Kavkaz

Criticism by the G7 group of nations of Russia’s actions in Georgia is biased and groundless, Russian officials say.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Azerbaijan’s national oil company, SOCAR, said on Monday it had begun exporting Azeri Light crude to Iran to compensate for export constraints imposed by a pipeline blast in Turkey and war in Georgia.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgia’s parliament approved a resolution on Thursday calling on the government to cut diplomatic ties with Russia after Moscow backed the secession of two Georgian rebel regions.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia successfully tested a long-range Topol missile designed to avoid detection by anti-missile defence systems from its Plesetsk launch site, a Russian military spokesman said on Thursday.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgians flocked to church on Thursday to pray for their country, reeling from military defeat by Russia, and their Orthodox Patriarch asked God to give them back two breakaway provinces backed by Moscow.

LONDON (Reuters) – There is no question of launching “all-out war” against Russia, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Thursday, while condemning Moscow’s “invasion” of Georgia.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy that Georgian troops must return to their barracks in line with a French-brokered ceasefire, the Kremlin said on Thursday.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Despite leading Georgia into a disastrous war with Russia and losing two of the country’s provinces, President Mikheil Saakashvili looks politically secure for now as Georgians unite in adversity.

Russia has received limited backing from the East over its role in Georgia. At an Asian regional security summit, Russia’s fellow members of the Shanghai Cooperation Council – China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan – expressed support for what they called Moscow’s efforts to restore stability in the Caucasus.

Russia has sent a missile cruiser and two other ships to Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, after a US military ship docked at a southern port in Georgia.The show of force coincides with the escalating standoff between the West and Moscow, over its conflict with Tbilisi. There was an effusive …