Geneva  - Russia and Georgia have agreed to hold a new round of talks on January 28 next year, aimed at reducing tensions following their five-day war in August 2008.

Representatives of the two sides met for the eight time in Geneva on Wednesday for what a European Union mediator described as a generally positive meeting.

EU official Pierre Morel said after the talks that the participants engaged "in a substantial discussion that achieved some progress."

Athens  - A deal at the climate change conference in Copenhagen next month is critically needed in order to curb migration UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday.

"We are in a critical period... populations will relocate due to more extreme weather including prolonged droughts, intensive storms and wildfires," Ban said at the 3rd Global Forum on Migration and Development, citing the rising migration numbers in Africa due to desertification and in Asia because of flooding.

Athens  - Priestesses praying to the ancient sun god Apollo got their wish on Wednesday after the rehearsal for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics torch lighting ceremony went smoothly in Ancient Olympia.

Using a concave mirror to reflect the sun's rays, the Olympic torch was successfully lit during a rehearsal, which included 21 actresses performing a symbolic ceremony,

Athens - An emergency evacuation operation was underway on Tuesday to evacuate hundreds of tourists from a luxury resort on the Greek island of Evia as a forest fire quickly gained momentum due to gale-force winds.

Coast guard officials were organising the mass evacuation by sea of more than 600 tourists and staff staying at the luxury resort Club Mediterranee with the help of six vessels as flames gathered dangerously close to the hotel located near the town of Lihada.

The fire was reportedly quickly spreading due to gale-force winds.

Athens/Nicosia  - Rival Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders scrapped annual military exercises on Tuesday in a goodwill gesture amid the ongoing UN-led peace talks aimed at reunifying the divided island.

Greek Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias called off the Greek Cypriot National Guard's "Nikoforos" exercise and hours later Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat followed suit with the cancellation of the Turkish Cypriot "Taurus" military exercise.

Brussels  - There were great expectations in the international community ahead of Wednesday's publication of the report on the causes of the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.

The European Union, which commissioned the report, "hopes that its findings can contribute towards a better understanding of the origins and the course of last year's conflict and ... serve as an input to future international efforts in the field of preventive diplomacy," the bloc said just minutes after it received the text.

Brussels  - Thirteen months after the guns fell silent, Georgia and Russia are at it again.

The difference from their brief war in 2008 is that, this time, the warriors in the conflict are diplomats - and their words are anything but diplomatic.

"The report proves that Georgia came under invasion by a foreign state in violation of international law. The pretexts (for the invasion) were blatant lies," Georgia's ambassador to the EU, Salome Samadashvili, told journalists in Brussels.

Berlin - Georgia triggered last year's war with Russia by invading the breakaway province of South Ossetia, two German newspapers said Wednesday - citing leaks of a report commissioned by the European Union.

But the document, compiled by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, said that Russia had provoked the invasion and responded "disproportionally" to Georgia's military action, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine said.

The report itself is due to be published later Wednesday in Brussels.

Athens  - Olympic Air, the privatised successor of Olympic Airlines, began flying on Tuesday with a reduced network of European routes.

The new airline, with a short-haul fleet, was officially expected to start operations on Thursday but began transferring some passengers over to certain flights two days earlier, reports said.

Purchased by Greek and United Arab Emirates investment group Marfin for over 177 million euros, officials are determined to make the airline competitive, taking over most of the 28 international flights and 26 domestic flights previously operated by Olympic Airlines.

Moscow - Russia intends to significantly upgrade marine patrols off the coast of the breakaway region of Abkhazia in Georgia, the Russian news agency Interfax reported Sunday.

The dispute over the status of Abkhazia and the other breakaway republic of South Ossetia led to war last summer between Russia and Georgia.

To monitor the coastline, 10 modern patrol boats would be utilized, the Russian intelligence agency FSB announced, according to Interfax.

Georgia claims both territories, but Moscow has recognized their bids for autonomy.

