Dark Lord's shadow falls across the shires of freedom once again, the response from the West has been confused, belated and inadequate: fear eclipsed courage; ignorance masqueraded as wisdom; and, in "Old Europe," greed vanquished justice. Russia won. Diplomacy failed. No state or alliance will reverse the decision. When President Bush spoke out strongly on Friday, Moscow ignored him: Words mean nothing to Prime Minister Putin, a man who regards all compromise as weakness. Instead of backing down, Russia suggested that Poland might become a nuclear target for agreeing to host our defensive missile system. Georgia will...

What began as a skirmish has become a tragedy of global importance. As Russian soldiers brought a campaign of vicious reprisals to civilians, Georgia endured a nightmare. But those ten days also shook the world: Vladimir Putin has revealed his ambition to extend Moscow's power and challenge the military dominance of Europe and the US It began when five men stole into the rustic village of Tkviavi. With its plum trees, walnut groves and vines, Tkviavi was one of a jigsaw of picturesque villages beneath the hulking mountains of central Georgia. Up the road was Tskhinvali - the grim Soviet-style...

Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia On 16 August 2008 at approximately 4 p.m. local time, armed gangs of the Abkhazian separatist regime together with units of the Russian regular army shifted the administrative border of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia towards the Enguri River. This caused the villages of the Zugdidi region Ganmukhuri and Khurcha, villages of the Tsalenjikha region Fakhulani, Tchale, Mujava and Fotskho-Etseri, as well as territory of the Enguri Hydro Power Plant and adjacent villages of Phichori, Otobaia, Nabakevi, Tagiloni, Chuburkhinji, Dikhazurga and Saberio to fall under the occupation of the Russian...

GEORGIAN health minister Alexander Kvitashvili said 182 people, including 67 civilians, had been confirmed dead in the conflict with Russia. Mr Kvitashvili said at a press briefing the conflict had also left 479 wounded so far, 157 of them civilians. He said his number of dead and wounded included people only in areas controlled by Georgia, and there was evidence of mutilation of bodies. "We're getting bodies mutilated, eyes gouged, arms severed," he said.

DOZENS of haggard Georgian captives were marched through the rebel city of South Ossetia today as separatists called on Tbilisi to recover the rotting corpses of its soldiers. The mostly elderly men - apparently all civilians - walked with their heads bowed and their hands behind their backs, escorted by armed guards. Locals stopped to take pictures on their mobile phones. Some pointed and laughed as the detainees marched through Tskhinvali. One woman said: "Those are the prisoners? But they're just old men!" Seventeen of the men were brought to the courtyard of the separatist territory's defence ministry to sweep...

Is the defendant's dock at the International Criminal Court reserved for leaders of small and poor countries that defy the West? Not if Rwanda has its way. It wants to charge some of France's most celebrated leaders of the 1990s as collaborators in genocide. Last week the government of Rwanda issued a damning 500-page report documenting France's participation in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. This marks a remarkable turnaround in the deeply politicized world of human rights reporting. Usually, such reporting takes the form of governments or human rights groups based in the West condemning poor countries for having political or...

Rwanda said top French politicians should "answer for their actions" as it named them in a report accusing France of arming and advising extremists in the 1994 genocide. The two-year investigation said France helped the extremists who carried out the genocide and even took part in some of the killings. It named François Mitterand, France's late former president, and former prime minister Dominique de Villepin among 33 military and political leaders.

KIGALI (AFP) — France played an active role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, a report unveiled Tuesday by the Rwandan government said, naming French political and military officials it says should be prosecuted. The indicting report accused a raft of top French politicians of involvement in the massacres, threatening to further mar relations between the two countries, which severed diplomatic ties in November 2006.

AFRICA INSIGHT - Locking up Sudan’s Al-Bashir could let in some light into war-torn Darfur Story by OKELLO OCULI Publication Date: 7/25/2008 The charges brought by the International Criminal Court against Sudan President Hassan al Bashir present a crack for sunlight to shine through the dark clouds of official terrorism perpetrated for over two decades by the Khartoum regime against helpless peasants, writes OKELLO OCULI “The oil found in Darfur will turn into a curse for the region, bringing about the loss of many lives, hand in hand with large-scale land alienation and devastation,” so wrote Prof Fouad Ibrahim...

11/09/2007 PAKISTAN Another attack on the giant Buddha of Swat In the valley of Swat, north western Pakistan, Islamic militants have launched a second attack in less than a month on the gigantic sacred statue. The head, shoulders and feet have been destroyed while the militants threaten a third and final attack. Islamabad (AsiaNews) – A group of Islamic militants have attacked for the second time in less than a month the giant Buddha carved in the rocks of Swat Valley, in north western Pakistan. Despite the many requests for greater protection, the government has failed to intervene in any...

Remembering Kristallnacht, the 'Night of Broken Glass' By Hilda Pierce November 9, 2007 Crystal Night is a beautiful name for an evil event that took place in Austria and Germany on the night of Nov. 9, 1938. It was orchestrated on the orders of Adolph Hitler's minister of propaganda, Josef Goebbels. Adolf Eichmann also had a part in organizing the “Night of Broken Glass,” the night of burning synagogues, smashing windows of Jewish stores, looting, killing or torturing Jews on the streets and in their homes, 69 years ago today. It is a historical date because it was also the...

A Stockbridge couple whose home was mistakenly raided by Henry County Police last year as they sought a drug suspect is seeking $8 million in damages from the incident. In a lawsuit filed last month in Superior Court against county officials and police, Roy and Belinda Baker say they were roused out of bed by police who used a battering ram to knock down their door and threw concussive grenades into their home around 1 a.m. Sept. 30. “The Law Enforcement Defendants accosted the Bakers in the hallway to their bedroom, where they had been sleeping, and yelled at the...

LAGOS, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Islamic militants burned to the ground thirteen churches and several houses in a remote northern Nigerian town after a Christian student was accused of blasphemy, police said on Thursday. Irate youths torched churches, houses and shops late on Tuesday in Kazaure, some 80 km (50 miles) north of Kano, a northern provincial capital where hundreds have died in religious clashes in the past three years. The dispute began when a Christian student was accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammad and a group of Muslims were not satisfied with the response of school authorities. Abubakar Sale,...