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BBC news 2008-08-19 加文本
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Welcome to the latest global news recorded at 0300 BST on Monday, the 18th of August. I'm Mark Whitaker with the selection of highlights from across BBC World Service news today.
And coming up, the US says Russia’s return to Soviet-style policies in Georgia has left its reputation in tatters.
“There is a real concern that Russia has turned the corner here and is headed back toward its past.”
And the fastest feet on the planet, Jamaica celebrates another triumph at the Olympics.
It’s euphoric, it's absolutely mind-numbing the way the Jamaicans feel today. I mean we are all speechless. This is beyond the words.
That’s all here on the global news podcast.
There is confusion this morning in Georgia, no surprise there. Moscow said days ago it would withdraw its troops, but they remain in place, and in some areas, have even advanced further into Georgia. The Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has told his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy that they will begin pulling out forces on Monday, apparently by noon. And French officials say Mr. Sarkozy warned the Russian president of serious consequences if Moscow failed to implement its side of the peace deal. But in America meanwhile, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said Russia’s reputation as a potential partner in international institutions is in tatters. And the US Defense Secretary Robert Gates chided that Russia’s behavior was characteristic of the Soviet period and have no place in the 21st century.
There is a real concern that Russia has turned the corner here and is headed back toward its past, rather than toward its future. And my hope is that we will see actions in the weeks and months to come that provide us some reassurance. It’s too early to say whether it's, whether the actions it’s taken are, are sort of conclusive in one way or another. But, but I think we are all very disturbed by, by what has taken place in Georgia.
On the face of it, the question now seems to be a simple one. Will Moscow pull back its troops? But of course, things are more complicated than that, and there are many other questions to be answered. How many troops will return to Russia? How many will remain in South Ossetia? Will they establish a buffer zone in Georgia proper? Well there are some clues from Major General Vyachislav Borisov. He is the commander of Russian frontline forces and he was speaking in the Georgian town of Gori.
“Stay here and wait, and you will then hear some sensational news. Peacekeeping battalions are moving in to replace us here, with badges on their sleeves. These are the peacekeepers who have been here for twelve years. They will replace the troops step by step and troops will be withdrawing.”
Alexander Lomaya will believe that when he sees it. He is Secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council. And he too is in the town of Gori. Alexander Lomaya was asked if he’d seen any signs of a Russian withdrawal. (Www.hxen.net)
“No, I see what I see is re-deployment and relocation in the positions they’ve never been before. They are moving deep inside, inside the country.”
So what really is happening in Georgia as far as Russian troop movements are concerned? Well, to get some idea, my colleague, Mike Williams has been speaking to our correspondent in Moscow Sarah Rainsford.
The Russian President has spoken to the French President. And in the statement issued by France, the word was that a troop withdrawal by Russia would begin at 12:00 on Monday. Now the Kremlin statement is much, much vaguer than that. The Kremlin statement simply says that a troop withdrawal will begin on Monday, but it makes clear that the troops will not be withdrawing to Russia as was supposed to happen according to the ceasefire plan. And instead, the statement says that the troops will go back to South Ossetia, and to what it describes as a security zone which was established in 1999. Now I have been asking around what that security zone means. And I have been told that it's a 14-kilometer buffer zone from the border of South Ossetia. Now what that effectively means if Russia chooses to interpret that way which it seems to be doing, is an actual fact that Russian troops who are inside Georgia proper might only move back a couple of kilometers. So it’s really quite vague. And I think until we actually see any actual movement on the ground inside Georgia, it’s very hard to know what exactly Russia is going to do.
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