Eurasia

The Georgian government says it is looking for between one and two billion euros to rebuild after its 10-day border war with Russia. It has cost Tbilisi dear. It has seen Gori wrecked, the military port at Poti destroyed, and airbases and railway lines put out of action.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A senior Russian military official confirmed on Friday that Russia’s Defense Ministry had frozen some cooperation with the NATO military alliance and queried the merits of a U.S. Navy operation in the Black Sea.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Russia’s military campaign in Georgia has bolstered Georgians’ determination to join NATO, Eduard Shevardnadze, the man who helped end the Cold War and reconcile Moscow with the West, said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A World Bank team will travel to Georgia on Friday to assess economic damage caused by the conflict with Russia and to discuss reconstruction plans, a senior bank official said on Thursday.

LARNACA, Cyprus (Reuters) – International activists departed from Cyprus by boat on Friday in an attempt to run an Israeli sea blockade on 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza.

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine (Reuters) – The first Russian navy ship returned to base in the Black Sea on Friday from operations against Georgia. A Reuters correspondent said about 100 Ukrainian protesters, brought by bus by a local party from a nearby town, marched through the Crimean port of Sevastopol as the …

Russia says it will maintain military checkpoints within Georgian territory for good, despite a promise to complete a partial troop withdrawal by the end of the day.A senior Russian official said they will build a permanent infrastructure in a ‘buffer zone’ close to the disputed breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has agreed to a parliamentary debate on re-instating a group of judges who were deposed last year.Sharif had threatened to pull out of the coalition with the party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto if the judges were not restored by today.

Jailed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has had his appeal for parole turned down by a court in Siberia.Once Russia’s richest man, he was sentenced in 2005 to eight years in prison for tax evasion and fraud. He maintains his innocence.

TEHRAN, Aug. 22 (ISNA)-Pakistan’s prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani stressed signing Iran-Pakistan’s free trade agreement to raise bilateral commercial exchanges by one billion dollar.