A US Navy destroyer carrying relief supplies arrived at a port in Georgia yesterday in a sign of US support for its ally as Russian troops dug in further up the coast.
Moscow faced renewed pressure to withdraw its forces from western Georgia, where they control access to the key Black Sea port of Poti. They also held positions around South Ossetia.
In further fallout from the five- day conflict, a train carrying fuel from Azerbaijan exploded just west of Gori in central Georgia, sending a thick black tower of smoke billowing into the air.
Georgia’s interior ministry said the rail track, a vital east-west link across Georgia, had been mined but no casualties were reported.
The USS McFaul dropped anchor off Batumi, 50km south of Poti, the first of three ships carrying blankets, food and other supplies to help Georgia deal with an estimated 100,000 displaced people.
A top Russian general on Saturday accused NATO countries of using humanitarian aid as “cover” for a build-up of naval forces in the Black Sea, heightening tension in the aftermath of the conflict.
Russia withdrew tanks, artillery and hundreds of troops from their most advanced positions in Georgia on Friday, saying it had fulfilled all obligations under a French-brokered peace agreement.
But Russian troops still control access to the western port of Poti, south of the Moscow-backed rebel region of Abkhazia, and have established other checkpoints around South Ossetia, where the conflict began.
Acting as head of the EU, French President Nicolas Sarkozy telephoned his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday and asked him to withdraw his forces from a road linking Poti to Senaki in western Georgia.
Sarkozy and Medvedev agreed on the need for an “international mechanism” in the area south of South Ossetia, a French statement said.
The Kremlin said it was ready to cooperate with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor a buffer zone near South Ossetia, but it said there had been no discussion about replacing Russian troops by international monitors.
”During the telephone conversation between the Russian and French presidents, there was no discussion about replacing Russian peacekeeping troops by an OSCE mission in the buffer zone,” a Kremlin spokesman said.
The West sees the presence of OSCE monitors as critical to ensuring the success of the ceasefire.
The vague six-point peace plan has been interpreted differently by Russia and the West, with Russian claiming it has the right to leave peacekeepers deep inside Georgia.
France, Britain, the US, NATO and other Western powers have demanded Russia pull back further.
Russian troops were holding at least six positions in an 80km area around the Black Sea port city of Poti yesterday.
A senior Georgian official said Russian forces were also maintaining eight positions around the separatist region of South Ossetia in central Georgia, including one a few kilometers from Gori on the main road into the region.
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
UNITED: The other candidates congratulated Cheng on her win, saying they hoped the new chair could bring the party to victory in the elections next year and in 2028 Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday won the party’s chair election with 65,122 votes, or 50.15 percent of the votes. It was the first time Cheng, 55, ran for the top KMT post, and she is the second woman to hold the post of chair, following Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), who served from 2016 to 2017. Cheng is to succeed incumbent Eric Chu (朱立倫) on Nov. 1 for a four-year term. Cheng said she has spoken with the other five candidates and pledged to maintain party unity, adding that the party would aim to win the elections next year and
RSS