Forget Darrah, forget Cindi, forget John Edwards boinking some bimbo while his wife had cancer. Here's the news we should be worrying about:
Russian Troops Enter Rebel EnclaveGORI, Georgia — Russian troops entered a breakaway region of Georgia on Friday after Georgian forces pushed into the capital of the pro-Russian enclave, in a sharp escalation of the longstanding conflict.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin declared that “war has started” and President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia accused Russia of a “well-planned invasion," saying he had mobilized Georgia’s military reserves.
Reports conflicted Friday about whether Georgian or Russian forces had won control of the capital of the rebel province, South Ossetia. It was unclear late Friday whether ground combat had taken place between the two sides in the capital, Tskhinvali.
Georgia accused Russia of unleashing an air bombing campaign and claimed that hundreds of civilians had been killed; Russia denied those accusations.
Georgia is a close American ally whose shift toward the West and pursuit of NATO membership has angered Russia. The United States said Friday that it would send an envoy to the region to try to broker an end to the fighting in South Ossetia, and the European Union, NATO and Germany all called on both sides to stand down.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a strongly worded statement Friday. “We call on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and missiles, respect Georgia’s territorial integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil,” Ms. Rice said in a statement released by the State Department.
The clashes raised the specter of a wider conflict in the Caucasus region, a key conduit for the flow of oil from the Caspian Sea to world markets and an area where violent conflict has flared for years along Russia’s borders, most recently in Chechnya.
Analysts said that Georgia could be trying to seize an opportune moment — with world leaders focused on the start of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing this week — to reclaim the territory. Russia also may be seeking to draw attention away from Abkhazia, where it has been under pressure to allow a settlement between pro-Russian and pro-Georgian factions, analysts said.
Richard Holbrooke, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, said that Russia’s aims in the escalating conflict were clear. “They have two goals,” he said. “To do a creeping annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and, secondly, to overthrow Saakashvili, who is a tremendous thorn in their side.”
Georgian officials asserted that Russian warplanes had attacked Georgian forces and civilians in the capital, and that airports in four Georgian cities outside the rebel area had been hit.
Shota Otiashvili, an official at the Georgian Interior Ministry, said they included the Vaziany military base outside of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, a military base in Marneuli, and airports in the cities of Delisi and Kutaisi.
“We are under massive attack,” he said.
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