U.S. FLIES AID INTO GEORGIA

U.S. flies aid into Georgia, backs ceasefire

By Matt Robinson and Margarita Antidze

TBILISI (Reuters) - U.S. military planes began delivering aid to Georgia as Washington stepped up support for a shaky ceasefire with Russian troops around the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks during a news conference, on the situation in Georgia, at the State Department in Washington August 13, 2008. (REUTERS/Yuri Gripas)

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was set to hold talks in Tbilisi on Thursday after discussions in France with President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday. Her trip comes six days into a conflict that has shifted from artillery, tank and gun battles at the weekend to increasingly sharp diplomatic and political exchanges out of Washington, Moscow and Tbilisi.

U.S. President George Bush, flanked by Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates in the Rose Garden, demanded Moscow end the crisis, abide by an agreed ceasefire and withdraw Russian troops sent into Georgia after fighting began last Thursday.

"The United States of America stands with the democratically-elected government of Georgia. We insist that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected," Bush told reporters at the White House.

Moscow has denied violating a ceasefire and rejected claims its troops and armour had advanced on Tbilisi or looted the key town of Gori, 60km (35 miles) west of the capital and south across the Kura river from South Ossetia's capital Tskhinvali.

Speaking in Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, told by Rice that Russian servicemen were failing to prevent looting by irregular militias in Gori, said such actions would not be tolerated.

"I said from the very beginning that if any such facts prove true, we will react in the most serious way...The peaceful population should be protected. We are investigating all these reports and will not allow any such actions," Lavrov said.

Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based organisation with staff in Georgia, said its onsite researchers had witnessed looting of ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia, the rebel province at the heart of the current conflict.

AIRLIFT AID

Lavrov said the United States needed to choose between partnership with Moscow or the Georgian leadership, which he characterised as a "virtual project" of the Bush administration.

Rice bristled when asked about Lavrov's comments.

"Georgia is a democratic government in the caucasus that has elected leaders. To call it a project of anyplace, of anybody, perhaps belies more about what Russia thinks about its neighbours that what it thinks about U.S. policy," Rice said.

Bush, who spoke with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili earlier in the day, ordered humanitarian supplies to be delivered to Tbilisi on U.S. military aircraft.

A U.S. C-17 military aircraft carrying supplies arrived in Georgia and a second flight was planned for Thursday.

Bush said the United States expected Russia to allow humanitarian supplies into Georgia and ensure that all lines of communication and transport remain open.

Speaking in Tbilisi, Saakashvili said Bush's pledge meant Georgian ports and airports would be taken under U.S. military control -- a claim swiftly denied by the Pentagon.

The fighting in the Caucasus, an important transit for Caspian oil, has unnerved the United States, NATO and the European Union and rattled investors.

Russia says 1,600 civilians died when Georgia attacked South Ossetia, though the figure has not been independently verified. Moscow's general Staff says it lost 74 soldiers in the fighting, with 171 wounded and 19 missing.

Tbilisi puts deaths on its side at over 175, with hundreds injured. That figure does not include South Ossetia.

Moscow announced an emergency aid package for South Ossetia, with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin pledging 10 billion roubles ($414 million) to rebuild the shattered region.

(Additional reporting by Sue Pleming and Tabassum Zakaria in Washington, Dmitry Solovyov in Vladikavkaz, Oleg Shchedrov in Moscow)

Copyright © 2008 Reuters

OLYMPIC GAMES PARTY

Olympic Games party set for "big bang" start


BEIJING (Aug 8, 2008) :

China celebrates its ancient past and modern power when the Olympics open tonight, looking to put criticism behind it as world leaders arrived in Beijing.

The opening ceremony is the culmination of seven years of hard work that re-shaped the capital, and sets the seal on a sustained economic boom that has seen China emerge as a new superpower.

It all kicks off at 8pm tonight -- the eighth day of the eighth month -- a number whcih symbolises fortune to Chinese -- before an estimated global audience of one billion.

Displaying its new economic clout, China has invested US$43 billion on the Games.

Some US$100 million, twice the 2004 Athens bill, has gone on "big bang" opening and closing ceremonies.

Some 15,000 performers and 29,000 fireworks will give the Games a sparkling start. Film director Zhang Yimou was tasked with condensing 5,000 years of Chinese history into one show.

"It's a historic combination of a great country with a great sport event," the People's Daily said.

Guests in the head-turning Bird's Nest Olympic stadium will include US President George W. Bush, who despite saying he was coming for sport not politics, gave a speech in Bangkok en route voicing "firm opposition" to China's detention of dissidents.

The elements too, have proved stubbornly hard to master. Although authorities have closed factories and pulled millions of cars off the road, but smog and haze enveloped the capital this morning -- obscuring views of the futuristic skyline.

In fact, the opening ceremony has been ensnared in politics from the outset: Hollywood director Steven Spielberg quit as an adviser earlier this year to protest against China's ties with Sudan.

The best-known face of Chinese sport, 7ft 6in NBA basketball player Yao Ming, will lead his team at the opening ceremony.

But in a move that could embarrass both China and Sudan, US athletes chose former Sudanese refugee Lopez Lomong, a victim of government-sponsored Arab militias in the south who fled at the age of six in 1991, to carry their flag around the track.

China is a major oil investor and arms seller in Sudan, and global campaigners blame it for failing to pressure Khartoum to end the conflict in its western region of Darfur.

Unfortunately for the Olympic ideal of global harmony, the two Koreas failed to agree to march at the opening as a unified team even though they managed that in 2004 and 2000.

The finer points of global geo-politics are unlikely, however, to dampen the enthusiasm of many Chinese.

"My heart is bursting with excitement about the Games," said Zhu Shegqiang, a 22-year-old student walking through Tiananmen Square. "I want people to see what is special about China."

Meanwhile, with hours to go, some foreign activists have issued an on-air challenge to the host city with a pirate broadcast, calling for freeing of political prisoners and lifting of censorship.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said China's attempts to control the media "would never succeed". Their words were often drowned out by a local official broadcast.

Small groups of foreign protesters have also popped up in Beijing this week, but have been whisked off quickly by police forming part of a 100,000-strong security force.

Meanwhile, suspected Islamist separatists killed 16 policemen in western China on Monday, and yesterday a little-known Islamist group issued an Internet threat to the Games.

A video dated Aug 1 carried pictures of the Beijing Olympics logo in flames and a speaker holding an AK-47 assault rifle and wearing a face mask, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a US - based firm that monitor statements from militants.

In Hong Kong, a lone protester unfurled banners on the largest suspension bridge on Friday calling for human rights. -- REUTERS