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JAVA, Georgia — A safe haven in Russia was almost within sight for refugees from South Ossetia’s besieged capital on Monday as they waited in parched streets for buses to ferry them over the border. Java, between South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali and the border with Russian North Ossetia, has become a staging area for people fleeing cellars where they hid from Georgian shelling that Moscow says has nearly destroyed their city. Some wearing only dressing gowns and sneakers, they fled Tskhinvali and surrounding villages carrying plastic bags of clothes and documents, and some scant food supplies. Some had walked down through the mountains and slept in forests to get to Java, where buses collected them for the journey to the North Ossetian capital Vladikavkaz. |
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SISTERS-IN-ARMS
Desmond Boylan / Reuters
Silver medallist Natalia Paderina (l) of Russia and bronze medallist Nino Salukvadze of Georgia pose after the women’s 10 meter air pistol shooting competition at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on Sunday. For full story, see page 16. |
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TBILISI, Georgia — Russia opened a second front of fighting in Georgia on Monday, sending armored vehicles beyond two breakaway provinces and seizing a military base and police stations in the country’s west, officials said. The new forays into Georgia — even after Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili signed a cease-fire pledge — appeared to show Russian determination to subdue the small, U.
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 St. Petersburg will collect blood, clothes and money for South Ossetia and will help it to restore its destroyed infrastructure, the city administration said. South Ossetia is at the center of a fast-moving military conflict between Russia and Georgia that began on Friday. |
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A customer at Sochi bar died on Sunday after a fight with a guard that had taken place in the early hours of Thursday morning, local news website Fontanka. |
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As the conflict between Russia and Georgia intensified Monday, the people of St. Petersburg told Irina Titova what they thought of the situation and how Russia’s government-controlled media have portrayed the Western media response. Photographs by Alexander Belenky. Lyudmila Shkrylyova, 19, journalist student. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — Russian television is flush with footage of misery left by the Georgian assault in the separatist district of South Ossetia, but over the weekend few, if any, reports mentioned Russia’s bombing of Georgia. William Dunbar, a correspondent in Georgia for English-language state channel Russia Today, mentioned the bombing in a report Saturday, and he has not gone on air for the station since. “I had a series of live, video satellite links scheduled for later that day, and they were canceled by Russia Today,” he said by telephone from Tbilisi on Sunday. “The real news, the real facts of the matter, didn’t conform to what they were trying to report, and therefore, they wouldn’t let me report it. |
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 MOSCOW — Having forcefully reclaimed South Ossetia for its loyal separatist regime, Moscow has sent the strongest possible signal of how far it is ready to go to retain influence in other former Soviet republics. |
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MOSCOW — Georgia, whose credit ratings were cut on Friday after military clashes with Russia, was praised on Saturday by foreign investors, who contrasted its efforts to reassure them over the crisis with those of Russia. Western bankers said that since fighting began in South Ossetia on Thursday, they had received numerous phone calls and e-mails from Georgian leaders including Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze. |
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 The computer industry leader Apple is increasing its presence on the local market with the opening of one of its Russian Premium Resellers re:Stores on Nevsky Prospekt. The new store, which opened Saturday, is the seventh re:Store in the city, but the first to be located on the high street. |
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Bolshaya Konushennaya Ulitsa is gradually becoming St. Petersburg’s main street for top fashion, with a Christian Dior boutique set to join the Louis Vuitton and Maison Martin Margiela stores already located there. |
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FDI in Russia Rises LONDON (Bloomberg) — European companies cut investments in China drastically in 2007 because of rising labor and transport costs, while expanding in Eastern Europe and Russia, the Financial Times reported, citing RSM International, a tax and audit adviser. |
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Andrei, a blond professional in his mid-30s, was lying in his berth on the Moscow-St. Petersburg overnight train. “What about Slavutich?” he said. “Baltika,” replied Andrei Chervonsky, a PR representative at Pleon, a firm that represents Baltika. |
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MOSCOW — TNK-BP chief executive Robert Dudley escaped a possible three-year ban from doing his job on Friday in a Moscow court that said he broke the Labor Code. The ruling came as Fitch Ratings agency became the third major international ratings agency to downgrade its expectations for TNK-BP over the oil firm’s fierce shareholder dispute. |
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MOSCOW —The world’s top gas-exporting countries will send ministers to a high-level forum in Moscow on Nov. 17 to discuss the possible creation of a gas charter, a source in the Energy Ministry said Friday. |
 MOSCOW — Norilsk Nickel’s board of directors elected Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, a former KGB officer and longtime friend of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s, as chief executive on Friday. The move was seen as an attempt by the government to settle a lengthy dispute between the company’s shareholders. |
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MOSCOW — Troubled coal and steel firm Mechel on Friday postponed a preferred share offering indefinitely, citing slumping financial markets. Mechel’s New York-listed stock fell 1. |
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MOSCOW — The Finance Ministry said Friday that it needed to discuss fiscal strategy with the country’s top leaders after security-related agencies asked for more funds. The news came as Russian forces took control of part of the capital of breakaway South Ossetia, the Georgian Interior Ministry said Friday. |
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MOSCOW — The ruble is no longer a one-way appreciation bet for investors, a senior Central Bank official said Friday after the currency fell 1 percent against the dollar-euro basket. |
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HONG KONG — U.S. swim legend Mark Spitz will not be on hand in Beijing if Michael Phelps breaks his record of seven gold medals at a single Olympics — because, he says, no one bothered to invite him. Spitz said the International Olympic Committee, a US television network, or FINA — the international body that governs world swimming — should have brought him to the Games this year, with Phelps making a go at his record. |
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 Last week, tension between Russia and Georgia, which had been growing since the Rose Revolution brought Georgia’s reformist, pro-U.S. President Mikheil Saakashvili to power in 2004, finally led to open hostility between the two countries. On Thursday, the Georgian government sent troops into the disputed territory of South Ossetia to pacify that region and restore it to Georgian control. |
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This week will mark the first 100 days of Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency, and foreign policy is unlikely to be counted as one of his major successes during this period. |
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 HARARE — Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was set to resume talks with opposition leaders on Monday on a power-sharing deal that could end a post-election political crisis and raise hopes of economic recovery. Asked if there had been any progress at 14 hours of talks as he emerged early on Monday, Mugabe said: “Not yet. |
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NOUAKCHOTT — Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, the Mauritanian general who toppled the country’s president in last week’s coup, insisted Sunday he had acted to save the country. |
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 BEIJING — India celebrated the first individual gold in its history on Monday and American swimmers kept Michael Phelps’ Olympic dream alive by a fingertip. The usually cool Phelps screamed and pumped the air with joy as his U.S. team mates helped maintain his charge for an unprecedented eight golds in the pool, pipping France in the 4x100 meters freestyle relay. |
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BEIJING — As China hoped, the world did tune in for the start of the Beijing Olympics with various polls on Monday estimating about one billion people, or 15 percent of the world’s population, watched the opening ceremony. |
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BEIJING — Nino Salukvadze of Georgia embraced her Russian rival and made a moving appeal for peace after winning an Olympic bronze medal in shooting on Sunday. Salukvadze, who competed only after the 35-member Georgian team were told by their president to remain at the Games in the “best interest of the country” despite Russian military attacks on its territory, finished behind Russia’s Natalia Paderina. |
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Issues Archive