Ramallah - Russia's decision to recognise the independence of
Georgia's rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was
"regrettable," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday.

"It (the decision) puts Russia in opposition to a number of (United
Nations) Security Council resolutions to which it is a party," she told
a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah, after meeting
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree Tuesday
recognizing the breakaway regions' independence, after Russian

Tallinn  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel sharply criticized the decision Tuesday by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to recognize the independence of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Speaking on a visit to the Estonian capital of Tallinn, Merkel said Medvedev's decision was "absolutely not acceptable."

Medvedev justified his decision to sign decrees recognizing the independence of the two regions on the grounds that they needed protection from Georgian aggression.

Vienna - The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has started to increase the number of its observers to monitor the ceasefire in Georgia, a spokeswoman said Monday.

In addition to the eight military monitors that had been stationed in Georgia's capital Tbilisi, six officers from Finland, France and the United States have been deployed to the country in the past days, Sonya Yee said.

A total of 20 monitors will arrive within the coming days. The unarmed officers are being recruited from a pool of 23 countries, Yee said.

Berlin - The German military attache in Moscow described the Russian military response in Georgia as "appropriate" in an internal document, according to a report in the Sunday edition of the German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ).

"The extent of the use of military force by the Russian side appears - seen from here and despite reports to the contrary from Georgia and the picture conveyed by the media - not inappropriately high," Brigadier General Heinz G Wagner wrote on August 11.

The German Foreign Ministry said it did not comment on internal documents.

Tbilisi - A 35-year-old woman was killed and a man was seriously injured when two landmines exploded near the Georgian city of Gori, media reports said Sunday.

Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Saturday said Russian troops must leave the important Black Sea port of Poti, even as he thanked his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev for keeping his commitment on the withdrawal of troops from Georgia.

The two heads of state discussed over telephone the importance of fully implementing the six-point ceasefire brokered by France, which currently holds the European Union presidency.