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a Tibetan Buddhist monk, says he had just finished having a pair of shoes mended when four uniformed guards jumped from a white van and dragged him inside.

Suppressing his calls to a passing nun for help, they shoved a sack over his head and drove him to a guesthouse run by the local paramilitary People’s Armed Police.

What followed, according to Jigme, was two months of interrogation and abuse over his suspected role in this spring’s uprising against Chinese rule across Tibet and a broad swath of Tibetan-inhabited regions in western China.

His telephone interview with The Associated Press on Friday gives one of the few detailed first-person accounts of the crackdown on the riots and protests that continue six months after the events.

Chinese authorities contacted by phone said they had no information about Jigme’s case, making his claims impossible to verify.

But the basic facts of his story correspond with testimony given by monks and nuns detained in previous campaigns and widely reported by credible overseas human rights groups.

While Beijing says an unspecified number of people have been detained following the protests, it has given no details about their treatment.

Jigme has also posted a video account of his ordeals on Youtube.com.

The 42-year-old monk, who like many Tibetans uses just one name, said he took no part in the sometimes violent protests that followed deadly rioting in Tibet’s capital of Lhasa on March 14.

Many Tibetans consider themselves a separate nation from China, whose communist forces occupied the region in 1951, and have long chafed under Chinese rule.

Jigme said he suspects he was targeted by authorities for speaking to foreign media and overseas rights groups, the apparent basis for the charge of “illegally providing intelligence” brought against him.

Jigme said he was detained on March 21 and questioned for two days at the People’s Armed Police guesthouse in the Gansu province town of Xiahe that surrounds the Labrang monastery complex where he lives. He was then driven with others to a prison in the nearby town of Linxia where he says conditions were extremely harsh.

“They demanded to know if I was a leader of the protest and what contact I had with the Dalai Lama,” the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, Jigme told the AP by phone Friday from what he described only as a “safe place” near Labrang.

“They hung me up by my hands and beat me hard all over with their fists,” he said. Similar treatment was meted out to other Tibetan prisoners, while family members were refused permission to bring them additional food and warm clothing, he said.

Jigme said he was hospitalized twice. The second time, after lying unconscious for six days and apparently on the verge of death from internal injuries, he was handed over to his family, who took him to another hospital where he recovered after 20 days of treatment and rest, Jigme said.

He said he received a conditional medical release under which his case remains unresolved.

Following his recovery in late May, Jigme said he returned to Labrang, where he is a member of the Gyuto Dratsang, or Upper Tantric College, one of the monastery’s six institutes of learning.

He said outraged monks told of police raids on their quarters in which 188 were briefly detained on suspicion of taking part in the March rioting. All but nine were released two days later. The others, who admitted taking part in the protests, were released after a few weeks.

“They were really angry. They were forced out of their beds in the middle of the night, their living quarters searched and property stolen, and no explanation was ever given as to why,” Jigme said. He said five other Labrang monks remain in custody over the protests and 20 others were in hiding.

Jigme said political indoctrination campaigns had intensified at Labrang, with monks forced to attend twice-weekly “patriotic education” classes where they are told to shun all contact with the Dalai Lama and his followers, who are accused by China of fomenting the spring protests. The Dalai Lama has denied the claims and condemned the violence.

A police officer contacted by phone in Xiahe, who gave only his surname, Liu, said he had no information about Jigme’s case. Officials at the Communist Party management committee at Labrang and at the Linxia Detention Center also said they had no knowledge of such a case and refused to give their names, as is common among Chinese authorities not authorized to speak with the media.

Jigme said he had remained at Labrang until earlier this week when security agents visited his home. He said he would continue speaking out until detained again.

Russian forces built ramparts around tanks and posted sentries on a hill in central Georgia on Saturday, digging in despite Western pressure for Moscow to withdraw its forces under a cease-fire deal signed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The United States and France said it appeared Russia was defying the truce already. Russian troops still controlled two Georgian cities and the key east-west highway between them Saturday, cities well outside the breakaway provinces where earlier fighting was focused.

“From my point of view — and I am in contact with the French — the Russians are perhaps already not honoring their word,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Medvedev had signed the cease-fire deal and ordered its implementation, but would not withdraw troops until Moscow is satisfied that security measures allowed under the agreement are effective. He said Russia would strengthen its peacekeeping contingent in South Ossetia, the separatist Georgian region at the center of more than a week of warfare that sharply soured relations between Moscow and the West.

Asked how much time it would take, he responded: “As much as is needed.”

President Bush warned Russia Saturday that it cannot lay claim to the two separatist regions in U.S.-backed Georgia even though their sympathies lie with Moscow. “There is no room for debate on this matter,” the president, with Rice, told reporters at his Texas ranch.

Later Saturday, Georgia’s Foreign Ministry accused Russian army units and separatist fighters in one of the regions, Abkhazia, of taking over 13 villages and the Inguri hydropower plant, shifting the border of the Black sea province toward the Inguri River.

Abkhaz officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the late-night claim, and there was no information on whether the seizure involved violence.

The villages and plant are in a U.N.-established buffer zone on Abkhazia’s edge, and it appeared that the separatists were bolstering their control over the zone after Russian-backed fighters forced Georgians out of their last stronghold in Abkhazia earlier this week.

The tense peace pact in Georgia, a U.S. ally that has emerged as a proxy for conflict between an emboldened Russia and the West, calls for both Russian and Georgian forces to pull back to positions they held before fighting erupted Aug. 7 in the other breakaway province, South Ossetia in central Georgia.

But freshly dug positions of Russian armor in the town of Igoeti, about 30 miles west of the capital Tbilisi, showed that Russia was observing the truce at the pace and scope of its choosing.

Rice noted that the text of the cease-fire agreement, negotiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the current leader of the European Union, outlined a very limited mandate only for Russian peacekeepers who were in Georgia at the time hostilities escalated. She said the agreement specifies that these initial peacekeepers can have limited patrols in a prescribed area within the conflict zone and would not be allowed to go into Georgian urban areas or tie up a cross-country highway.

According to Rice, Medvedev told Sarkozy that the minute the Georgian president signed the cease-fire agreement, Russian forces would begin to withdraw.

Sarkozy said Saturday that the truce explicitly bars Russian troops from Gori or “any major urban area” of Georgia.

Earlier Saturday, Russian forces dug shallow foxholes in the middle of Igoeti and parked tanks, one flying a Russian flag, along the road. In the afternoon, they withdrew from those positions to the town’s western outskirts. There, they set up defensive positions with tank cannons pointed back toward Georgian-held territory, where police and soldiers milled about, awaiting Russia’s next move.

West of Igoeti, Russian troops were deployed in large numbers in and around the strategic city of Gori, which endured an intense Russian bombardment during the fighting that began when Georgia attacked its breakaway region of South Ossetia. Military vehicles on the side of the road were camouflaged with branches; a couple of soldiers slept on stretchers in the shade of the hulking machines.

Russian troops effectively control the main artery running through the western half of Georgia, because they surround the strategic central city of Gori and the city and air base of Senaki in the west. Both cities sit on the main east-west highway that slices through two Georgian mountain ranges.

Controlling Senaki, which sits on a key intersection, also means the Russians control access to the Black Sea port city of Poti and the road north to Abkhazia. AP reporters have seen Russian troops there for days but noted a growing contingent Saturday and artillery guns and tanks pointed out from the city, which they appear to be using as a base for their sorties elsewhere in western Georgia.

An Associated Press Television News team saw Russian soldiers pulling out of the Black Sea port of Poti Saturday after sinking Georgian naval vessels and ransacking the port. A picture of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in the looted office of the Navy and Coast Guard had been vandalized, with the face scratched out.

“They have robbed the military base and taken almost everything, and they have burned or sunk the stuff they could not carry,” port worker Zurab Simonia said.

Lavrov was not specific about the security measures planned, but suggested they would be limited mostly to South Ossetia, not Georgia proper. He accused Georgia of undermining security, citing the Russian military’s claim that it had averted an attack on a highway tunnel by stopping a car laden with grenade launchers and ammunition.

“We are constantly encountering problems from the Georgian side, and everything will depend on how effectively and quickly these problems are resolved,” he said.

Georgia, meanwhile, claimed that Russian forces blew up a railroad bridge Saturday. Russia denied it.

The rival claims underscored the fragility of the cease-fire. Lavrov said the deal Saakashvili signed Friday differed from the one with Medvedev’s signature, with Saakashvili’s version lacking an introductory preamble. While that difference may appear to be a technicality, it could be one either side could cite if it wants to abandon the deal.

