Source: guardian.co.uk

US and Russian warships took up positions in the Black Sea today in a risky war of nerves on opposing sides of the Georgia conflict.

With the Russians effectively controlling Georgia’s main naval base of Poti, Moscow also dispatched the Moskva missile cruiser and two smaller craft on “peacekeeping” duties at the port of Sukhumi on the coast of Abkhazia, the breakaway region that the Kremlin recognised as independent yesterday.

The Americans, wary of escalating an already fraught situation, cancelled the scheduled docking in Poti of the US Coast Guard vessel, the Dallas, and instead sent it to the southern Georgian-controlled port of Batumi, 200km (124 miles) from the Russian ships, where it delivered humanitarian aid.

“Let’s hope we don’t see any direct confrontation,” said Dmitri Peskov, the spokesman for the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, as the Russians challenged the US policy of using military aircraft and ships to deliver relief supplies.

“The decision to deliver aid using Nato battleships is something that hardly can be explained,” said Peskov. “It’s not a common practice.”

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A few interesting tidbits for the UFO crowd…

Source: NSA Technical Journal Articles

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Source: Los Angeles Times

Western anti-terrorism officials are increasingly concerned that Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shiite Muslim militia that Washington has labeled a terrorist group, is using Venezuela as a base for operations.

Linked to deadly attacks on Jewish targets in Argentina in the early 1990s, Hezbollah may be taking advantage of Venezuela’s ties with Iran, the militia’s longtime sponsor, to move “people and things” into the Americas, as one Western government terrorism expert put it.

As part of his anti-American foreign policy, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has established warm diplomatic relations with Iran and has traveled there several times. The Bush administration, Israel and other governments worry that Venezuela is emerging as a base for anti-U.S. militant groups and spy services, including Hezbollah and its Iranian allies.

“It’s becoming a strategic partnership between Iran and Venezuela,” said a Western anti-terrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the issue’s sensitivity.

Several joint Venezuelan-Iranian business operations have been set up in Venezuela, including tractor, cement and auto factories. In addition, the two countries have formed a $2-billion program to fund social projects in Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America.

Those deepening ties worry U.S. officials because Iranian spies around the world have been known to work with Hezbollah operatives, sometimes using Iranian embassies as cover, Western intelligence experts say.

In June, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon said Iran “has a history of terror in this hemisphere, and its linkages to the bombings in Buenos Aires are pretty well established.”

“One of our broader concerns is what Iran is doing elsewhere in this hemisphere and what it could do if we were to find ourselves in some kind of confrontation with Iran,” Shannon said.

Fears about the threat from Hezbollah’s global networks intensified after the slaying in February of Imad Mughniyah, a notorious leader of the militia, in Damascus, the Syrian capital. Hezbollah and Iran accused Israel and promised revenge, putting Western authorities on guard against attacks on Israeli or Jewish targets around the world.

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I said this last week, that what we are seeing is the beginning of a new cold war…

Source: FT.com

David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, led a chorus of support for Ukraine on Wednesday as western fears rose of possible Russian attempts to build on its victory in Georgia by threatening other neighbouring states.

Speaking during a visit to Kiev, he called on the European Union and Nato to prepare for “hard-headed engagement” with Moscow following its military action in Georgia. “The Russian president says he’s not afraid of a new cold war. We don’t want one. He has a big responsibility not to start one,” he said.

Mr Miliband’s remarks coincided with warnings from Bernard Kouchner, French foreign minister, Olli Rehn, EU enlargement commissioner, and Carl Bildt, Swedish foreign minister.

They were all speaking after Moscow’s recognition on Tuesday of the independence of the breakaway Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the first effort to redraw international borders in the former Soviet Union since its 1991 collapse.

Source: The Guardian

Russia was last night on another collision course with the west after Russian MPs voted unanimously to back independence for Georgia’s two breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The move - which requires the approval of Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev - gives a strong domestic legal basis for the Kremlin to take control of the areas after Russia’s invasion of Georgia this month.

Russia’s upper house, or Federation Council, voted by 130-0 to call on Medvedev to support South Ossetia and Abkhazia’s independence. The Duma passed the same motion by 447-0. Both houses are known for their slavish loyalty to the Kremlin.

The US and the EU swiftly denounced the vote. George Bush said he was “deeply concerned” by the move, and the White House said the vice-president, Dick Cheney, would visit Tbilisi next week. The EU said the breakaway regions should remain in Georgia. The German government called the move “in no way appropriate to either calming or defusing tensions”.

But there were strong signs last night that Moscow remains unmoved by the threat of western sanctions, which have been growing since Russia invaded Georgia after Georgia’s military incursion into South Ossetia this month.

The US, France, Britain and other EU countries are considering punitive measures. These include ending Nato cooperation with Moscow, freezing Russia’s application to join the World Trade Organisation, and suspending its participation in G8 summits.

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