WARSAW, Poland (AFP) -- The Polish prime minister says that Poland and America have reached an agreement that will see a battery of American missiles established inside Poland, a plan that has infuriated Russia and raised the specter of an escalation of tension with the country.

Donald Tusk, speaking in a televised interview from the capital, said today that America agreed to Polish proposals that it help augment its defenses in exchange for placing 10 missile defense interceptors.

Warsaw has been lobbying Washington to provide a THAAD or Patriot-type air defense system in exchange for a Polish green light to hosting the silos.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the talks seemed "on the right track."

"Our arguments about the need for a permanent presence of US troops and missiles on Polish soil have been taken seriously by the American side. The events in the Caucasus show clearly that such security guarantees are indispensable," he added.

Washington aims to base 10 interceptor missiles in Poland plus a radar facility in the neighbouring Czech Republic by 2011-2013 to complete a system already in place in the United States, Greenland and Britain.

The system, which has cost more than €63 billion ($100 billion) to develop and costs €7 billion a year to maintain - the single biggest line item in the Pentagon's budget - is unpopular in the US Congress too, where congress members argue the technology remains unproven.

Most Poles and Czechs also oppose the plan, according to polls."
-excerpt from the EU Observer

GORI, Georgia (Civil.ge) - Georgian official and Russian military commander said that the Georgian police would be able to return back to the town of Gori starting from early August 14. Alexandre Maisuradze, chief of the local police, said people who have fled the town close to the South Ossetian conflict zone, would be able to return as soon as the Georgian police is back.

Meanwhile, deputy commander of the Russia's airborne troops, Maj. Gen. Alexander Borisov, who was in Gori on August 13 meeting with the Georgian officials there, denied reports about Russian forces ever entering Gori. He said that the Russian forces were stationed in the vicinity of the town recovering and collecting arms, equipment and ammunition, which, as he said, was abandoned by the Georgian army while retreating back towards Tbilisi.

"It is dangerous, there were plenty of abandoned firearm; there are some 40 military vehicles over those heights," Borisov told a group of Georgian journalists in Gori, who were accompanying secretary of the Georgian National Security Council, Alexandre Lomaia, to Gori.

(Sky News) - Russian troops have been seen entering the Georgian port town of Poti and building up their numbers in Gori despite a shaky ceasefire, according to Georgia's foreign ministry.

MEDVEDEV SIGNS TREATY WITH S OSSETIA AND ABKHAZIA

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev met the leaders of South Ossetia and another rebel province, Abkhazia, to sign a six-point peace plan. He said that Russia would back up the rebel provinces' future "decisions", adding "(We) will guarantee them both in the Caucasus and throughout the world."

Meanwhile, a Russian defence ministry source told Sky News two unmanned Georgian spy planes had been shot down over South Ossetia.

Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?

McCain's foriegn policy adviser Randy Scheunemann is at the center of the neoconservative cabal that has come to dominate the Republican candidate's foreign policy stance in a replay of the run-up to the war against Iraq. These folks are always looking for a foreign enemy on which to base a new Cold War.

Scheunemann also played a key role in lining up support for the invasion from the "Vilnius Ten," a group of former Soviet bloc countries seeking to gain entry to NATO, some of whom Scheunemann has worked as a paid lobbyist on behalf of. With his partner Bruce Jackson, a Lockheed Martin executive, Scheunemann reportedly gave assurances to the Ten that backing the Iraq invasion would help their chances for NATO membership.

McCain gets to look tough with a new Cold War to fight while Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, scrambling to make sense of a more measured foreign policy posture, will seem weak in comparison.

Ioseb Jughashvili Stalin was a Georgian, and indeed if Russian troops had occupied the threatened Georgian town of Gori they would have found a museum still honoring the local boy, who made good by seizing control of the Russian revolution.

Stalin museum in Gori  

PS It's scary, I paused believed it to be insane to write my diary.

GORI, Georgia -- Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov declared that the world "can forget about" Georgia's territorial integrity, and American and Georgian officials said Russia appeared to be targeting military infrastructure -- including radars and patrol boats at a Black Sea naval base and oil hub.

"I believe, it is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state," Mr. Lavrov told reporters.

The White House bluntly rejected Mr. Lavrov's message.

Lavrov attacked the United States in a telephone conversation with Rice, saying Washington had to choose between a "relatively virtual" relationship with Tbilisi and a "partnership (with Russia) on questions that require collective action."

The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement: "It is a pity, however, that the American side steadfastly refuses to recognise the real reason for what happened.

"That the regime of Mikheil Saakashvili, in violation of all of its international obligations, launched a war against the South Ossetian people."

Russia Capitalizes on New World Disorder

RICE MEETS SARKOZY

Rice repeated U.S. demands that Russia withdraw its troops from Georgia's territory.

"The United States of America stands strongly for the territorial integrity of Georgia. It is time for this crisis to end. The Russian president has said that their military operations have halted. We would hope that he is true to his word and that their operations will halt."

WASHINGTON -- President Bush declared Friday that the United States and its allies "stand with the people" of war-torn Georgia against Russian "bullying and intimidation." He then left Washington for a 10-day vacation at his Texas ranch.

Just minutes ago in another televised interview, Holbrooke lays out the claim that Russian backed Ossetian militias had provoked Georgia, Saakashvili had no other option than protect the Georgian villages from etnic cleansing. [By mortar and artillery bombardement of capital Tskhinvali.] Conveniently Holbrooke explains the scenario followed by Russia's Putin as he had written in his book and interviews more than a year ago. Putin hates Saakashvili, the West's great democratic leader,  and wants to overthrow his government. Sounds quite similar to discussions about one great democracy (Israel) in the Middle East on whose behalve the US invaded and occupied Iraq. I wonder what happened to the Russian peacekeepers stationed in South Ossetia when Georgia started the attack.

"Much is at stake: Putin's long-term strategic goal is to create a sphere of Russian dominance and hegemony in the vast area the Soviet Union and the czars once ruled. If he succeeds in bringing down the most independent and pro-Western leader in the former Soviet space outside the Baltics, he will have gone a long way toward his goal. Also at stake: President Bush's "freedom agenda," stability in the Caucasus and the European Union's attitude toward a small European country on the edge of the world's most volatile region."