Berlin -

Tbilisi, Georgia - US Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in the capital of Georgia on Thursday in a show of support for the pro- Western government after Russian troops pushed into the former Soviet state in a brief war over its separatist regions.

Cheney is the highest ranking US official to visit Georgia since the fighting in mid-August and his visit is timed with Washington's announcement that it was boosting aid to the former Soviet republic.

Managua - The leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua became the second country - after Russia - to recognize the break- away Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The president of the Central American country, Daniel Ortega, said late Tuesday before the leadership of the Nicaraguan Army that he supports the plan by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to bring these territories closer to Russia.

Warsaw - Polish public opinion is split on the outcome of Monday's EU emergency summit on Russia, according to a poll published on Wednesday in the daily Rzeczpospolita.

Thirty-eight per cent thought the EU's reaction to the Russia- Georgia war, which threatened to suspend a cooperation agreement but did not lay down sanctions against Russia, was "sufficient" after the summit in Brussels on Monday, while 37 per cent said it was "too soft." Fifteen percent thought the EU had been "too tough" on Russia.

Poland had led several former Eastern Bloc countries in calling for a tough EU stance on Russia, wary of their eastern neighbour's growing assertiveness.

Moscow - Diplomats from Russia's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said they were pleased with a European Union decision not to impose sanctions on the Kremlin over Georgia.

Officials speaking to the Interfax news agency said the EU's choice at a crisis summit on Monday to ask Russia to remove troops in Georgia, rather than attempt to exert economic or political pressure, was a sign a majority of EU nations were seeking "a path of partnership" with Russia.

The moderate EU position on Georgia would assist "both sides in mutually-advantageous cooperation," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Brussels - Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze thanked the European Union for its support Tuesday and called for closer ties with Brussels.

"What Georgia needs is to consolidate the gains we have made through tightened integration (with the EU)," Gurgenidze said after talks in Brussels with the EU's external affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

The meeting came a day after EU leaders reached out to Georgia by promising to start negotiations on a free-trade area and on granting visa facilitation to Georgian nationals.

At their emergency summit, EU heads of state and government also threatened to suspend talks on a new partnership agreement with Russia because of its refusal to comply with the six-point peace plan.