World

Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, will sign an agreement on cooperation with the parliament of South Ossetia in Moscow on Tuesday.

Foreign and Afghan forces accidentally killed five children in two separate operations Monday, further undermining President Hamid Karzai after he demanded a halt to attacks in civilian areas.

Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin has read at an open meeting of the UN Security Council on Georgia the decrees of the Russian president on the recognition of independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Georgia's parliament voted unanimously Thursday on a resolution urging the government to sever ties with Russia, which recognized the Caucasus state's two breakaway regions earlier this week.

Russia's prime minister blasted the United States on Thursday for its inability to keep Georgia from attacking South Ossetia, and said that this had damaged bilateral relations.

Afghan officials said Thursday that a deadly U.S.-led special forces raid on a remote western village last week was based on misleading information provided by a rival clan.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said Russia will have to respond militarily to the deployment of elements of a U.S. missile shield in Central Europe.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Tuesday he had urged Western leaders to accelerate the inclusion of Georgia in NATO and the European Union.

In contrast to Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia have legal and historical grounds for proclaiming their independence, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin told a Tuesday press conference at the UN head office.

Afghan opium cultivation and production dropped in 2008 for the first time in three years, partly because of drought, with almost all the illegal crop grown in unrest-hit areas, the UN said Tuesday.