"He who is willing to sacrifice freedom for safety deserves neither freedom nor safety." - Ben Franklin
"One useless man is called a disgrace; two useless men are called a law firm; and three or more useless men are a congress" - John Adams
Politicians and diapers should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons.
"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it."--Mark Twain
KARALETI, Georgia — Russian soldiers prevented international aid convoys from visiting Georgian villages on Monday in a blunt demonstration of power in a tense zone around the breakaway province of South Ossetia.
The ambassadors of Sweden, Latvia and Estonia said they also had been barred from visiting villages beyond Russian checkpoints.
Monday's show of authority came as French President Nicolas Sarkozy tried in Moscow to persuade Russia to honor its pledge to pull its troops back to the positions they held before the fighting broke out Aug. 7.
A convoy of four vehicles from U.N. aid agencies waited for about an hour at the checkpoint in Karaleti, but was turned away after a brief discussion with a Russian general who arrived to negotiate. The three aid agency SUVs and a World Food Program truck loaded with wheat flour, pasta, sugar and other staples were headed to Georgian villages around South Ossetia.
"We tried to do a preliminary humanitarian assessment mission. It didn't work out today as we would have hoped, and we will make every effort to continue to conduct such missions in the future," David Carden, who was leading the interagency mission by the World Food Program, UNICEF and the U.N. refugee agency, told The Associated Press.
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D, AKA Lets, Advising at keen as The Webster. Read my other blog, http://letslets.blogspot.com/ and or http://the-webster.blogspot.com/send comments via Email to me
