Oops! Georgian troops 'launch mutiny'

[malaise]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8033366.stm
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A tank battalion has mutinied at a military base near Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, the government has said.

Some 30 tanks and armoured personnel carriers were sent to the Mukhrovani military base, eyewitnesses said.

A top official later told Reuters the mutiny was over. Tbilisi said it was part of a Russia-linked coup attempt to kill President Mikhail Saakashvili.

Russia's envoy to Nato described the charges as "mad". The trouble comes a day before Nato exercises in Georgia.

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev has condemned Nato for planning military exercises in a country "where there was just a war".

Georgia and Russia have poisonous relations, and fought a war over Georgia's breakaway territory of South Ossetia last August.

In a separate development, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he would not attend a planned meeting of the Nato-Russia Council later this month following the alliance's expulsion of two Russian diplomats last week.
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Even NATO won't save Saakashvilli