According to media reports, several units of the Russian Black Sea Fleet will be stationed in the Abkhazian town of Ochamchira.

Athens  - Archaeologists conducting excavations at the birthplace of Alexander of Great in northern Greece uncovered dozens of weapons and gold ornaments belonging to warriors, reports said Friday.

The excavations of the vast ancient burial site near Pella in northern Greece uncovered 50 graves dating from the 6th century BC. Those shed light on the early development of the Macedonian kingdom, which had an empire that stretched as far away as India under Alexander the Great's conquests.

Among the most interesting discoveries were the graves of 50 warriors. Some were buried in bronze helmets alongside iron weapons.

Athens/Nicosia  - Rival leaders in Cyprus decided Thursday to accelerate the pace of UN-led reunification talks to end the decades- old division of the eastern Mediterranean island.

Governance and power-sharing are the among the top issues Greek Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat hoped to reach agreement on by the end of October.

The UN has repeatedly indicated that there is no fixed deadline to conclude the talks, which are progressing on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

Moscow  - The breakaway Georgian Republic of Abkhazia threatened Wednesday to sink Georgian ships that violate its territorial waters in the Black Sea.

The move came two days after a court in Georgia sentenced a Turkish captain to 24 years in prison for transporting fuel supplies to Abkhazia.

"I have ordered our navy to destroy Georgian ships if they violate the maritime borders of Abkhazia," the news agency Interfax quoted Abkhazian President Sergei Bagapsh as saying.

Bagapsh accused Georgia of piracy. Georgia, which still regards Abkhazia as part of its own territory, has forbidden any economic activities with the breakaway region.

Brussels - The European Union's top diplomat on Friday said that he felt "reassured" by the fact that the situation on Georgia's border with its breakaway territories and Russia is calm, one year after war broke out in the region.

"I am reassured that the situation on the ground has remained broadly calm in the run-up to the anniversary of last year's conflict in Georgia, despite some tension due to recent public statements and alleged violent incidents," Javier Solana said in a press release.

London  - Some 30,000 people remain displaced one year after the war between Russia and Georgia over the South Ossetia region, Amnesty International said Friday.

"Hundreds of thousands of people have to face a new reality created by the conflict and the authorities have the responsibility to make the transition as smooth as possible," said the Amnesty report to mark the first anniversary of the conflict.

Moscow/Vienna - Western countries must stop weapons shipments to Georgia, Russia warned on Thursday, during the first anniversary of its conflict with Georgia.

In an interview broadcast on Russian media, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrey Nesterenko urged Western nations not to encourage Georgia to pursue military ventures by providing it with military aid.

Such military support leads Georgia to think it can solve its problems militarily, not diplomatically, warned Nesterenko.

Strasbourg, France  - Russia and Georgia are both acting irresponsibly and stoking tensions in the Caucasus exactly as they did before they went to war a year ago, the head of human-rights body the Council of Europe warned Thursday.

"They are marking the first anniversary of their conflict with rhetoric and tension. This is how the shooting started a year ago," the council's secretary general, Terry Davis, said in a statement.

Tbilisi  - Since last summer's war with Russia over the country's breakaway provinces, Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili may have felt at times like a man under siege.

The situation remains tense along the administrative borders to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, while on the home front Saakashvili experienced a three-month blockade of parliament, coupled with demands for his resignation.

Twelve months on from the five-day war between Georgia and Russia in 2008 over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, tensions persist as the warring parties seek to maintain an uneasy peace, whilst accusing one another over the causes of the conflict.

The war claimed hundreds of lives, forced thousands of people out of their homes and left Georgia scarred.

Today, just Russia and Nicaragua recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent, but the administrative border separating the breakaway regions is very real.

Tbilisi  - Georgian soldiers, stationed at a checkpoint near the South Ossetian town of Akhalgori, watched warily as a Russian military helicopter took off from the opposite side of the valley.

Blue-vested European Union (EU) monitors followed the helicopter through their binoculars, as it mapped out the edges of South Ossetian territory.