"Russia on Sunday pledged to begin withdrawing its troops from neighbouring Georgia on Monday, following up on a cease-fire agreement to halt fighting that has stirred some of the deepest divisions between world powers since the Cold War," The New York Times reported. "The Kremlin announced that President Dmitri A Medvedev had made the promise in a conversation with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who negotiated the six-point cease-fire agreement. Mr Medvedev did not specify the pace or scope of the withdrawal, saying only that troops would withdraw to South Ossetia and a 'security zone' on its periphery. "United States and European leaders reacted with wariness and, in some cases, frustration. " 'I hope this time he'll keep his word,' the American secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said on 'Fox News Sunday.' She added that Russia's reputation as a modern country ready to integrate into the West 'is, frankly, in tatters.' " Mr Sarkozy said relations between Russia and the European Union would suffer 'serious consequences' if Russia's withdrawal was not 'rapid and complete.' The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, in Tbilisi to meet Georgia's president likewise warned that 'this process should not drag out for weeks.' She also reiterated her previous support for Georgia's eventual membership in Nato, something Russia has strongly opposed. Meanwhile, The Sunday Times reported that: "despite Mr Medvedev's claim that a withdrawal was imminent, evidence from the scene today in Gori seemed to indicate that forces would not be leaving soon. "The Times was told that, after destroying Georgian radio and television transmitters, Russian troops had now installed their own, meaning Gori residents can now only tune in to channels from Moscow. "In addition, Russian troops were seen bolstering their positions in the hills which surround Gori, including creating improved machine gun posts. "Troops continue to surround Gori with tanks, armoured personnel carriers and security forces. All Georgian police and law enforcement were said to still be banned by Russia from operating there." In a humanitarian crisis, more than 115,000 people have fled the conflict. "The Independent was the first Western media organisation to reach Tskhinvali, the capital of breakaway South Ossetia. They found a city in ruins following the initial pulverising Georgian bombardment and the ferocious Russian counter-attack. Homeless people, many of them injured, were seeking sanctuary. Stray dogs, according to local inhabitants, were chewing the flesh from human bodies. "In a sign of the ferocious sectarian divisions, the South Ossetian paramilitaries who held the Independent reporters at gunpoint repeatedly threatened to kill their Georgian driver, Merabi Chrikishilli, and vowed retribution on all Georgians when the Russians crossed the border. "This threat was carried out - with devastating effect on civilians - as the Georgian army panicked and fled from Gori, its main base in the region, amid streams of refugees fleeing the violence. The victims were mainly the old and infirm, unable to undertake the arduous journey to safety." Reuters reported: "Pentagon chief Robert Gates dismissed as 'empty rhetoric' on Sunday Russian warnings that Moscow would target Poland for a possible military strike because Warsaw agreed to host part of a US missile shield. " 'Russia is not going to launch nuclear missiles at anybody,' Defense Secretary Gates said on ABC News' 'This Week.' 'The Poles know that. We know it. "Col-General Anatoliy Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the Russian general staff, told Interfax on Friday that Russian military doctrine would allow for a possible nuclear strike, after Warsaw agreed to deploy 10 interceptors at a site in Poland as part of the missile shield." The Wall Street Journal said: "Russia's attack on Georgia has become an unexpected source of support for big US weapons programs, including flashy fighter jets and high-tech destroyers, that have had to battle for funding this year because they appear obsolete for today's conflicts with insurgent opponents... "...the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Defence Subcommittee, Pennsylvania Democratic Rep John Murtha, quickly seized on the Russia situation this week, saying that it indicates the Russians see the toll that operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking on the US military. " 'We've spent so many resources and so much attention on Iraq that we've lost sight of future threats down the road. The current conflict between Russia and Georgia is a perfect example," said Rep Murtha during a recent visit to his district. "Some Wall Street stock analysts early on saw the invasion as reason to make bullish calls on the defence sector. A report from JSA Research... earlier in the week called the invasion 'a bell-ringer for defence stocks.' " The Moscow Times said: "Any plans to use Georgia as a bridge for more