PEREVI, Georgia: Dozens of Georgians crowded onto a rickety bus Monday, clambering over one another to flee this remote mountain village, which has become a flash point of mounting tensions on the boundary of South Ossetia.
They left behind a nearly deserted village, whose remaining residents are afraid to come out onto the streets for fear of attracting the attention of Ossetian soldiers patrolling the area. Russian troops continued to withdraw from the main checkpoint at the western edge of Perevi, leaving Ossetians in charge of a tense population.

BRUSSELS — The European Union said Monday that it would resume negotiations with Russia that it had halted following Russia’s invasion of Georgia, in a significant step toward normalizing ties with Moscow.
On Sept. 1, the European Union froze talks with Russia on a strategic partnership agreement until Russian troops withdrew to positions they held before Aug. 7, the day hostilities broke out in South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia. The decision was presented as a rare and bracing show of European unity.

MOSCOW, (UPI) — Russia’s permanent representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said Georgia has deployed troops along its border.
Representive Anvar Azimov said Georgia was engaging in military activities in areas bordering on South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Interfax news agency reported Saturday.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili dismissed Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze on Monday in a government shake-up following his country’s war with Russia in August.
The announcement came as key former ally Nino Burjanadze announced plans to form a political party to challenge Saakashvili, who has faced attacks from the opposition for his handling of the conflict.

An explosion has destroyed a key bridge linking Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia with the rest of the country.
Georgian officials and Abkhazian authorities blamed each other for the blast. Residents of Abkhazia’s Gali district had used the bridge to reach Georgia’s Zugdidi region. Georgian authorities have called the explosion an effort by separatist and Russian officials to cut off Abkhazia and another breakaway Georgian region, South Ossetia, from the rest of the country.
Meanwhile, the chief of the European Union monitors in Georgia, Hansjoerg Haber, asked Russia to give specific …