Newspapers : 19th September (en)

Russia stocks rally as bourses reopen. Catherine Belton and Charles Clover, The FT (en)
‘Last dictator’ caught between east and west. Stefan Wagstyl, The FT (en)
Georgia weakened Nato case, says IISS. James Blitz, The FT (en)
Rice rounds on 'paranoid' Moscow. James Blitz and Daniel Dombey, The FT (en)
Berlin calls for annual risk report. Gerrit Wiesmann, The FT (en)
Gates Urges Cautious NATO Stance on Russia After Georgia Conflict. Tom Shanker, The NYT (en)

Gordon Brown loses the ear of the White House. Con Coughlin, The Telegraph (en)
" ...Tony Blair attracted ferocious criticism – some of it was even justified – for forming such a close alliance with Mr Bush, but at least it meant that Britain was able to punch well above its weight ... Britain’s importance to the Bush White House when Mr Blair occupied Downing Street was such that Mr Bush’s senior advisers used to talk in glowing terms about the United Kingdom being a “superpower lite” – a nation whose international standing far outweighed its military strength ...
... Mr Sarkozy is indisputably the favourite of Washington’s political establishment, which seems to believe that the French President single-handedly stopped the Russian tanks in their tracks ... " OK, so Sarkozy was obliged to do something because France has the EU presidency,” commented one senior White House adviser. “But you get the feeling he would still have acted the way he did even without the EU. It’s just the nature of the guy.” ...
... Mr Bush is also a great admirer of Mrs Merkel, which means that, having been for many years America’s closest ally, Britain has now been demoted to third place in the political affections of the Bush White House ..."