Tbilisi - A Georgian policeman was shot dead Wednesday by fire from a Russian check point near Gori, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Beijing - The death toll rose to 56 in a mudslide that buried a market and other buildings in northern China's Shanxi province, state media said Wednesday.

More than 30 mechanical diggers were aiding several hundred rescue workers who had already searched about 70 per cent of the debris left by Monday's mudslide, the semi-official China News Service said.

The agency said the number of people missing was still under investigation, but one earlier state media report said several hundred people could have been trapped.

Tbilisi - As peace talks try to defuse the Georgian crisis, Georgia's opposition sparked the first calls Tuesday for President Mikheil Saakashvili's resignation.

Two opposition politicians broke an unspoken truce that held during the open conflict with Russia last month to demand early elections.

These are not the first rumours of dissent over Saakshvili's failed and costly gambit to reassert control over breakaway South Ossetia, which led to war with the former Soviet state's powerful neighbour, Russia.

Washington, Sept. 9 : The Bush administration has decided to adopt a low-key approach to the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia.

According to the Washington Post, this strategy is premised on working jointly with European allies, and on avoiding the sort of unilateral U. S. military threats that would scare them off.

Moscow- Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday called "not essential" the participation of its own troops in a mission of peacekeepers in a buffer zone between Georgia and its Russian-backed separatist regions.

Russia would trust the European Union's security guarantee, Lavrov told journalist in Moscow a day after French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU presidency, promised 200 European monitors to patrol the zones.

"Whether or not ours (troops) form part of the additional monitors is not the most essential question for us," the foreign minister said.

Moscow/Tblisi, Georgia - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said he handed over "solid evidence" to the European Union that his country did not start the conflict in the southern Caucasus, Georgian media reported Tuesday.

He had proof that Georgia reacted to a large-scale Russian invasion, Saakashvili said Monday night after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Tblisi.

"We can prove this," he was quoted as saying. "It is a very solid proof, and you have the ability to appreciate it."