The conflict erupted after Georgia launched a massive barrage to try to take control of South Ossetia. The Russian army quickly overwhelmed its neighbor’s forces and drove deep into Georgia, raising fears that it was planning on a long-term occupation.

Even if Russian forces do withdraw from the rest of Georgia, Moscow appears likely to maintain strong control over South Ossetia. Lavrov said Thursday that Georgia can “forget about” South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke from Georgian government control in early 1990s wars, and their future status is shaping up as a potentially explosive source of tension.

In Texas, Bush said, “A major issue is Russia’s contention that the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia may not be a part of Georgia’s future. These regions are a part of Georgia and the international community has repeatedly made clear that they will remain so.”

Russia views the growing relationship between the U.S. and Georgia as an encroachment on its traditional sphere of influence and a threat to its clout. The fighting came amid U.S. efforts to close a deal on a missile shield based in former Soviet satellites in Europe, an issue already damaging ties with its former Cold War foe.

Iraqi security forces are taking over checkpoints near the Iranian border previously manned by Georgian troops before they redeployed home following recent fighting with Russia, the U.S. military said Friday. Iraq

Shiite pilgrims, meanwhile, faced more violence as they headed toward the holy city of Karbala for a major religious festival.

A roadside bomb struck a minibus beginning the trip in eastern Baghdad Friday morning, killing at least one passenger and wounding 10 others, a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to release the information.

The attack came a day after a female suicide bomber struck Shiite pilgrims resting by the side of a road south of Baghdad in Iskandariyah, killing at least 18 people and wounding 75.

Georgia’s announcement last week that it was recalling its 2,000 soldiers from Iraq has forced the Americans to shuffle units to fill the vacuum.

The recall also came as the Bush administration is awaiting a recommendation from its top commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, on future force levels.

Col. Steve Boylan, chief spokesman for Petraeus, said the general has not completed his assessment and it was premature to speculate on any potential effect the Georgian withdrawal.

“It’ll be a factor in the overall analysis … but it isn’t the only factor,” Boylan said. “It is another element, although unexpected, of the overall analysis of the situation and will be factored into his recommendation.”

Petraeus is expected to submit that report around end of this month before leaving Iraq in mid-September to become commander of U.S. Central Command, a position of broader responsibility that includes the war in Afghanistan.

The Georgians — the third-largest contributor of coalition forces after the U.S. and Britain — had been responsible for searching vehicles and people at a series of checkpoints along weapon smuggling routes in the desert border region near Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Iraqi soldiers already have taken over traffic checkpoints and are providing security at the entrance of the Georgians’ former patrol base, the U.S. military said.

Meanwhile, American soldiers with the 41st Fires Brigade are training them to take over the rest of the Georgians’ mission, including patrols and the base itself, according to the statement.

The move came after U.S. officials acknowledged the Georgians’ departure would have a “near-term impact” but insisted adjustments were being made to minimize the disruption to operations. Americans have increasingly been trying to move to more of an oversight role and letting Iraqi security forces take the lead so the foreign troops can eventually go home.

“They have stepped up to the plate, and their partnership is why we are able to take over the mission that the Georgians had to leave behind, with no change in the security and safety of the Iraqi people,” brigade commander Col. Richard M. Francey, Jr., said of the Iraqi troops.

The U.S. military said 18 people were killed in Thursday’s attack in Iskandariyah, but Iraqi police in the area gave a higher death toll of 26.

The woman blew herself up in the same residential area that was hit by a Feb. 24 suicide bombing that killed at least 40 Shiite pilgrims, authorities said. Pilgrims frequently use the area, which is occupied by many displaced families, as a short cut.

The festival celebrates the birth of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the 12th Shiite imam, who disappeared in the ninth century. Devout Shiites believe he will return to restore peace and harmony. The ceremonies reach their high point this weekend.

Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on his followers in a message read by his aides to renew their loyalty to the so-called Hidden Imam by signing a pledge with blood after Friday prayers.

Among the promises was “to liberate Muslims around the world and in Iraq in particular from troops of darkness,” apparent rhetoric for the U.S.-led foreign troops that he opposes.

The call came a week after al-Sadr effectively turned his Mahdi Army militia into a social welfare movement, although he said he would retain special guerrilla cells that his spokesman explained would attack U.S. troops only if the Americans don’t accept a timetable to leave Iraq.

A top Russian general said Friday that Poland’s agreement to accept a U.S. missile interceptor base exposes the ex-communist nation to attack, possibly by nuclear weapons, the Interfax news agency reported.

The statement by Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn is the strongest threat that Russia has issued against the plans to put missile defense elements in former Soviet satellite nations.

Poland and the United States on Thursday signed a deal for Poland to accept a missile interceptor base as part of a system the United States says is aimed at blocking attacks by rogue nations. Moscow, however, feels it is aimed at Russia’s missile force.

“Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent,” Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff, was quoted as saying.

He added, in clear reference to the agreement, that Russia’s military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them.” Nogovitsyn that would include elements of strategic deterrence systems, he said, according to Interfax.

At a news conference earlier Friday, Nogovitsyn had reiterated Russia’s frequently stated warning that placing missile-defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic would bring an unspecified military response. But his subsequent reported statement substantially stepped up a war of words.

U.S. officials have said the timing of the deal was not meant to antagonize Russian leaders at a time when relations already are strained over the recent fighting between Russia and Georgia over the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia.

Russian forces went deep into Georgia in the fighting, raising wide concerns that Russia could be seeking to occupy parts of its small, pro-U.S. neighbor, which has vigorously lobbied to join NATO, or even to force its government to collapse.

Under the agreement that Warsaw and Washington reached Thursday, Poland will accept an American missile interceptor base.

“We have crossed the Rubicon,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, referring to U.S. consent to Poland’s demands after more than 18 months of negotiations.

Washington says the planned system, which is not yet operational, is needed to protect the U.S. and Europe from possible attacks by missile-armed “rogue states” like Iran. The Kremlin, however, feels it is aimed at Russia’s missile force and warns it will worsen tensions.

In an interview on Poland’s news channel TVN24, Tusk said the United States agreed to help augment Poland’s defenses with Patriot missiles in exchange for placing 10 missile defense interceptors in the Eastern European country.

He said the deal also includes a “mutual commitment” between the two nations to come to each other’s assistance “in case of trouble.”

That clause appeared to be a direct reference to Russia.

Poland has all along been guided by fears of a newly resurgent Russia, an anxiety that has intensified with Russia’s offensive in Georgia. In past days, Polish leaders said that fighting justified Poland’s demands that it get additional security guarantees from Washington in exchange for allowing the anti-missile base on its soil.

Western leaders engaged in intense diplomacy Friday to persuade Russia to pull troops out of Georgia, but regional tensions soared after a top Russian general warned that Poland could face attack over its missile defense deal with the United States.

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In his strongest declaration of support for Georgia, President Bush declared that America would stand by the Georgian people and that the staunch American ally’s territorial integrity must be respected after last week’s eruption of violence.

“We will not cast them aside,” he said in Washington.

But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, speaking at virtually the same time, said the separatist Georgian regions at the center of the conflict appear destined for independence.

“After what happened, it’s unlikely Ossetians and Abkhazians will ever be able to live together with Georgia in one state,” he said in a joint news conference in the Russian resort of Sochi with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Georgia Friday to press President Mikhail Saakashvili to sign a fragile cease-fire deal. It would require major Georgian concessions, but Rice said the U.S. would never ask Georgia to agree to something that isn’t in its best interests.

The plan calls for the immediate withdrawal of Russian combat troops from Georgia, but allows Russian peacekeepers who were in South Ossetia violence erupted of violence to remain and take a greater role there.

“This is not an agreement about the future of Abkhazia and the future of South Ossetia,” Rice said. “This is about getting Russian troops out,” she said.

As the West pressed for peace, Russian Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn was quoted by Interfax News Agency on Friday as saying that by accepting a U.S. missile defense battery Poland “is exposing itself to a strike.”

He pointed out that Russian military doctrine permits the use of nuclear weapons “against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them,” Interfax reported.

Poland and the U.S. signed a deal Thursday for Poland to accept a missile defense battery as part of a system the United States says is aimed at blocking attacks by rogue nations but that Moscow claims is aimed at weakening Russia.

On the ground in Georgia, Russian troops on Friday allowed some humanitarian supplies into the strategic city of Gori but continued their blockade, raising doubts about Russian intentions in the war-battered country.

