TBILISI (Reuters) – President Mikheil Saakashvili on Friday mounted a fresh defense of Georgia’s assault on South Ossetia in August, denying accusations Tbilisi had been the aggressor in the disastrous war with Russia that ensued.
Under fire from opponents who say he walked into a war Georgia could not possibly win, Saakashvili defended his actions of the night of August 7 during televised testimony before a bipartisan parliamentary commission probing the war.

The Georgian and Polish presidents have accused Russian troops of firing near a motorcade carrying them close to the breakaway republic of South Ossetia.
Both South Ossetian troops and Russian forces in the area denied involvement. No-one was injured in the incident.
President Mikhail Saakashvili and his Polish counterpart Lech Kaczynski were planning to visit victims of fighting between Georgia and Russia in August.
The area has seen much cross-border gunfire since a ceasefire was agreed.

GENEVA (AP) — Mediators succeeded Wednesday in getting direct talks going between Russia and Georgia, pressing the two neighbors to resolve security and refugee issues from their August war in the troubled Caucasus.
In all, eight parties met behind closed doors at the U.N.’s European headquarters in Geneva for the one-day talks and agreed to meet again next month, EU representative Pierre Morel said.

An independent report on the war between Russia and Georgia in August, is calling for an investigation into the conduct of all parties during the hostilities. The London-based human rights organization, Amnesty International, says it is concerned serious rights violations took place at the time.
Amnesty says all sides in the August conflict may have committed abuses. In its new report, Amnesty says Georgian and Russian forces and militia fighters in the breakaway South Ossetia region should be investigated for war crimes during the conflict.

For Giorgi Kapanadze, the fighting in South Ossetia began days before the world even noticed that a war was going on.
Pro-Moscow separatist forces had been shelling his hometown of Avnevi, an ethnic-Georgian village inside the breakaway region, pretty much nonstop since the beginning of August until Georgian troops entered the enclave around midnight on August 7-8.

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy says he is concerned about Russia’s threat to deploy missiles near Poland and wants a summit on European security.
“We really must move forward… to remove sources of friction,” Mr Sarkozy said at a joint news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

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.

Russian investigators say they are trying to identify the woman they suspect launched a suicide attack on a minibus in the North Caucasus.
Twelve people were killed in Thursday’s attack in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia. Officials believe one of them was a female suicide bomber.

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.