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The would-be today's exchange of prisoners of war between Georgia and Russia has failed. The parties are accusing each other.

Yesterday, on August 17, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) informed that, despite the statement of President of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity, Georgian refugees are fully entitled to return to their villages abandoned by them after aggravation of the conflict.

According to updated information, as a result of explosion in "Abu-Bekr" Mosque located in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, two believers were lost and 13 more were wounded. Seven are still in hospital, two of them in heavy condition. The law enforcers examine different versions, including a terror act and personal vengeance.

Yesterday, on August 17, the first column of UN's humanitarian aid arrived to the city of Gori (Georgia). According to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the city is devastated by marauders and looks completely deserted.

David Kezerashvili, Minister of Defence of Georgia, told journalists on August 17 when visiting the Vasian Military Base that 133 militaries were lost and 50 more are regarded missing after the warfare in South Ossetia.

Today, in Gali District of Abkhazia, two Abkhazian frontier guards were killed and two more wounded by explosion of a radio-controlled mine. Journalists were informed about the fact by Lavrentiy Mikvabiya, coordinator of power agencies of the Gali District.

Today, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Azerbaijan has registered the incumbent President Ilham Aliev as a candidate for the position of the state leader at the forthcoming presidential election on October 15.

Today, President of Russia Dmitri Medvedev has held a sitting of the Security Council, where they considered the post-conflict settlement in South Ossetia. The President has informed that he had signed the six-point plan coordinated between Russia and France.

The residents of Ingushetia who were interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent on the occasion of the military events in South Ossetia and the flow of forced migrants to southern regions of Russia, have not expressed any special sympathy with residents of South Ossetia, while recollecting the events of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict of 1992.

General-Colonel Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Deputy Chief of the Joint Staff of Russian Armed Forces, has reported today in a press conference that the Georgian troops who participated in the war in South Ossetia are now concentrating around Tbilisi.

The women's national chess team of Georgia refuses to take part in the Chess World Championship to be held in Kabardino-Balkaria and asks to transfer the competition to "some safer place."

Now, the Central Clinical Hospital of North Ossetia keeps 108 wounded persons from South Ossetia; three of them are in heavy conditions. Some victims are already arriving with infected wounds.

Next month, the US Congress is going to consider a draft appeal to the International Olympic Committee demanding to cancel the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi as a punishment of Moscow for Russia's military actions in Georgia, the draft initiators have announced.

Vitaly Churkin, Russia's permanent representative at the United Nations, has expressed regret in the context of the "propaganda campaign" opened in western media on the situation in the Caucasus. Especially, Mr Churkin disliked the way the events around the city of Gori were covered.

At its session on August 14, the Parliament of Georgia has unanimously adopted the decision on the country's exit from the Commonwealths of Independent States (CIS).

Fourteen residents of the Zugdidi District, Russian nationals, who have applied for refuge in Abkhazia, were accepted by the republic's authorities. These are mainly young women, their children and husbands. The refugees from Zugdidi have rendered material aid.

President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili has announced, during his joint press conference with the US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice, that he had signed the ceasefire agreement.

Tatiana Lokshina, representative of the Human Rights Watch, said that the federal agencies had stopped the marauders, who acted in four Georgian villages located along the Dzhava-Tskhinvali highway.

Hanzhan Kurbanov, editor-in-chief of the Dagestan-based "Nastoyascheye Vremya" (Present Time) newspaper, has forbidden publishing any materials about the searches conducted in the "Chernovik" (Blueprint) newspaper and about summon to interrogation of Nadira Isaeva, editor-in-chief of this newspaper, against whom a criminal case was initiated.

Today, Gennady Dzyuba, President of the Association of Military Press of the Moscow Union of Journalists, has presented generalized data, according to which two journalists were lost also seven more wounded in the warfare in South Ossetia.