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Georgia accuses Russia of bombing village
Russia and its former Soviet neighbour Georgia were facing a new crisis in relations today after accusations that Moscow sent jets to bomb a village close to the Georgian capital. Georgia reacted angrily to the 'act of aggression', in which a 700kg explosive device was allegedly dropped by two fighter bombers near Tsitelubani, a village about 40 miles north-west of Tbilisi. The device, possibly a guided missile, did not explode and no one was hurt but Georgia's interior ministry said it could have caused a 'disaster'. Moscow immediately denied the attack saying that its aircraft had 'not violated the borders of sovereign Georgia'.

The 70s Pirbright virus leak
If the 2007 foot and mouth virus did escape from a research laboratory, it won't be the first time, writes Ben King. It's not yet certain that this current foot and mouth outbreak did escape from a research laboratory - although there is strong circumstantial evidence. The strain on the farm is the same as the one kept in the labs, and the site of the first infection is just a few a miles away from two labs in Pirbright which handle the virus. If the virus is proved to have escaped from a lab, it's not the first time such an outbreak has happened. In fact, it's not even the first time it has happened at Pirbright.

New phone-tapping powers in Australia
Six bills are being pushed through Parliament, effectively meaning anyone can have their phone calls, emails, and SMS tapped. Even private conversations with a doctor or lawyer under legal professional privilege can be tapped and used in court, even if the charges aren’t related to the reason for the tap. You only need to be suspected of having some association with a ‘terrorist’. Considering that there’s no requirement to ever inform the people being tapped that they’ve been tapped – I’d say this pretty much means anyone can be tapped for anything.

China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales
The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation. Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Britain wants Guantanamo detainees
The Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has written to the United States government urging the release of five former UK residents still being held in Guantanamo Bay. The move reverses the policy of the Blair administration NOT to press for their release because they are not British citizens. The Foreign Office said it had reviewed the policy in the light of recent steps taken by the United States to reduce the number of detainees in Guantanamo.

Bush Confirms He Will Seek More Dictatorial Power
While Constitutional experts and even sectors of the corporate mainstream media have denounced the latest power grab by the Bush administration as 'unnecessary and highly dangerous', the President himself has confirmed that he will seek even more authority from Congress and will attempt to pass more legislation aimed at granting the government unquestionable power over the people. Legislation gives the government the green light to install permanent backdoors in communications systems that allow warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, a blatant violation of the 4th amendment.

U.S. losses in fierce fighting in Baquba
The U.S. troops have suffered heavy losses in confrontations with the resistance in Baquba , some 60 kilometers north of Baghdad, PL reports, while a further 48 people lost their lives in violence in the occupied Arab country. A group of four U.S. soldiers died and 12 were wounded today in actions in Baquba, capital of the Iraqi province of Diyala, according to the U.S. Command. With these losses, the United States has lost 3,670 troops in Iraq, while the reported injured is in excess of 35,600.

US uneasy as Britain plans for early Iraq withdrawal
The Bush administration is becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of an imminent British withdrawal from southern Iraq and would prefer UK troops to remain for another year or two. British officials believe that Washington will signal its intention to reduce US troop numbers after a much-anticipated report next month by its top commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, clearing the way for Gordon Brown to announce a British withdrawal in parliament the following month. An official said: 'We do believe we are nearly there.'

More ministers walk out on Iraq PM
The unity government of Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, has been plunged deeper into crisis after five ministers withdrew from cabinet meetings, less than a week after the main Sunni Arab bloc quit. Seventeen ministers - nearly half of al-Maliki's cabinet - have now quit or are boycotting meetings, leaving it with no Sunni members. The boycotting ministers all belong to the political bloc loyal to Iyad Allawi, the former interim prime minister.

Israel evicts Hebron settlers
Israeli security forces have removed about two dozen Jewish settlers and supporters from two Palestinian properties they took over last year in an abandoned Palestinian market in the West Bank city of Hebron. Hundreds of Israeli border guards moved in at dawn on Tuesday to evict the settlers from the buildings they had been occupying. A police spokesman said 14 police officers and 12 settlers were injured during scuffles, with settlers throwing stones and showering soldiers with urine.

Disaster looms as 'Saddam dam' struggles to hold back the Tigris
As world attention focuses on the daily slaughter in Iraq, a devastating disaster is impending in the north of the country, where the wall of a dam holding back the Tigris river north of Mosul city is in danger of imminent collapse. 'It could go at any minute,' says a senior aid worker who has knowledge of the struggle by US and Iraqi engineers to save the dam. 'The potential for disaster is very great.' If the dam does fail, a wall of water will sweep into Mosul, Iraq's third largest city with a population of 1.7 million, 20 miles to the south. Experts say the flood waters could destroy 70 per cent of Mosul and inflict heavy damage 190 miles downstream along the Tigris.

Russia Issues Sixth Warrant for Berezovsky’s Arrest
Moscow’s Basmanny Court on Tuesday issued a new arrest warrant for Russian self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky. Russian prosecutors are now accusing the fierce Kremlin critic of stealing some $13 million from the SBS-Agro bank. The plea alleges that Sibneft’s former President Evgeny Shvindler is also involved in the crime though prosecutors have not as yet charged him.

At U.S. base, Iraqis must use separate latrine
It's unclear precisely who ordered the rules. 'The rule separating local national latrines from soldiers was enacted about two to three rotations ago,' Maj. Raul Marquez, a spokesman for the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division, from Fort Hood, Texas, wrote in an e-mail. That was before his brigade or the 3rd Stryker Combat Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, from Fort Lewis, Wash., the other major combat force here, was based at Warhorse.

8 Targets in Prison Masturbation Cases
A Florida inmate convicted this week of masturbating while alone in his jail cell is reportedly only one of eight targets - along with state taxpayers - of what a Miami Herald columnist describes as 'a spectacular case of selective prosecution.' Given the likely prevalence of such commonplace behavior in state prisons (not to mention boarding schools, seminaries and military barracks), criminally charging any Broward County inmate with masturbation represents a major waste of prosecution dollars, writes Fred Grimm in the Miami Herald.

Russia Clears Kabul Debt
Russia wrote off 90 percent of Afghanistan's debt on credits granted it by the USSR yesterday and agreed to restructure the remaining 10 percent for payment in the next 23 years. Russian Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin and Afghan Finance Minister Anwar ul-Haq Ahady signed the package of documents in Moscow. Most of the debt resulted from arms deliveries made to the regimes of Babrak Karmal and his successor Mohammed Najibullah and date from 1979 to 1991.