Gori, about 45 miles west of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, is key to when — or if — Russia will honor the terms of a cease-fire that calls for both sides to pull their forces back to the positions they held before fighting broke out last week in the separatist region of South Ossetia.

Russian forces also were in several other cities deep in Georgia, officials said.

By holding Gori, Russian forces effectively cut the country in half because the city sits along Georgia’s only significant east-west highway. Russian military vehicles were blocking the eastern road into the city on Friday, although they allowed in one Georgia bus filled with loaves of bread.

“It’s quiet there, but now there are problems with food,” said Alexander Lomaia, the head of Georgia’s national security council. He said he was able to tour the city during the night.

Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said Friday that there are no Russian troops in the city of Kutaisi, Georgia’s second-largest city, despite reports they were headed in that direction overnight. However, he and Lomaia both said that troops remain in the Black Sea port city of Poti.

On the outskirts of Tbilisi, Georgia stepped up aid efforts at a camp for displaced people.

“We’re in a difficult situation, but our government is helping us,” said Zhozhona Gogidze, a displaced person. “You know I am very ashamed, we don’t have a kopeck left and I’m so hungry.”

Frustrations were mounting in the capital over confusion about the cease-fire deal.

“We need to understand what the international agreement is,” said Archil Rezhabidze. “All these agreements are agreed only to be broken later. We should not trust them for one minute.”

In a report released Friday, Human Rights Watch said it has collected evidence of Russian warplanes using cluster bomb against civilian areas in Georgia. The international rights group urged Russia to stop using the weapons, which more than 100 nations have agreed to outlaw.

The group said Russian military aircraft killed at least 11 civilians and injured dozens in the town of Gori and the village of Ruisi. Russia’s Defense Ministry denied the claim, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing an unnamed official who complained that the organization gathered the information from biased witnesses.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Georgia could “forget about” getting back South Ossetia and its other breakaway province, Abkhazia. The former Soviet republic remained on edge as Russia sent tank columns to search out and destroy Georgian military equipment.

Georgian officials accused Russia of sending a column of tanks and other armored vehicles toward Kutaisi, the second-largest city in Georgia, then said the convey stopped about 35 miles out.

“We have no idea what they’re doing there, why the movement, where they’re going,” Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze said in a telephone briefing. “One explanation could be they are trying to rattle the civilian population.”

The U.S. said a move toward Kutaisi would be a matter of great concern, but two defense officials told The Associated Press the Pentagon did not detect any major movement by Russia troops or tanks. There was no immediate response from Russia itself.

“I think the world should think very carefully about what is going on here,” Saakashvili said. “We need to stop everything that can be stopped now.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Thursday that Russia was in danger of hurting relations with the U.S. “for years to come” but said he did not see “any prospect” for the use of American military force in Georgia.

Associated Press writers Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili and Matti Friedman in Tbilisi, Georgia; Mansur Mirovalev in Tskhinvali, Georgia; Jim Heintz and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow; Alexander Higgins in Geneva; Carley Petesch in New York; Matthew Lee traveling with Rice; and Terence Hunt in Washington contributed to this report.

Georgia has gotten its wish for another U.N. Security Council emergency session, just as the former Soviet republic said Russia’s firepower had effectively split it in half.

The Monday afternoon session tentatively begins at 5 p.m. EDT as private consultations that Georgia can’t attend, since it’s not a member of the 15-nation council. That leaves most of the diplomacy to Russia and the United States, Georgia’s ally.

It will be the fifth such session since clashes erupted Thursday and diplomats say it will examine the latest developments on the ground.

Georgia’s president says Russia’s troops have effectively cut the country in half by seizing Gori, a strategic city along the country’s main east-west highway and only about 60 miles west of the capital Tbilisi.

More banks are tightening lending standards on home mortgages and other consumer and business loans as a deepening credit crisis exerts a heavier toll on the economy.

The Federal Reserve said Monday the percentage of banks reporting tighter lending standards rose across various loan types in its July survey. In April, the central bank had found that the percentage of banks reporting tighter lending standards was already near historic highs.

The new survey, conducted in early July, found that about 75 percent of the banks surveyed indicated they had tightened their lending standards for prime mortgages. That was up from about 60 percent of banks who said they were tightening lending standards for prime mortgages in the previous survey.

The Fed’s July survey covered 50 banks which hold about 80 percent of the residential mortgages on the books of all commercial banks.

Out of this group of 50 banks, 32 said they were still originating so-called nontraditional home mortgages. Among these 32 banks, about 85 percent said they had tightened their lending standards, up from 75 percent who said they were tightening lending standards for nontraditional mortgages in the April survey.

The Fed defines nontraditional mortgages as adjustable-rate mortgages with multiple payment options, interest-only loans and “Alt-A” mortgages that require limited verification of income.

The Fed survey found that only seven of the 50 banks said they were still participating in subprime mortgages, loans made to borrowers with weak credit histories. Of those seven, six said they had tightened lending standards on subprime loans with only one saying it had left standards basically unchanged for subprime loans.

The survey found that most banks were reporting tighter lending standards across a broad swath of consumer and business loans over the past three months.

For home equity lines of credit, 80 percent of the banks surveyed said they had tightened their lending standards in this area.

For credit cards, the percentage of domestic banks reporting tighter lending standards was about 65 percent, more than double the 30 percent who reported they were tightening lending standards for credit cards three months ago.

Analysts said that the big jump in higher standards for credit card debt could represent a serious threat to the already weak economy, given that consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of total economic activity.

Harm Bandholz, an economist with UniCredit Markets, said that the tightening in bank standards for credit cards and other types of consumer loans would be “another nail in the coffin of the U.S. consumer, who is already suffering from the weak labor market, high inflation and falling house prices.”

David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor’s in New York, said the tighter lending standards reflect the huge loan losses that banks have already suffered. Those losses have depleted the capital they need as reserves against future losses and made it more difficult for the banks to sell their mortgages and other loans as asset-backed securities, a process that provides them with money to make new loans.

Wyss said he did not believe bank lending will start to pick up until next spring when he is forecasting that the economy will begin to rebound.

“The country is probably going through the most severe credit crunch since 1991-92,” Wyss said, referring to a time when banks and savings and loans came under severe pressure while the economy was in a recession. “I think bank credit is going to remain tight for a while.”

The current credit crisis hit with force a year ago with rising defaults in the market for subprime mortgage loans. The credit problems have since spread from subprime loans, mortgages provided to borrowers with weak credit histories, to other types of mortgages and other kinds of loans.

The country’s major financial institutions have reported billions of dollars in losses and financial markets remain unsettled with investors concerned about potential losses that have yet to be disclosed.

Washington has little room for maneuver in the Caucasus conflict amid perceptions that it helped fuel the crisis by over-inflating Georgia’s hopes of US support for its young democracy, analysts say.

“This is probably a conflict where the United States would not be accepted by both sides as a mediator,” said analyst Steven Pifer, a former US ambassador in Kiev.

“The Georgians would welcome American participation. I suspect the Russians would probably not accept us because in Moscow, we are seen as too close to Georgia,” added the analyst from the Brookings Institute.

US President George W. Bush Monday condemned the Russian military offensive against Georgia, triggered after Tbilisi sent troops into the pro-Moscow rebel region of South Ossetia seeking to regain control from the separatists.

“I said this violence is unacceptable,” Bush told US broadcaster NBC. “I expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn bombing outside of South Ossetia.”

But Bush is acutely aware that Washington needs Moscow’s support on several key outstanding international dossiers including the crisis over Iran’s suspect nuclear program and moves to denuclearize North Korea.

In a plaintive reminder to the United States of its support for his 2003 Rose Revolution, Georgia’s staunchly pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili sought to remind his ally of how far Tbilisi has come in the past few years.

“No country of the former Soviet Union has made more progress toward consolidating democracy, eradicating corruption and building an independent foreign policy than Georgia,” he wrote Monday in the Wall Street Journal.

“This conflict is therefore about our common trans-Atlantic values of liberty and democracy,” wrote the Georgian leader.

The most charismatic of the Rose Revolution leaders who ousted veteran leader and former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, the US-educated Saakashvili swept to the presidency in early 2004 on a wave of popular support.

His efforts to implement sweeping free-market reforms won high praise from the West, including Bush, who hailed Georgia as “a beacon of democracy” during a 2005 visit to Tbilisi.

The United States is now seeking to win backing for a strongly worded UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.

