TBILISI: A former Russian federal official has been elected president of South Ossetia, a Russia-backed breakaway region of Georgia, in a vote Moscow hailed on Saturday as a sign of the territory’s desire for closer ties with Moscow. Marat Kambolov, the new president, is from North Ossetia, a Russian republic on the other side of the Caucasus mountains from South Ossetia. He has no previous ties to South Ossetia, which broke away from Georgia during the collapse of the Soviet Union in the e
