KIEV, Ukraine -- Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday insisted that Georgia will join NATO and backed its attempts to rebuild from its war with Russia , using a trip to former Soviet republics as a show of U.S. support for their pro-Western leaders.

Mr. Cheney flew to Kiev from Georgia, where he denounced Russia's "illegitimate, unilateral attempt" to redraw the U.S. ally's borders by force.

"Georgia will be in our alliance," Mr. Cheney told reporters while standing alongside Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, whose pro-Western government has sought to join NATO despite Russian opposition.

Angry Russian officials have repeatedly said U.S. military aid was instrumental in emboldening Georgia to try to retake South Ossetia by force on Aug. 7. The attack sparked five days of fighting and resulted in Russian forces driving into South Ossetia and on into Georgia.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush is poised to punish Moscow for its invasion of Georgia by canceling a once-celebrated deal for civilian nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and Russia.

With relations between the two nations in a nearly Cold Warlike freeze over Russia's actions against its neighbor last month, planning is under way at the White House for the largely symbolic move by Mr. Bush, according to senior administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision was not yet final.

Action could come quickly, within days at the most, and officials see no need to wait until Vice President Dick Cheney returns next Wednesday from an overseas trip that includes stops in three former Soviet republics.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, said he would name a new Cabinet if opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai refused to sign a power-sharing deal by yesterday, the state-owned newspaper reported -- a deal that both sides have confirmed would leave Mr. Mugabe himself in command.

If Mr. Mugabe enforces his threatened deadline, it will almost certainly bring a sudden and acrimonious end to more than a month of power-sharing talks. Any deal would have been based on an agreement about how to divide Cabinet ministries between the governing party, ZANU-PF, and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Building flaws suspected

BEIJING -- Nearly four months after China's devastating earthquake, a government scientist acknowledged yesterday that a rush to build schools in recent years likely led to construction flaws causing so many of them to collapse.

It was the first official admission that low building standards may have been behind the deaths of thousands of children.

Government critics have raised questions about shoddy construction after a 7.9-magnitude quake in May killed nearly 70,000 people in Sichuan province, including many students crushed to death when their classrooms crumbled.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- More than 8 million people -- nearly half of the population -- have registered to vote in war-ravaged Angola, a country with an abundance of oil, diamonds and grinding poverty that is holding its first election in 16 years today.

The last election, in 1992, degenerated into another decade of the civil war that uprooted millions of Angolans. In contrast, today's legislative vote is expected to go fairly smoothly.