The resolution would also demand a return to the status quo before Georgia sent forces into its breakaway South Ossetia enclave.

But with Moscow holding a power of veto in the Security Council there is little chance that it will pass a resolution strongly criticizing its own actions, and discussions have been deadlocked for days.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has also been noticeably absent on the diplomatic scene, having failed to interrupt her holidays to fly to Tbilisi in support of the Georgian government.

Instead senior State Department official, Matthew Bryza, who oversees the Caucasus region was sent, two days later than planned, to join a joint EU-US mediation effort to win a ceasefire.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who is leading the mediation mission for the EU, said Monday the United States was “in a sense part of the conflict,” between Russia and Georgia.

“You talk about the Americans, of course they are in a sense part of the conflict, that is why we must emphasise the presence and the strength of the European Union,” Kouchner told French radio.

But State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood sought Monday to dismiss the notion that the US was relatively powerless in face of the escalating conflict.

“We and the Europeans have leverage … The Russians know how seriously we take the situation,” he said.

“The US relations with Russia is of course a complicated one, but certainly Russia understands where we are on this conflict, where the European Union is on this conflict and we expect and hope that Russia will heed the call of the International community to stop the bombings, to agree to an immediate ceasefire and to have discussions with Georgia.”

The short, catchy film commissioned by the Chinese government was designed to plant a new, positive image of China in foreigners’ minds for the Beijing Olympics.

But instead of airing worldwide more than two months ago as planned, the 30-second TV spot is only now about to reach viewers, having been delayed repeatedly by Tibetan riots, a devastating earthquake and foreign criticism buffeting the games.

China’s hopes that the Olympics starting Friday will be a pivotal moment in national glory and global acceptance have been battered by unforeseen events. The disappointment has left some in China hurt and feeling unjustly treated.

The Chinese “tried hard to impress the world and to prove the country deserves respect and appreciation,” said Xu Guoqi, a China-born historian at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. “But the West used the Olympic torch relay and the coming games to shame the country and frequently remind the Chinese they were not good enough.”

The August Olympics still may appear picture-perfect on global TV, despite concerns about air pollution, overbearing security and media restrictions. Enthusiasm among Chinese for a strong showing by Team China remains high. But where officials once spoke of hosting the greatest games ever, they now seem ready to settle simply for an incident-free event.

“A safe Olympics is the biggest indicator of the success of the games,” Vice President Xi Jinping, the senior-most Communist Party leader overseeing preparations, told a rally of volunteers last month.

Worries about terrorism and protests have come to the fore. Beijing has taken on a strange air: Its new venues, skyscrapers and roadways hung with banners sparkle in anticipation while police expel political critics, some migrant workers and foreigners deemed suspect.

The Olympic letdown stands in contrast to the ambitious buildup. From the outset, Chinese leaders saw the games as a chance to boost China’s image, to redefine it as a worthy, humane global partner — and not a menacing behemoth. Ordinary Chinese thought it a ripe opportunity to mark the tremendous strides made in casting off poverty and totalitarianism and building the fourth-largest economy in the space of a generation.

In their bid for the Olympics seven years ago, Beijing officials said the games would increase interaction with the international community and spur improvements in human rights and media freedom. The Chinese government called on party image-makers to devise ways to appeal to foreigners and on officials to stoke popular enthusiasm at home. “Integrate with the world” became a catch-phrase.

The longest ever torch relay was planned. In a $40 billion makeover, Beijing invited top foreign architects to design futuristic sports venues, a new airport and other eye-catching modern landmarks. Residents were told not to spit in public and to obey traffic rules.

The country rolled out the most extensive Olympic education program ever, developing a special curriculum taught in more than 550 schools and encouraging tens of thousands nationwide to teach Olympic values and take part in sports meets and signature campaigns.

“The Olympics is about unity,” said 10-year-old Miwei Ruoye, a fifth grader at the Nanjing Road Primary School in Nanchang city, 780 miles south of Beijing’s Olympic venues. “It’s all about peace and friendship,” said her 11-year-old classmate, Wan Zhao.

In the school courtyard sits a 3-foot-tall model in bamboo and spray-painted silver of the new National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest.

“We’re teaching them that the Olympic spirit is international, that it doesn’t just belong to one country,” said Zhang Renzhi, a teacher and pingpong instructor in charge of the Olympic curriculum. “It’s an international, humanitarian spirit.”

The promotional film was a key part of this effort and the first ever commissioned by the government for overseas markets. Dubbed “a national image film,” the government planned for a May airing on CNN, the BBC and other broadcasters with international reach. The piece would mix images of ancient picturesque towns with shots of ultramodern Beijing and Shanghai.

“At the time we thought we were making history,” said one participant who, like several interviewed, requested anonymity because of a confidentiality agreement signed with the government agency overseeing the project. “They said this was the first time that China was communicating to the outside world rather than waiting for the world to come to us.”

Then events intervened. Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg withdrew as an adviser to the opening ceremony to draw attention to China’s support for the Sudan government, which is waging a civil war in Darfur. The uprising by Tibetans brought a tide of critical reporting by the foreign media and turned the torch relay into a melee of protests.

Suddenly, the talk overseas, especially in the West, was of boycotts and Beijing’s suitability to host the games.

“We hoped that the Olympics would help people understand our country’s achievements, that this ancient civilization has started a new chapter,” said Luo Qing, a media expert in Beijing specializing in China’s national image. “But from the torch relay, we suddenly realized that we were preparing to open the nation’s front door to welcome people who do not wish us well.”

Even ordinary Chinese felt spurned.

“Here, we build sports venues, fix rail lines and construct airports, hurrying like a raging fire to prepare. There, people use Darfur one day and Tibet the next to fan the flames of protest and boycott. What’s going on?” Liu Songjie, a 24-year-old Beijing railway department employee, wrote in late March in his online diary, where his usual musings are about movies and pop culture.

“This is a hot face pressed on a cold rump,” Liu wrote, using a coarse saying for unrequited love.

China’s standing tumbled in at least three polls overseas. A spring survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that favorable views of China slipped in nine countries out of 21 over the past year, the steepest in France and Japan, while “there were signs of apprehension about the country and its growing power.”

The uproar made poor timing for global outreach, and the promotional film was temporarily shelved. After more than 69,000 people died in the Sichuan earthquake in May, the broadcast was delayed again.

“It was because of CNN and BBC’s attitude so we did not broadcast at that time,” Guo Changjian, the State Council Information Office official in charge of the project, said of their critical reporting of the Tibet riots in March. “It was because the earthquake happened, the March 14 beating, smashing and looting incident happened. The timing was up to us.”

Guo said contracts with CNN and the BBC have been reached to air the film just before the Olympics opening on Aug. 8; both networks declined comment.

Still, the mood has shifted sharply from the friendly internationalism Chinese leaders hoped to display. Many Chinese are casting a critical eye on Western governments and media for what they see as tarnishing the Olympic moment.

“These Olympics will perhaps hurt the feelings of other countries. But it will be good for Chinese,” said Wu Jiaxiang, a former government researcher and now a blogger and businessman. “We care less about human rights than other countries and more about sovereignty. That’s bound to create an awkward feeling among other countries.”

Gaza Strip - Hamas forces battled Fatah-linked fighters with mortars and machine guns in a crowded Gaza neighborhood Saturday, leaving at least nine dead in the worst Palestinian infighting in nine months.

About 88 people were injured, 12 of them children, hospital officials said.

Loud explosions and gunfire could be heard throughout the day in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shijaiyeh, a stronghold of the Fatah-allied Hilles clan. Hamas accuses the clan of hiding suspects responsible for a car bombing last week that killed five activists of the Islamic militant group.

Hamas and the largely secular, Western-backed Fatah have waged a violent struggle for control of Gaza for years. But there have been few signs of Fatah resistance since Hamas seized control of the strip in June 2007.

Relations between the factions deteriorated sharply last week after the car bombing that killed Hamas militants in Gaza and each side has been cracking down on political opponents with growing intensity. Hamas in Gaza and Fatah loyalists of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who control the West Bank have carried out mass arrests.

In the West Bank, Abbas’ troops enforced a new ban on public assembly and expanded their arrest sweep beyond Hamas. Club-wielding security men arrested and beat dozens of supporters of a non-violent Islamic group.

The Gaza clashes began when Hamas raided Shijaiyeh under heavy morning fog. Security forces stormed several high-rise buildings and rounded up rooftop snipers, gunmen and wounded fighters, said Islam Shahwan, a Hamas police spokesman.

