Eurasia Press & News

GORI, Georgia (Reuters) – A Russian warplane dropped a bomb on an apartment block in the Georgian town of Gori on Saturday, killing at least 5 people, a Reuters reporter said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s military on Saturday said army units had arrived overnight in South Ossetia to bolster troops acting as peacekeepers and announced the imminent arrival of additional reinforcements, Russian news agencies reported.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States told Russia on Friday to withdraw its forces from U.S. ally Georgia and stop its air attacks on the tiny Caucasus state following fighting in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgia will withdraw 1,000 soldiers from Iraq to help fight off Russian forces in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia, the head of Georgia’s Security Council, Kakha Lomaia, said on Friday.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili will declare martial law in a few hours time, the secretary of Georgia’s Security Council said early on Saturday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – About 140 buses carrying refugees from Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia arrived in the adjacent Russian region of North Ossetia on Friday, Interfax news agency reported.

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) – The failure of Iraqi politicians to resolve competing ethnic claims for the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk is storing up explosive problems for the country’s future.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged the United States to persuade Georgia to halt what Moscow called its “aggression” against South Ossetia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Russian bombing killed about 30 Georgians but Georgia’s forces now control the rebel South Ossetian capital and the surrounding area, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said in a live television address on Friday.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s forces shut down four Islamic charities and two photocopying shops in the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday for alleged ties to the rival Hamas faction, a security source said.