Hundreds of civilians were reported dead in the worst outbreak of hostilities since the province won defacto independence in a war against Georgia that ended in 1992. Witnesses said the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali was devastated.“I saw bodies lying on the streets, around ruined buildings, in cars,” said Lyudmila Ostayeva, 50, who had fled with her family to Dzhava, a village near the border with Russia. “It’s impossible to count them now. There is hardly a single building left undamaged.”The fighting broke out as much of the world’s attention was focused on the start of the Olympic Games and many leaders, including Russia‘s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Bush, were in Beijing.The timing suggests Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili may have been counting on s… >>>