energy supplies to Europe are likely set to gather dust now that the tiny country's fierce armed conflict with Russia has exposed the insecurity of the route, analysts said. "Georgia has been a key conduit of oil and gas from Central Asia to the West that bypasses Russia, and Europe has been hoping to build another pipeline to bring more gas from the area. "That pipeline project, called Nabucco, has long been on the drawing board, but potential investors had trouble contracting enough gas for it from Azerbaijan or Turkmenistan. "Shipping the gas from Turkmenistan would require building a separate pipeline across the Caspian Sea bed, which has yet to be divided by the sea's five littoral states, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran. "Now, Georgia's vulnerability may have dealt a lethal blow to Nabucco and plans for a trans-Caspian pipeline." The Los Angeles Times reported: "President Bush's condemnation of Russia as a bullying intimidator in the Georgian conflict struck a hypocritical note in a Middle East that has endured violent reverberations from the US-led invasion of Iraq, and where the sharp White House rhetoric against Moscow echoes what many Arabs feel in turn about the US. "Many in the region are angered by what they see as the president's swaggering style and frequent veiled threats of military force. His administration has been accused of alienating Muslims and instigating turmoil in a misguided war on terrorism. "Now Bush's spirited criticism of Russia's invasion of neighboring Georgia has raised derisive smirks among Arab commentators, who say the US president is condemning the same power politics he practices."
Musharraf on the way out
"Pakistan's ruling coalition tightened the screw on President Pervez Musharraf Sunday, saying that it had readied impeachment charges against him and was giving him two days to stand down. "Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar told AFP that 'the charge sheet will be presented in parliament by Tuesday.' Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said a day earlier that Musharraf had to decide on quitting 'by today or tomorrow.' "The coalition finalised the charges on Sunday after intense deliberations and would present them on Monday to the alliance's leaders, Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, Information Minister Sherry Rehman said." In The Observer, Jason Burke wrote: "the apparently imminent political demise of the President of Pakistan, the head of a nuclear-capable Islamic state of 170 million people, will have repercussions well beyond the humid corridors of Islamabad. Last week violence flared up throughout Pakistan: suicide bombers struck in the east, hundreds died as the army launched new offensives against radical Muslim militants a hundred or so miles to the west, there were riots across the border in Indian Kashmir and bombs, and the customary rockets and battles in Afghanistan. " 'It is clear that we are on the brink of a major change that goes well beyond the end of another cycle of civilian-military rule in Pakistan,' said one Islamabad-based Western diplomat. "Each of the main players in the drama - Sharif, Zardari and Musharraf - represents a broader trend in society, and each viscerally detests the other two. Whoever triumphs will set the nation's course for the future." In a commentary for The Financial Times, Anatol Lieven wrote: "Sooner or later, the administration would have fallen anyway, for the same reasons that destroy all Pakistani governments. They cannot satisfy the demands of the masses for higher living standards, if only because these are always devoured by population growth. And they cannot satisfy the demand of the political elites for patronage because there is not enough to go round. The state and the military cannot govern without the elites because there is no basis in ideology or society for the creation of a new mass political movement. In the end, elite and mass discontent unite in unstoppable protest. "Nevertheless, bitter public disillusionment with the civilian alternatives meant Mr Musharraf might have lasted longer, had it not been for the attacks of Sept 11 2001 and the US war on terror, which the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis loathe. Opinion polls show that what has really driven mass hostility to Mr Musharraf here is his subordination to the US, and especially giving even limited military help to the US against the Taliban. Meanwhile, the US media and Congress have attacked Mr Musharraf's 'treachery'. "Even his confrontation with the judges was largely sparked by their investigation of the disappearance of suspected Islamist extremists at the hands of the security forces - and almost every Pakistani with whom I have spoken privately believes many of these were 'disappeared' to US custody. Mr Musharraf was caught in an inescapable and tightening vice, between intense US pressure (mixed admittedly with substantial financial help) and the sentiments of his own people."
