BBC news 2008-08-10 加文本

BBC news with Nick Kelly.

As fighting escalates between Russian and Georgian forces over the breakaway Georgian territory of South Ossetia, the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused Georgia of seeking what he called bloody adventures and trying to drag other countries into the conflict. Speaking just north of the South Ossetian border, Mr. Putin described the actions of Georgian soldiers as genocide against the South Ossetian people. (Www.hxen.net)

The actions of the Georgian authorities in South Ossetia are of course a crime, and above all, it is a crime against their own people. That’s because a mortal blow has been dealt to the territorial integrity of Georgia itself. Therefore huge damage has been inflicted on its statehood. It’s hard to imagine how South Ossetia can be convinced to be a part of the Georgian state.

Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili has accused Russia of trying to annihilate Georgia’s democracy. Earlier Mr. Saakashvili declared “a state of war” after Russian planes carried out airstrikes on the Georgian town of Gori. Scores of civilians were reported killed or wounded. Russia says its troops are in control of the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali a Georgian attempt to seize it.

Aver Charetoriava, the representative of the United Nations Children’s Agency in the region，she is from South Ossetia, has been talking to people who fled their homes because of the fighting. 

They are talking about dead bodies everywhere in the streets of their villages and the cities. Some of them don’t know what happened to their family members. They obviously that know about neighbors were killed but do not dare to say to their relatives that actually their family members  are not alive any more.

The UN Security Council has met again to discuss the crisis, but didn’t reach any clear decision about what to do. The council is divided between Russia on the one hand which takes the view that Georgia is the aggressor, and the United States, Britain and France on the other who maintain that Georgian territory has been invaded. From the UN in New York, Mathew Wells reports.

"Difficult if not impossible" that was the verdict to the Security Council’s President on the chances of reaching an agreement over the wording of the statement calling for an end to the fighting in Georgia. The Russians continue to insist that they are acting as peacekeepers defending the rights of beleaguered minorities inside Georgia. Council members who believe that it’s the Russians who are aggressors want them to withdraw all their troops from South Ossetia, and recognize Georgia’s right to defend its own territory. 

In other news, the South African President Thabo Mbeki is in Harare to try to finalize a power sharing deal between the political rivals in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. There have been reports that a deal between them may be close and Mr. Mugabe has agreed to Mr. Tsvangirai becoming Prime Minister. Earlier a Zimbabwean government spokesman said negotiations have reached a milestone, and that Mr. Mbeki will be meeting Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Tsvangirai on Sunday.

World news from the BBC.

The man known as the Palestinian’s national poet Mahmoud Darwish has died in a US hospital following open-heart surgery. He was 67. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages and won many international prizes. Our Arab affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi looks back at his legacy.

Mahmoud Darwish leaves behind more than 30 volumes of poetry and several prose works. Lyrical and epic are some of the most common adjectives used to describe his output. For decades, he was the most eloquent poetic voice of Palestinian pain and aspiration for statehood. The loss of homeland, the brutality of the occupation and life in exile are frequent themes in his early work. But in his latter years, he became more pre-occupied with universal themes. The Palestinian Diasporas became almost a metaphor for the human condition.

Chinese news agency says that there have been several explosions in Xinjiang, region of northwest China. Reports say the explosions took place in Kuke province, in the south of the region. At least one person has reportedly been killed, and a number wounded. Last Monday, the authorities blamed the shooting dead of 16 Chinese policemen in Xinjiang on Muslims separatists.

Floods and landslides in northern Vietnam have killed at least 69 people and left dozens missing. Heavy rain brought by a tropical storm washed away roads and cut off many villages in the worst affected provinces, province Lao Cai bordering China.

And the much loved statue of the Virgin Mary in Sri Lank has been returned to the site, from which it had been removed because of a fighting in the north of the island. The statue known as ‘Our Lady of Madhu’ has now been reinstalled at what’s the country’s most revered Catholic Church. The Virgin has been removed to spare her from possible destruction as fighting between the army and Tamil Tiger rebels raged around the building earlier this year. Government forces recently took full control of the area and the church is now back in the hands of its priests. 

BBC News.