WASHINGTON, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - The United States described as 'positive' the withdrawal of Russian forces from buffer zones around the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

KARALETI, Georgia, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces Wednesday abandoned military positions deep inside Georgia in a major pull-back the Kremlin vowed to complete by midnight, two months after the South Ossetia war began.

KIEV, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - A pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker on Wednesday alleged that Kiev sold weapons to Georgia during the Russo-Georgian conflict in August, an accusation promptly rejected by the Ukrainian government.

TBILISI, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces withdrew completely Wednesday from a buffer zone around Georgia's rebel region of Abkhazia, and were doing the same around South Ossetia, Georgian and Russian officials said.

The posts in Abkhazia were dismantled and 'all Russian soldiers have left' the buffer zone, Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP.

KARALETI, Georgia, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - A column of Russian military trucks and tanks Wednesday left a key checkpoint near South Ossetia in the final stage of a withdrawal from Georgian buffer zones, an AFP correspondent at the scene reported.

KARALETI, Georgia, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces abandoned buffer zone posts around Georgia's rebel regions Wednesday in a major pull-back expected to be completed during the day, two months after the war with Tbilisi.

MOSCOW, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Russia will demand a ban on weapons sales to Georgia in talks due to take place in Geneva next week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday.

TSKHINVALI, Georgia, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Fresh paint has appeared in schools and tank wreckage disappeared from streets thanks to a Russian effort to clean up the war-torn rebel Georgian region of South Ossetia.

At school No. 3 in the separatist capital Tskhinvali, which boasts a gleaming new apple-green coating, children squawk in classrooms while workers scurry about the corridors.

TBILISI, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces withdrew completely Wednesday from a buffer zone around Georgia's rebel region of Abkhazia, and were doing the same around South Ossetia, Georgian and Russian officials said.

The posts in Abkhazia were dismantled and 'all Russian soldiers have left' the buffer zone, Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP.

TBILISI, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces have completely withdrawn from buffer zones around Georgia's rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Georgian interior ministry said Wednesday.

'They have withdrawn from all of the buffer zones,' Interior Ministry Spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP.

KARALETI, Georgia, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces completed a withdrawal from buffer zones around Georgia's rebel regions Wednesday, two months after a war over South Ossetia poisoned relations ybetween Moscow and the West.

TIRDZINISI, Georgia, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - Watching a column of Russian armoured vehicles and military trucks pass near her house Wednesday, Shoreva Beruashvili hoped her life, on pause since August's war in Georgia, might finally get back on track.

KHARTOUM, Oct 7, 2008 (AFP) - A Nigerian UN peacekeeper was shot and fatally wounded when dozens of gunmen ambushed a patrol in Sudan's war-torn western region of Darfur, a UN spokesman said on Tuesday.

The sergeant died on Monday when up to 60 gunmen ambushed a patrol from the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

DJAVIT, Georgia, Oct 7, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces will begin pulling back from six checkpoints in a buffer zone near the Georgian rebel region of South Ossetia on Wednesday, a Russian army spokesman said Tuesday.

KARALETI, Georgia, Oct 7, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces sped up their pull-back from a buffer zone around Georgia's rebel region of South Ossetia Tuesday ahead of a looming deadline as part of a European-brokered ceasefire.

As soldiers were seen packing up and removing equipment, a Russian army spokesman said six posts in the buffer zone would be removed on Wednesday.

KHARTOUM, Oct 7, 2008 (AFP) - A Nigerian UN peacekeeper was killed when up to 60 gunmen ambushed a patrol in Sudan's war-torn western region of Darfur, a UN spokesman said on Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 7, 2008 (AFP) - The security situation in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region is deteriorating, and the UN-African Union force (UNAMID) struggling to maintain peace there is overstretched, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned Tuesday.

THE HAGUE, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - The UN's highest court will rule next week on Georgia's request for protection against what it says was a campaign of ethnic cleansing by Russia during their recent war, a spokesman said Monday.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - The new head of UN peacekeeping arrived in Khartoum Monday for a week-long familiarization tour of Sudan including talks with Sudanese leaders and a visit to strife-torn Darfur, the UN spokeswoman said Monday.

KARALETI, Georgia, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - Russia on Monday accused 'forces in Georgia' of seeking to provoke a new conflict, but vowed to complete a withdrawal on schedule following the August war between the two countries.

Russian forces were dismantling checkpoints in buffer zones around Georgia's rebel regions as they prepared to pull back after the war over South Ossetia.

MOSCOW, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - An officer with the separatist border guards of Georgia's Abkhazia rebel region has died in a shoot-out on the de facto Georgian border, the separatist administration's news agency said on Monday.

CAIRO, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - Egyptian police blocked an opposition convoy carrying medical supplies to the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip and arrested at least 15 activists on Monday, security officials said.

MOSCOW, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - An officer with the separatist border guards of Georgia's Abkhazia rebel region has died in a shoot-out on the de facto Georgian border, the separatist administration's news agency said on Monday.

CAIRO, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - Egyptian police blocked an opposition convoy carrying medical supplies to the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip and arrested at least 15 activists on Monday, security officials said.

Egyptian police blocked an opposition convoy carrying medical supplies
to the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip and arrested at least
30 activists on Monday

KARALETI, Georgia, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces were dismantling checkpoints in buffer zones around Georgia's rebel regions Monday as they prepared to pull back after August's war over South Ossetia.

Among the positions being dismantled was a key Russian checkpoint near the village of Karaleti on the main road leading to the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali.

MOSCOW, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - Forces in Georgia are seeking to trigger fresh military action around the country's separatist regions, Russia said Monday, despite stressing it would complete a scheduled troop pull-back on time.

PARIS, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - The exiled leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas said in an interview Monday that negotiations with Israel on freeing captured soldier Gilat Shalit were deadlocked.

TBILISI, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - Georgian-controlled territory near the rebel region of Abkhazia was shelled overnight Monday but no one was injured and there was no damage from the attack, the interior ministry said.

KARALETI, Georgia, Oct 6, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces on Monday began dismantling a key checkpoint in the buffer zone around Georgia's rebel region of South Ossetia, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

TBILISI, Oct 5, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces Sunday removed their first checkpoint from Georgia near the rebel region of South Ossetia, a spokesman for the EU mission told AFP.

'Our observers went to the checkpoint in Ali, northwest of Gori, and saw that it has been dismantled,' the spokesman said on condition of anonymity. 'This is the first dismantled checkpoint.'

TBILISI, Oct 5, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces Sunday removed their first checkpoint from Georgia near the rebel region of South Ossetia, an EU monitoring mission and the Georgian government said.

TBILISI, Oct 5, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces in Georgia on Sunday removed a first checkpoint as part of an expected pull-back of troops following August's war over the South Ossetia rebel region.

TBILISI, Oct 5, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces in Georgia on Sunday removed a first checkpoint as part of an expected pull-back of troops following August's war over the South Ossetia rebel region.

NABAKHTEVI, Georgia, Oct 5, 2008 (AFP) - Russian forces in Georgia removed a first checkpoint Sunday and began dismantling others as part of an expected troop pull-back after August's war over the South Ossetia rebel region.

NABAKHTEVI, Georgia, Oct 5, 2008 (AFP) - Piles of rubbish and empty trenches were all that remained Sunday of a Russian military post at the village of Nabakhtevi, the first to be dismantled as part of a new pull-back of Russian forces in Georgia.