Tbilisi (Georgia), Aug 13 : Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili today said that Russian troops were completely disregarding the cease-fire agreement reached on Tuesday, continuing a campaign of violence against Georgian citizens that amounted to ethnic cleansing.

Saakashvili, speaking in Tbilisi alongside a handful of other Presidents from former Soviet states, said he had reports that Russian troops were still taking control of Georgian territory beyond the borders of two separatist regions and were forcing residents into “internment camps”.

Washington, Aug. 13 : The conflict between Russia and Georgia has refocused attention on the increasingly hard line that Senator John McCain has taken against Russia in recent years, reports the New York Times.

According to the paper, McCain has called for expelling what he has called a “revanchist Russia” from meetings of the Group of Eight, the organization of leading industrialized nations.

He had also urged President Bush to boycott the group’s meeting in St. Petersburg in 2006, but in vain.

Amsterdam - Georgia has instituted proceedings against Russia before the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the ICJ said in a statement Wednesday.

Georgia is suing the Russian Federation over what it calls "its actions on and around the territory of Georgia" in breach of the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

In its application, Georgia "also seeks to ensure that the individual rights" under the convention "of all persons on the territory of Georgia are fully respected and protected."

Brussels - The European Union's foreign ministers were Wednesday seeking to find a united response to Georgia's conflict with Russia at an extraordinary meeting in Brussels.

The ministers were due to be briefed by their colleague Bernard Kouchner, who has just toured the region on behalf of the French presidency of the bloc, about his country's efforts to broker a ceasefire.

On Tuesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared an end to Russian military operations in its neighbouring country. The announcement coincided with a visit to Moscow by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who put forward a six-phase plan for stabilizing the region.

London, Aug. 13: The United States has cancelled a joint naval exercise with Russia after U. S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Moscow that it's attacks on Georgia have jeopardised its integration into international institutions.

The cancellation of the military exercise, set for next week, is the first concrete disapproval from Washington over Russia's military operations in Georgia and South Ossetia.

"I can assure you that Russia's international reputation and what role Russia can play in the international community is very much at stake here," The Times quoted Rice, as saying.

Tel Aviv - An Israeli correspondent who was severely injured in Tuesday's Russian bombardment in the Georgian city of Gori was flown to Israel, his newspaper said Wednesday.

Journalist Zadok Yehezkeli, of Israel's biggest-selling Yediot Ahronot daily, was hit by shrapnel in the shoulder and chest in the same incident in Gori's main town square in which Dutch cameraman Stan Storiman was killed.

Another Dutch and a Greek journalist as well as three local civilians had also been injured, Yediot said. The daily said a single mortar shell had hit a crowd of journalists and civilians at the square had gathered around noon on the site of a minor car accident that had happened previously.