Heavy battles with mortars and machine guns ensued. Three Hamas policemen and a Hilles member were killed, hospital officials said.

It was the deadliest internal Palestinian fighting since November when Hamas police killed seven people in a Fatah-organized memorial rally for the late Yasser Arafat.

Ahmed Hilles, a clan leader and Fatah official, said Hamas police cut off electricity as they launched the raid. He explained why the clan fought back.

“You have to decide: Either be trampled under Hamas’ shoes, or stand in dignity,” he told The Associated Press by telephone, with gunshots crackling in the background. Hilles fled to Israel later in the day, Israeli military officials confirmed.

By Saturday afternoon, Hamas police had seized control of Shijaiyeh, home to some 100,000 people. They deployed hundreds of police who went house to house in search of weapons and suspects. In all, more than 50 people were arrested, including some who had tried to flee disguised as women, Hamas said.

Senior Hamas official Siyad Siam said those arrested included men allegedly involved in last week’s attack. Hamas forces found explosives like those used in the bombing, as well as machine guns and other weapons, Siam told a press conference in Gaza City late Saturday.

“We are sending a message that no one is above the law and that no family is above the law,” Siam said. “Gaza will enjoy peace and security.”

More than 180 Palestinians who fled the fighting were allowed through a Gaza crossing into Israel, said an Israeli commander in the border area, Col. Ron Ashrov. The transfer began when a group, including injured people and armed men, ran up to the Gaza fence, Ashrov said.

Israeli soldiers were fired upon as they went to open the fence, apparently by Palestinians, Ashrov said. Twenty-two of those who crossed were injured, he said. Some of those who entered were youths, he said.

The unusual Israeli involvement to save Palestinians fleeing infighting was agreed to by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak after Abbas and the Egyptian government requested the Israeli action, military officials said on condition of anonymity since no official announcement was made about the request.

Officials close to Abbas said Israel had agreed to allow only three of those who had fled to enter the West Bank, and the rest would be sent to Egypt.

Four mortar shells fired from Gaza landed in open fields in Israel Saturday causing no injuries, the army said. The mortars underscored the danger that the Palestinian infighting could embroil Israel.

In the West Bank, security forces armed with clubs arrested and beat dozens of supporters of a non-violent Islamic group, the Liberation Party, and broke up their rally in downtown Ramallah. An AP Television News cameraman was prevented by Abbas’ security forces from filming the beatings.

The pan-Islamic Liberation Party has sharply criticized the moderate Fatah leadership, but says it espouses non-violent change. In the past, members of the movement were able to march in the West Bank without hindrance.

A senior security official said there is growing fear Hamas is using the Liberation Party as a front in the West Bank.

Since Thursday, dozens of Liberation Party members have been arrested, said its spokesman, Baher Saleh.

Deeb al-Ali, chief of the national security forces in the West Bank, said all political gatherings were banned because of the growing tensions with Hamas.

“We have to stop rallies and marches or anything that leads to mass gatherings,” he said.

A North Korean soldier fatally shot a South Korean tourist Friday at a mountain resort in the communist North, prompting the South to suspend the high-profile tour program just as South Korean’s new president sought to rekindle strained ties between the divided countries.

The news of the unprecedented shooting of a 53-year-old woman at Diamond Mountain resort emerged just hours after new President Lee Myung-bak delivered a nationwide address calling for restored contacts between the two Koreas, which have been on hold since he took office in February.

Kim said South Korea would suspend future Diamond Mountain tours until it completes an investigation. The other some 1,200 tourists already at the resort are to complete their tours as scheduled by as late as Sunday, said Hyundai Asan, the South Korean company that operates the resort.

“We regret that our tourist was killed,” Kim said, adding that Seoul “will take appropriate corresponding measures” pending the results of the probe.

According to a North Korean account given to Hyundai Asan, the woman left her hotel around 4:30 a.m. to walk along the beach at the resort, but crossed deep into a fenced-off military area.

The woman, identified as Park Wang-ja, ran away when a North Korean soldier told her to halt after spotting her about a half-mile inside the fence. Park fled as the soldier chased her and fired one warning shot, before she was shot dead around 5 a.m., the North said.

Park was shot twice from behind, said Cho Yong-seok, an official at the hospital in the South Korean city of Sokcho where her body was taken. One bullet hit her in the chest, causing her death, and another shot struck her left hip, he said.

The North informed Hyundai Asan about the shooting around 11:30 a.m., more than six hours after the incident. There has not yet been any communication from the North Korean government to Seoul officials about the death.

The resort on the peninsula’s eastern coast, which opened in 1998, is one of the most high-profile projects between the two Koreas.

Hyundai Asan operates the Diamond Mountain resort as a tourist enclave inside the communist North, complete with South Korean convenience stores and a duty-free shop selling luxury goods. The area is one of two North Korean tourist programs run by the company, which are the only sites inside the reclusive nation that are open to relatively free access by visitors.

There were no plans to suspend a separate tour program offering day trips to the North’s border city of Kaesong because of the shooting.

About 1.9 million visitors, mostly South Koreans, have visited the site, including some 190,000 people this year, according to the Unification Ministry.

In March, the North opened the resort to tourists driving in private cars across the heavily armed border dividing the Koreas.

Tourists at the resort are usually only allowed to wander freely in specified areas and are under strict control, with green fences separating the zone from the rest of the country. For hiking trips on the mountain, tour groups are taken by bus to trails lined by North Korean monitors.

The resort is in a heavily militarized area near the tense border between the Koreas, the world’s last Cold War frontier. On the road to the resort, mobile rocket launchers dot the hillsides and the coast has been home to a major North Korean naval base.

The two Koreas remain technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a cease-fire. However, they have made strides in reconciliation since the first-ever summit in 2000 between leaders of the North and South.

Relations have chilled since South Korea’s new President Lee took office with a tougher policy on the North.

However, Lee proposed Friday a resumption of dialogue between the Koreas and said he would respect earlier agreements from North-South summits, a softening of his earlier stance.

“Full dialogue between the two Koreas must resume,” Lee said told the opening session of parliament. “The South Korean government is willing to engage in serious consultations on how to implement” the summit deals and other previous agreements between the two sides, he said.

Lee also said he is “ready to cooperate in efforts to help relieve the food shortage in the North as well as alleviate the pain of the North Korean people.”

Lee was briefed on the tourist’s death right before he departed for the National Assembly speech, his office said, but did not mention it in his comments.

International agencies have warned that North Korea is facing its worst food shortages in years due to severe floods last year. The shortages were aggravated by the lack of assistance from South Korea amid stalled relations. Lee’s predecessors regularly sent food across the heavily armed border.

The South Korean president also urged the North to resolve humanitarian issues such as resuming reunions of families separated between the Koreas, and also allowing hundreds of South Korean POWs and civilians believed to be held in the North to return home.

Meanwhile on Friday, talks on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament pushed into a second day, with negotiators discussing the North’s complaint that it has not received most of the energy assistance it was promised in exchange for disabling its weapons program.

Delegates from the six countries also reached a consensus on establishing a verification and monitoring mechanism for Pyongyang’s nuclear facilities, a South Korean government official said Friday. The official asked not to be named because the talks were still under way.

The overall goal of the six-nation talks is to hash out details of what could be a monthslong effort to verify the communist state’s declaration of its nuclear materials, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters after the first day of talks Thursday.

Oil jumped more than 3 percent to a record high above $146 a barrel on Friday, boosted by concern of threats to supplies from major oil exporters Iran and Nigeria.

U.S. crude hit $146 a barrel for the first time and later rose as high as $146.90.

Russia has accused the British Embassy’s top trade official in Moscow of espionage, the British Foreign Office confirmed Friday.

The accusation appears likely to worsen Russian-British relations, already strained in part by the continuing fight for control at the TNK-BP oil company, which is jointly owned by the British company and Russian billionaires.

The Interfax news agency, citing a source in Russia’s secret services, reported Thursday that the head of the embassy’s trade and investment section, Christopher Bowers, was believed to be a senior British intelligence officer.

The British Foreign Office said the accused diplomat was acting head of U.K. Trade and Investment at the embassy and confirmed his name was Chris Bowers.

The former top trade official, Andrew Levi, was one of four British Embassy officials expelled from Moscow last summer.

The expulsions were retaliation for Britain’s expulsion of four Russian diplomats after Russia refused to hand over the main suspect in the 2006 poisoning death of Kremlin critic and former Federal Security Service officer Alexander Litvinenko in London.

