Vienna - Europe's declared goal to shift away from Russian oil and gas was always a challenge. It's even more difficult after Moscow's assault on Georgia, analysts say.

Georgia's strategic role as a pipeline transit country, run by a US-backed leadership that Moscow detests, formed the backdrop to the conflict that erupted in early August.

After Russian troops handed Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili a humiliating battlefield defeat, the region's fragility and Moscow's clout are more obvious than ever. Monday's emergency EU summit on Georgia will not change that in the short term.

Hamburg - European observers have faulted Georgia in this month's Caucasus conflict, saying it made elaborate plans to seize South Ossetia, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday.

In a report to appear in its Monday edition, it said officials of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had said acts by the Georgian government had contributed to the outbreak of the crisis with Russia.

Spiegel said OSCE military observers in the Caucasus had described preparations by Georgia to move into South Ossetia.

Berlin - A slide in oil prices lead inflation in the 15-member eurozone to drop below 4 per cent in August, data to be released Friday is forecast to show, as a result helping to ease the pressure

Washington, Aug. 28 : The United States, Europe and several of their allies have termed Russia''s decision to recommend independence to two Georgian rebel provinces of South and North Ossetia as “shortsighted."

"I''m not into looking for signs, I think we''ll continue to make our case. Europe, the United States and other leaders around the world will make the case to Russia that this is a very shortsighted decision on their part," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said when asked whether he saw any signs that Russia was backing down.

Fratto''s comments came as U. S. military ship loaded with aid docked at a southern Georgian port.

Moscow/Brussels - Seventeen years on from the Cold War, Europe and Russia are again on a collision course.

In the first 100 days of Dmitry Medvedev's presidency Europe seized on his liberal rhetoric as the promise of burgeoning economic possibilities. But the war between Georgia and Russia that erupted in the next 10 days sent shockwaves through Europe.

And with Medvedev's decision to recognize the independence of Georgia's two rebel regions on Tuesday - day 111 of his tenure - experts say relations hit a historical turning-point.

That act routed Russia's last advocates in Europe, uniting Western powers in scandalized and impotent demands for Russia to "reverse" its policy.

Brussels - A French mountaineer who met a group of Belgian climbers in the Pyrenees recently chose an unusual way of getting them to smile for a team photo.

"What do Belgians write at the bottom of their swimming pools? 'No smoking'," he quipped, and clicked the shutter as they laughed.

Whatever European Union supporters may say about the way the bloc has created a zone of peace and harmony across the continent, its citizens still like nothing better than making jokes about each other.

Thus Belgians form the butt of a huge stock of jokes both in France and in the Netherlands, where they are seen, according to need, as stupid, naive or obsessed with food and drink.