The killing of Ingushetiya.ru owner Magomed Yevloyev could incite tensions in the province of Ingushetia west of Chechnya, which has been the site of frequent attacks on police and other officials. Police arrested Yevloyev today, taking him off a plane that had just landed in Ingushetia province near Chechnya, said the site’s deputy editor.

In tones that seemed alternately angry and mischievous, the Russian Prime Minister suggested that the Bush administration may have tried to create a crisis that would influence American voters in the choice of a successor to President Bush.

After the end of the Cold War, the United States could have done so much to continue the advance to an even more effective, rules-based system where law governed relations between states. Instead, today’s America has pushed these high aspirations and noble principles aside and led us, step by step, to a point of crisis. What went wrong?

Flanked by two Russian flags, President Dmitry Medvedev announced he had signed decrees recognising the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two regions at the heart of the conflict that erupted this month in Georgia. “This is not an easy choice, but it is the only way to save the lives of people,” Mr. Medvedev said in a nationally-televised address.

George W. Bush’s remark in 2000 that America “stands alone right now in the world in terms of power” no longer rings true. Great shifts are apparent in global politics and Washington must increasingly compete for favour. This global uncertainty confronts senators Barack Obama and John McCain in their race for the White House.

The military redeployment indicates that despite the French-brokered cease-fire framework that Russia accepted, it is striving to maintain considerable economic and military pressure on Georgia, a close ally of the United States. The ultimate goal, it seems, is the ouster of its pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

The military freeze between Russia and the alliance became official today. Under the security partnership with NATO, Russia has been co-operating on counter-terrorism and consulting on regional issues where Moscow and the West have mutual interests. The freeze has already led to the cancellation of Russian naval participation in an alliance exercise in the Baltic Sea and the planned visit to Russia of a US frigate has been scrapped.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer accused Russia of failing to respect a French-brokered peace plan requiring both sides to move troops back to their positions before Georgia launched an offensive on the separatist region of South Ossetia. This “is not happening at the moment,” the NATO chief said at an emergency meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels today.

It has been 17 years since the Soviet Union collapse. Measured against the post-World War I-era time frame, we are at about the equivalent of 1935. In 1935, no one would have confidently foreseen the major events to come - not just World War II but the invention of nuclear weaponry and the long struggle with the Soviet Union.

There is a split between “old and new Europe” — roughly Western and Eastern Europe, said Clifford Kupchan, a director of the Eurasia Group. New Europe, backed by Britain and Scandinavia, is taking a harder line toward Russia, while old Europe “will only be reinforced in its view that Georgia and Ukraine are not ready for NATO.”