Moscow/Tbilisi - Nearly 10,000 Georgian opposition supporters demonstrated against President Mikheil Saakashvili on Friday, the first major rallies since Georgia's war with Russia in August.

The march marked the first anniversary of a police crackdown on anti-government protestors in 2007. Saakashvili then drew western condemnation when riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets and water guns to breakup the protests and was pushed to call snap elections.

A coalition of opposition parties renewed demands for early presidential and parliamentary elections, promising more rallies towards holding a vote in the spring of 2009.

Tbilisi/Moscow - EU observers started their mission Wednesday to monitor the Russo-Georgian ceasefire agreement one and half months after conflict flared between the two countries over Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russian troops still in Georgia prevented the observers from entering the security zone they set up around South Ossetia.

"It is not a categorical ban on the EU mission; it's just that the details of the monitoring mission have not been cleared up yet," a Russian military spokesman told Interfax news agency.

Tbilisi - Two policemen were wounded by a landmine near the Georgian rebel region of Abkhazia on Monday, the third such incident along the Georgia border with the breakaway region this month, the country's Interior Ministry reported.

The incident, which occurred at a post near the Georgian village of Khurcha, comes as the head of the European Union observer mission to Georgia, Hansjoerg Haber, arrived in Tbilisi over the weekend.

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.

Moscow, Tbilisi - Georgia is to introduce tougher laws to stop the country being "destabilised" following the recent invasion by Russian troops, Georgian media reports Saturday quoted President Mikheil Saakashvili as saying.

Saakashvili was speaking late Friday during a visit to the Black Sea town of Poti where there was still a Russian troop presence, the reports said.

Saakashvili had given no details of what measures were being introduced, but had stressed that "citizens' rights" would not be affected.