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President of Abkhazia Sergey Bagapsh has made a decision to start driving Georgian armed forces out of the upper section of the Kodori Gorge. Christian Bzhaniya, President's official spokesman for media, has announced this at a briefing.

Today, the Ministry for Matters of Youth, Physical Culture and Sports of North Ossetia has started to collect things for refugees from South Ossetia. People are mostly bringing children's clothes.

Today, refugees from South Ossetia have started to arrive to Tbilisi. The capital's Mayoralty asserts that they can accommodate all of them.

Because of huge destructions, Tskhinvali now experiences sharp shortage of potable water and absence of gas and electricity. Periodic bombardments of Tskhinvali prevent to organize evacuation of wounded persons, women and children, and to count total victims of combat clashes in the city.

Making his comments on the outcomes of the extraordinary UN Security Council sitting held in New York on the situation in South Ossetia, Sergey Shamba, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Abkhazia, has stated that international intermediaries, who had been assuring that Georgia would not apply force, lulled the vigilance both of Ossetians and Abkhazians.

A great number of websites run by Georgian and Ossetian information agencies have suffered from hackers' attacks within the latest 24 hours. In the evening on August 8, the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia was also cracked.

Tonight, President of the non-recognized republic Eduard Kokoity has reported that over 1400 persons were victims of Georgian troops' attack on South Ossetia.

As of 9:00 p.m., the governmental troops of Georgia had complete control over the territory of South Ossetia and all the settlements, except for the high-mountainous Dzhava village, as President Mikhail Saakashvili announced tonight in his TV address to the nation.

Being an OSCE member, Georgia shall settle conflicts peacefully, and recovery of its territorial integrity cannot be a pretext for repudiating these obligations, therefore, combat operations in South Ossetia should be immediately stopped, runs a special statement of the International Society "Memorial" issued in the context of recently aggravated situation in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone.

Today in Dagestan, the city of Khasavyurt has hosted a mass rally in support of South Ossetia. Volunteers are being signed up, and residents are gathering humanitarian assistance for the Ossetian people.

A spontaneous rally organized by the Movement named "Abkhazian Mothers for Peace and Social Justice" against the new war triggered in the Georgia-South Ossetia conflict zone took place in Sukhum.

The start of broad-scale warfare between Georgia and South Ossetia has reminded Chechen residents of the tragedy in the mid and late 1990s came to Chechnya. In the opinion of many people, no country leaders' intentions and plans are worth a single human life.

Today in the morning, while leaving South Ossetia, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was a witness of an attack of a SU-25 strike fighter, which shelled a Russian tank column in the area of Dzhava village. One armoured troop-carrier was damaged. The aircrafts also tried to blow up the bridge in the area of Gufta village; however they missed the target and struck apartment houses.

Today, representatives of law-enforcement agencies blocked the office of the Dagestan weekly "Chernovik" (Blueprint) and started a careful search thereof.

The South Ossetia authorities report that Georgia has started war against South Ossetia. The Georgian government claims that it was forced to cancel the previous unilateral moratorium on fire actions and to open response fire due to incessant shelling of Georgian villages by South Ossetia units.

Soldiers of Federal armed forces have exploded a landmine they found in the village of Bamut, Achkhoy-Martan district, Chechnya. The explosion has resulted in damaging the gas pipeline.

Today, the Azeri Central Election Commission (CEC) has approved six candidates to run for presidency of Azerbaijan. Ilkham Aliev, incumbent president, is among them.

Two persons killed and 13 more wounded as a result of the explosion on the Loo beach (Lazarevsk district, Sochi), reports a source in the Krasnodar krai law enforcement agencies.

Today, the Supreme Court of Kalmykia has overruled the decision of Elista city court to arrest Elista mayor Radiy Burulov and released him from custody.

The Kabardino-Balkaria Supreme Court adjourned its hearing of the case of the attack on Nalchik's power authority sights in 2005 till August 14.