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 …