The new espionage accusation followed a report Monday by the BBC suggesting Russian government involvement in the killing of Litvinenko.

The Federal Security Service and Foreign Ministry both refused to comment Friday.

A U.S. military airstrike this week killed 47 civilians traveling to a wedding, the head of an Afghan government commission investigating the incident said Friday.

The airstrike on Sunday in Deh Bala district of Nuristan province also wounded nine civilians, said Burhanullah Shinwari, the deputy chairman of the Senate, who led the delegation.

The U.S. military on Sunday denied that any civilians were killed in the incident. At the time Afghan officials said 27 civilians had been killed.

On Friday, U.S. coalition spokesman 1st Lt. Nathan Perry said that “any loss of innocent life is tragic.”

“I assure you that civilians are never targeted, and that our forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties,” he said. “This incident regarding the air strike on July 6th is still under investigation by coalition forces.”

Shinwari said that 39 of those killed in the airstrike were women and children, including the bride.

The group was targeted twice on Sunday, as they walked along with the bride from her village toward the groom’s house in another village, Shinwari said.

The nine-man commission was dispatched by President Hamid Karzai to investigate the incident on Tuesday. They returned to Kabul on Thursday. The commission included officials from the Ministry of Defense, the country’s intelligence agency and parliament.

Shinwari said the group gathered information from eyewitnesses and victim’s relatives.

All those killed in Deh Bala incident were buried in one cemetery near the village where the attack happened, Shinwari said.

“They were all civilians, with no links to al-Qaida or the Taliban,” Shinwari said.

The members of the commission gave $2,000 for every person killed and $1,000 for those wounded, he said.

The issue of civilian casualties has caused friction between the Afghan government and U.S. and NATO troops, and has weakened the standing of the Western-backed Karzai in the eyes of the population.

More than 2,100 people — mostly militants — have been killed in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan this year. More than 8,000 people died in attacks last year, according to the U.N., the most since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

China urged the Dalai Lama again on Monday to show support for the Beijing Olympics, in an apparent effort to link the demand more closely with continued talks.

The statement from a Chinese spokesman to the official Xinhua News Agency included other previously issued conditions for talks: that the spiritual leader renounce support for Tibetan independence and that he curb the “violent terrorist” activities of the Tibetan Youth Congress and other “criminal” groups.

Though the basic demands are old, Chinese media have recently been portraying them as a new, concessionary approach. Xinhua’s report, which appeared aimed at stating China’s position more clearly and publicly, also gave the list of demands a new label, calling them the “four not-supports.”

Du Qinglin, head of the United Front Work Department, the department in charge of the talks, told the envoys that the Dalai Lama must “openly and explicitly promise with action not to support activities that disrupt the Beijing Olympics,” Xinhua quoted an unnamed spokesman for Du as saying.

The spokesman also said the leader must not support the Tibetan Youth Congress — an exile group that disagrees with the Dalai Lama’s stance and supports Tibetan independence.

The Dalai Lama has said he supports the Beijing Olympics, but China has accused him of being insincere.

The leader has also repeatedly denied that he seeks Tibetan independence and said he is committed to nonviolence.

“If the Dalai’s side fails to accept and manage such a simple and commonsensical ‘four not-supports,’ then the necessary atmosphere and conditions could hardly be met for further contact,” the spokesman said, according to Xinhua.

The remarks come after meetings last week in Beijing between Chinese officials and two envoys sent by the Dalai Lama from his exile base in India. During the visit, Tibetan envoys Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen took a tour of Olympic venues and met with Du.

A statement issued Saturday from the Tibetan side said another round of talks would take place in October, but said it wished the Chinese leadership had taken “more tangible” steps during the talks. The Chinese side failed to agree to a proposal to issue a joint statement committing the two sides to talks, it said.

It was the second round of such talks, started after deadly anti-government rioting broke out in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa in March. Beijing has accused the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and his supporters of fomenting anti-government riots and protests.

Some experts believe Beijing agreed to the talks to ease international criticism that it was too heavy-handed in its response to the March violence.

China says 22 people died in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, while foreign Tibet supporters say many times that number were killed during the demonstrations and a subsequent government crackdown.

China has governed Tibet since communist troops marched into the Himalayan region in the 1950s. he Dalai Lama, who fled to India amid a failed uprising in 1959, has said he wants some form of autonomy that would allow Tibetans to freely practice their culture, language and religion.

Aid for Africa — and whether enough was coming from the world’s major economic powers — was in the spotlight Monday as the Group of Eight nations met with seven African leaders at its annual summit.

Activists have accused some G-8 countries, particularly France, Canada and Italy, of skimping on aid to Africa, and urged them to ramp up their contributions. The U.S., Japan, Britain, Germany and Russia make up the other members of the G-8.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also has urged G-8 leaders to take a tough stance on Zimbabwe in the wake of President Robert Mugabe’s widely denounced election win. Mugabe was the only candidate in the presidential runoff after his opponent dropped out amid reports of state-sponsored violence.

President Bush, arriving Sunday for his eighth and final Group of Eight summit, emphasized the urgency of providing aid for Africa, calling on wealthy nations to provide mosquito nets and other aid to prevent children from “needlessly dying from mosquito bites.”

“Now is the time for the comfortable nations to step up and do something about it,” Bush said.

African aid was the centerpiece of the G-8 summit three years ago in Gleneagles, Scotland, where leaders pledged to increase foreign aid by $50 billion a year by 2010 — with half of that going directly to Africa — and to cancel the debt of the most heavily indebted poor nations.

Collectively, the G-8 has delivered just $3 billion of the $25 billion in additional aid pledged to Africa in 2005, according to DATA, which stands for Debt, AIDS and Trade in Africa, a group founded by U2 singer Bono and music producer Bob Geldof, both of whom are active in campaigns for Africa.

Germany, the U.S. and Britain were following through on commitments, while progress from Japan, France, Italy and Canada was either unclear or weak, DATA said.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported in April that foreign aid by major donor countries slumped in 2007 as debt-relief plans tapered off and amid a global economic downturn in Japan and some other rich nations.

Japan said there has been no backtracking on the commitments made to Africa.

“I don’t understand the criticism,” said Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama. “The G-8 leaders are very aware of the commitments they have made to African leaders.”

Soaring food prices was another key topic on the agenda at the summit, with some experts predicting that the leaders would announce a food aid package and possibly funds to invest in agricultural development in poorer nations.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso proposed Monday spending $1.6 billion that had been set aside for European farm subsidies to support agriculture in the developing world over the next two years.

Talks were expected to shift Tuesday and Wednesday to climate change as leaders will try to move forward U.N.-led talks aimed at forging a new global warming accord by the end of 2009. The negotiations have stalled because of deep disagreements over what targets to set for greenhouse gas reductions, and how much developing countries such as China and India should be required to participate.

The rift over climate change widened as the head of the European Commission urged leaders of the world’s wealthy nations to act first in setting targets for reducing greenhouse gases — putting President Bush in an increasingly lonely position.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the G-8 nations must reach agreement among themselves on climate change measures and avoid taking the approach that “I will do nothing unless you do it first,” which he called a “vicious circle.”

“If we agree, then we are in a much better position to discuss with our Chinese and Indian partners and others,” Barroso said.

The U.N. and World Bank chiefs said top industrialized nations need to push forward global talks on climate change and demonstrate their commitment to help poorer nations grapple with rising food prices.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank President Robert Zoellick said rich nations need to strengthen their efforts to meet poverty reduction, education and other development goals because of instability in the world economy.

China and India say it is up to the developed world — the biggest polluters — to take the lead in the fight against climate change. Bush says no, developing nations must also sign on to make any global deal work.

It was unclear whether nations would be able to agree to a goal of cutting their emissions by 50 percent by 2050. The Bush administration has not shown any enthusiasm for such a commitment without cooperation from the Chinese and Indians.

A more ambitious goal of setting nearer-term targets for 2020 was considered well beyond reach.

Going into a G-8 summit — after a separate summit Tuesday with India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico — China has said it is ready to discuss setting medium- and long-term goals for reducing emissions of polluting gases and is open to negotiating targets.

But Beijing has not changed its view that the main responsibility still lies with developed countries. India has vowed to keep its emissions below those of developed countries, but is also looking for them to set the pace.

Associated Press writers Joseph Coleman and Eric Talmadge contributed to this report.

