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The Times of London has today declared the continuing fall-out from the faked Imedi Qronika news bulletin "turned into a real international incident yesterday as the British and French ambassadors issued angry protests at being included in the spoof news report."

Yesterday Denis Keefe, the UK's ambassador to Tbilisi, demanded an on-air apology be broadcast after archive film of him - and UK prime minister Gordon Brown - were presented as commentary on a "live" Russian inavasion in Saturday's broadcast (the start of which is shown above).

The French ambassador, Eric Fournier, demanded a translated copy of the broadcast to examine how archive footage of him was used, while expressing unease at the reports of the programme. He described it as "very far from the standards of professional journalism."

The damage done to President Saakashvili's already poor reputation in many western capitals is growing. But the real price that will be paid for the whole fiasco is in Georgia's long-term economic prospects. Who, after all, is likely to want to invest in a country where the ruling clique say a scenario involving their security forces shooting demonstrators, so fermenting an attempted revolution and encouraging a foreign invasion is "extremely close to what can happen"?