SUKHUMI (Georgia): Georgia hopes to end months of political turbulence with a presidential election this Saturday, but in the rebel Black Sea province of Abkhazia even more serious troubles are brewing.

The people of Abkhazia, a lush province that broke away in a separatist war in the early 1990s, will stay home as the rest of the country votes in the snap poll.

More important for them are events 1,600km to the west where the Serbian province of Kosovo is moving toward independence