President Bush and new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stood united Monday on issues like Iran and North Korea. But for all their handshakes and smiles, it is clear that thorny issues like missile defense are in a holding pattern until a new U.S. president takes office.

In their first sit down as heads of state, Bush called Medvedev a “smart” guy who is well versed in foreign policy. Medvedev casually referred to Bush as “George.” Yet they inched no closer on the missile defense issue during their more than hour-long discussion on the sidelines of a summit here.

A Kremlin aide described the private meeting as open and constructive, but said it led to no progress on the missile-defense issue.

The public comments by the two presidents only glossed over Russia’s anger about the topic. And they both brushed off the fact that their official relationship will expire in fewer than 200 days when the Bush presidency ends.

“We will build on the relationship with the new American administration,” said Medvedev. “But we still have six months with the effective administration and we’ll try to intensify our dialogue with this administration.”

The Russian leader said he and Bush agreed on curtailing the nuclear weapon capability of Iran and North Korea.

“But then certainly there are others with respect to European affairs and missile defense where we have differences,” Medvedev said. “We would like to agree on these matters, as well, and we also feel very comfortable in our dealings with George.”

Like former Russian President Vladimir Putin, still the top powerbroker in Moscow, Medvedev remains critical of the West, in particular the United States. He has shown no sign of softening opposition to U.S. plans for missile defense facilities in Europe or to NATO’s promise to eventually invite Georgia and Ukraine in.

Personal relations between the two appear warm, but Bush didn’t go as far as to repeat what he said about Putin when he first met him in June 2001. Then, Bush said he looked into Putin’s eyes and “was able to get a sense of his soul.”

“I’m not going to sit here and psychoanalyze the man, but I will tell you that he’s very comfortable, he’s confident, and that I believe that when he tells me something, he means it,” Bush said.

The two, however, are at opposite ends of their political lives. Bush is on his way out and Medvedev just took office in May. This is Bush’s eighth and final G-8. This is Medvedev’s freshman year at the summit.

The two leaders, who also are also are united in their fight against international terrorism and want to see a Middle East peace accord and a future for Afghanistan, talked on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit of industrialized nations. Japan is hosting the event at a heavily guarded luxury resort atop Poromoi Mountain in Hokkaido, an island in northern Japan.

From there, visitors normally can see the doughnut-shaped Lake Toya, formed in a crater of a collapsed volcano. Not Monday. Sheets of rain pelted the scenic mountain and the weather offered a metaphor for the contentious U.S.-Russia discussions on missile defense: Fogged in.

U.S. and Polish officials are negotiating to base American missiles in Poland for a future missile shield against Iran. Still, there is no guarantee the shield will ever be built or would work as advertised. Negotiations over the 10 missile interceptors are proving more contentious than the U.S. had anticipated.

The site would be linked to a missile-tracking radar that Washington wants to place in the Czech Republic. The Czech government has agreed in principle to the plan, but parliament’s approval is still needed.

Russia is staunchly against the U.S. plans, arguing that U.S. military installations in former Soviet satellites so close to its borders would pose a threat Russian security. Moscow has threatened to aim its own missiles at any eventual base in Poland or the Czech Republic.

The U.S. maintains that the plan poses no threat to the Kremlin’s vast nuclear arsenal.

After the talks, a Kremlin aide accentuated the positive in U.S.-Russian relations, but said Bush and Medvedev made no progress on the missile-defense issue — the major point of disagreement between them.

Sergei Prikhodko said the talks were “exclusively well-intentioned, constructive, and open, but at times critical.”

Bush and Medvedev met on the opening day of the summit, a day focused on aid to Africa and on whether the world’s economic powers were providing enough financial assistance to fight disease and improve health care.

Bush is calling on G-8 nations to write checks to make good on their pledges to help battle HIV-AIDS, malaria and other diseases. He and other G-8 heads met with leaders of seven African nations to discuss aid to the continent, but the election crisis in Zimbabwe also was high on their agenda.

Bush backs U.N. sanctions against Zimbabwe, whose president, Robert Mugabe, is accused of using violence and intimidation to win a runoff election last month. “I am extremely disappointed in the elections, which I labeled a sham,” Bush said alongside Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete.

Many African nations, though, are reluctant to pursue sanctions. Kikwete, the current head of the African Union, said that African leaders share U.S. concerns about Zimbabwe. But he told the U.S. president, “the only area that we may differ is on the way forward.”

Meanwhile, a consensus still appeared elusive on a statement on climate change, said Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The Group of Eight takes up the divisive issue on Tuesday.

At issue is an agreement from last year’s G-8 summit in Germany to seriously consider a goal of halving emissions by 2050.

But coming up with a more detailed target for cutting emissions is proving difficult. The Bush administration is unwilling to consider such a target unless developing economies that are also big polluters, like China and India, are included.

“The president has made clear that we believe a long-term goal is useful and necessary,” Connaughton said Monday. “The president has also made clear that it’s a goal that must be shared by all countries.”

An explosion wrecked a militant compound Monday, killing as many as eight people while Pakistani paramilitary forces pushed deeper into a border region where extremists threaten the city of Peshawar and a key supply line for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Pro-Taliban Militants targeted by the offensive in the Khyber tribal area claimed a missile was fired from nearby Afghanistan, but a Pentagon official said he knew of no cross-border attack and a Pakistani officer said stored explosives blew up.

The nighttime blast, which buried bodies in piles of shattered masonry and mud bricks, came at the start of the third day of an offensive by Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps.

Troops faced no resistance Monday and were able to occupy key hilltops and re-establish checkpoints that had been abandoned by tribal police, said a senior Frontier Corps officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to journalists.

He said troops in the Bara area, which starts on the outskirts of Peshawar, advanced in the direction of the remote Teerah valley. But it remained unclear if the Frontier Corps planned to push into the valley, where militants are thought to have fled.

So far, the Frontier Corps reported destroying several militant posts, including a radio station and alleged torture cells, but claimed to have killed just one insurgent.

The Interior Ministry said the operation was launched to protect Peshawar from “law breakers and militant groups” and would continue until “all the objectives are achieved.” It has outlawed three armed Islamic groups operating in the region.

The show of force — expected to last several more days — comes amid U.S. concern that the newly elected government’s effort to negotiate peace deals with militants has given Taliban and al-Qaida-linked extremists more space to operate along the lawless border.

The U.S. military has reported a 40 percent surge in attacks recently on its forces in eastern Afghanistan, which borders Pakistan’s tribal region.

A senior State Department official, Richard Boucher, began a three-day visit to Islamabad on Monday by meeting with government leaders.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told Boucher the government is negotiating only with groups willing to lay down weapons, a statement from his office said. The prime minister also said the government had received much public support for the military offensive.

In Washington, a Pentagon official said the U.S. military was monitoring the Frontier Corps offensive to assess how significant and effective it proves to be.

“We’ll have to see. The fact that something is being done is a step in the right direction,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the issue on the record.

There was no sign the offensive would be widened to take on Pakistan’s top militant leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who is based in the Waziristan region south of Khyber. Mehsud has said he was suspending talks between his allies and the government in response to the operation in Khyber.

The political administration of Khyber denied Pakistani forces were behind the explosion that destroyed the militant compound in Bar Qambarkhel, a village about 25 miles from the Afghan border.

Officials said at least five people were killed and three were injured. Villager Nawaz Khan Afridi said he saw eight bodies. Haji Namdar, leader of the militant Vice and Virtue Movement, whose supporter apparently owned the compound, said six people were killed.

Namdar vowed revenge.

“We do not know if our country Pakistan is involved, but our claim is on America,” Namdar told Geo TV after a funeral for some of the dead. “We do not know from where it was carried out, but we claim that Jews and Christians did it.”

A spokesman for Namdar’s group, Munsif Khan, said a missile fired from Afghanistan might have caused the damage. “Our friends saw a flash of light coming from the direction of Afghanistan” before the blast, he said.

The Pentagon official said he was unaware of any missile launches into Pakistan from Afghanistan.

Fazal Hussain, an explosives expert in the Frontier Corps who visited the blast site, said a missile would have left a hole in the roof of the building and in the ground but that he saw no evidence of that. He said explosives stored in the building must have detonated.

U.S. missile strikes have periodically targeted militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas, drawing rebukes from the Pakistani government and angering a public already resentful of the alliance with Washington in its war on terrorist groups.

Associated Press writers Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.

This ancient capital city, long known for the architectural splendor of its centuries-old palaces and temples, is getting a new look that could have been plucked from science fiction.

A series of landmarks, notable for their futuristic design, will greet visitors to the Olympics. They include an Olympic stadium that looks like a giant bird’s nest, a swimming venue literally built of bubbles and a pair of black office towers that lean toward each other at a 10-degree angle.

“This is the hottest place on Earth in terms of architecture,” said Rory McGowan, a Beijing-based director of Arup, the British design and engineering firm, which is involved in several signature projects in the city. Architects and designers “are flocking over here in the thousands to look at Beijing.”

As China’s economy started taking off about 20 years ago, a similar transformation began changing the face of Beijing. Scores of traditional courtyard homes, factories and drab communist-inspired apartment blocks have been razed in recent years to make way for high-rise buildings with names such as “Fortune Plaza,” “Soho” and “Park Avenue.”

Now, with the Olympics coming, the construction has turned into a round-the-clock frenzy as the host city seeks to convey an innovative and forward-looking image. Such projects could change Beijing’s image as a stodgy city, particularly compared to cosmopolitan Shanghai, where foreign architects first gravitated a few years ago.

The “Bird’s Nest” Olympic stadium was designed by Swiss firm Herzog and de Meuron, known for turning a hulking former power plant in London into the Tate Modern art museum. It’s a 91,000-seat bowl that will host the opening and closing ceremonies along with track and field events. The stadium’s nickname comes from an exterior of steel “twigs” that form a massive, curving nest.

Motorists regularly disrupt traffic on an adjoining highway as they stop to snap photos.

Across from the Bird’s Nest is perhaps Beijing’s most whimsical building: the Water Cube, the swimming venue for the Games.

Builders used material similar to plastic wrap to create 4,000 translucent bubbles, which were filled with air and bolted to a metal frame. The material allows sunlight to filter in and the sounds of splashing water to flow out.

China Central TV’s new headquarters was planned by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, who designed the Seattle Public Library, the Prada store in New York and the Casa da Musica concert hall in Porto, Portugal.

Its two 37-story towers of black glass on diamond-shaped steel beams bend toward each other and are joined at the top by a sloping horizontal section that ranges from nine to 14 stories. It looks like a pair of bermudas, and Chinese have dubbed it “Big Shorts.”

Not everyone likes the city’s changing look.

“Most of the venue designers are foreign, and they don’t know Chinese culture well enough,” said Zhang Song, a professor in the college of architecture and urban planning at Tongji University in Shanghai. “They tended to focus mainly on surrealism, avant-garde style and postmodernism. These things are very good for a short time, but as times passes by, I wonder if they will last as classic design.”

Beijing’s other new buildings include a gargantuan airport terminal, with slanted skylights atop an arching roof, meant to mimic scales on a dragon’s back. In the heart of the city is a glass and titanium dome nicknamed “The Egg,” the sprawling national theater entered by walking under a clear-bottomed moat.

The change is dizzying — many of the structures have opened just within the past year — but city planners shrug it off.

“I don’t think it’s anything to make a fuss about,” said Tan Xuxiang, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Planning Commission. “It’s like a growing child. I’m a 12- to 14-year-old kid. If you see me after two years and I haven’t grown, then I definitely have some kind of illness, right?”

Some, though, lament the loss of old Beijing. While the imperial Forbidden City and other tourist sites remain, many of the old courtyard homes — nestled amid the city’s “hutongs,” or alleyways — have been lost.

The days when hutong dwellers filled the streets in the evenings are giving way to a more modern and anonymous urban lifestyle.

“When people think of Beijing, they should also understand the traditional aspect of Beijing — the Forbidden City, the numerous hutongs,” said Hu Xinyu, managing director of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center. “That’s the real Beijing.”

Militants killed more U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan in June than in Iraq for the second straight month, a grim milestone capping a run of headline-grabbing insurgent attacks that analysts say underscore the Taliban’s growing strength.

The fundamentalist militia in June staged a sophisticated jailbreak that freed 886 prisoners, then briefly infiltrated a strategic valley outside Kandahar. Last week, a Pentagon report forecast the Taliban would maintain or increase its pace of attacks, which are already up 40 percent this year from 2007 where U.S. troops operate along the Pakistan border.

Some observers say the insurgency has gained dangerous momentum. And while June also saw the international community meet in Paris to pledge $21 billion in aid, an Afghanistan expert at New York University warns that there is still no strategy to turn that commitment into success.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has noted that more international troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in May, the first time that had happened. While that trend — now two months old — is in part due to falling violence in Iraq, it also reflects rising violence in Afghanistan.

At least 45 international troops — including at least 27 U.S. forces and 13 British — died in Afghanistan in June, the deadliest month since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban, according to an Associated Press count.

In Iraq, at least 31 international soldiers died in June: 29 U.S. troops and one each from the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan. There are 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 4,000 British forces in additional to small contingents from several other nations.

The 40-nation international coalition is much broader in Afghanistan, where only about half of the 65,000 international troops are American.

That record number of international troops means that more soldiers are exposed to danger than ever before. But Taliban attacks are becoming increasingly complex, and in June, increasingly deadly.

A gun and bomb attack last week in Ghazni province blasted a U.S. Humvee into smoldering ruins, killing three U.S. soldiers and an Afghan interpreter. It was the fourth attack of the month against troops that killed four people. No single attack had killed more than three international troops since August 2007.

“I think possibly we’ve reached a turning point,” said Mustafa Alani, the director of security and terrorism studies at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. “Insurgents now are more active, more organized, and the political environment, whether in Pakistan or Afghanistan, favors insurgent activities.”

U.S. commanders have blamed Pakistani efforts to negotiate peace deals for the spike in cross-border attacks, though an initial deal with militants has begun to fray and security forces recently launched a limited crackdown in the semiautonomous tribal belt where the Taliban and al-Qaida operate with increasing freedom.

For a moment in mid-June, Afghanistan’s future shimmered brightly. World leaders gathered in Paris to pledge more than $21 billion in aid, and Afghan officials unveiled a development strategy that envisions peace by 2020.

But the very next day, the massive and flawlessly executed assault on the prison in Kandahar — the Taliban’s spiritual home — drew grudging respect even from Western officials.

U.S. Ambassador William Wood said violence is up because Taliban fighters are increasingly using terrorist tactics that cause higher tolls, but that there’s no indication fighters can hold territory. He said June had “some very good news and a couple cases of bad news.”

“The very good news was Paris. There were more nations represented, contributing more than ever before,” Wood told the AP.

The scramble after the jailbreak to push the Taliban back from the nearby Arghandab valley was the other big plus, Wood said. The Afghan army sent more than 1,000 troops to Kandahar in two days.

“Although Arghandab got major press for being a Taliban attack, the real news in Arghandab was that the Afghans themselves led the counterattack, deployed very rapidly and chased the Taliban away,” Wood said.

The worst news, Wood said, was the prison break, and the possible involvement of al-Qaida.

“The Taliban is not known for that level of complex operation, and others who have bases in the tribal areas are,” he said.

Alani agreed: “The old Taliban could not do such an operation, so we are talking about a new Taliban, possibly al-Qaida giving them the experience to carry out this operation.”

Days after the prison attack, an angry President Hamid Karzai threatened to send Afghan troops after Taliban leaders in Pakistan, marking a new low in Afghan-Pakistan relations.

Contributing to the increased death toll is an increase in sophistication of attacks. U.S. Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, the top commander of U.S. forces here, said this month that militant attacks are becoming more complex — such as gunfire from multiple angles plus a roadside bomb. Insurgents are using more explosives, he said.

Mark Laity, the top NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, said troops are taking the fight to insurgents in remote areas and putting themselves in harm’s way. One or two events can disproportionally affect the monthly death toll, he said.

“Sometimes it is just circumstance,” Laity said. “For instance you can hit an IED and walk away or not, and what has happened this month is that there’s been one or two instances that there’s been multiple deaths.”

The AP count found that some 580 people died in insurgent violence in June, including around 440 militants, 34 civilians and 44 Afghan security forces. More than 2,100 people have died in violence this year, according to the AP count, which is based on figures from Afghan, U.S. and NATO officials.

Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan at NYU, said the Paris conference shows a strong international commitment to Afghanistan, but he said there is still no strategy for longterm success.

“Let’s focus on the essentials: creating a secure environment for Afghanistan and Pakistan to address their problems and for the international community to eliminate al-Qaida’s safe haven,” Rubin said. “We haven’t been getting there, and we are not getting closer, pledges or no pledges.”