Moscow - Texan millionaire space tourist Richard Gariott and two professional astronauts docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday after two days of cramped orbit aboard the Russian Soyuz shuttle.

Mission commander Michael Fincke of NASA and Russian flight engineer Yury Lonchakov, both on their second trip to space, joined Gariott in the capsule that blasted off from the Baikonour base on the barren steppes of Kazakhstan on Sunday.

The Soyuz craft successfully latched on to the ISS a few minutes ahead of schedule at 12:26 pm Moscow time (0926 GMT) and was expected to relieve the three space station residents after their toilettes went on the fritz this week.

Moscow - Russia's MICEX exchange gained ground on opening Monday after regulators order full-day closures Friday as stocks were pummeled on global markets.

Higher oil prices was a salve to Russia's energy dependent markets, while state banks Sberbank and VTB Group led share increases.

The leading MICEX index rose 2.81 per cent by 1:00 pm (0900 GMT) to 720.03, but Moscow's benchmark RTS exchange was down a modest 1.41 per cent to 832.80.

The leaders on the MICEX were power generator OGK-3 and oil and gas majors Gazprom and Surutneftgaz.

Trading on Moscow's bourse was uncertain last week as market regulators stopped and started the clock over a dozen times.

Moscow - At least one person was killed in an earthquake in Russia's North Caucasus region on Saturday, a report said.

A man was killed when a wall collapsed in Chechnya, the Interfax news agency reported, quoting officials.

Authorities said the quake had a magnitude of 5.3. Buildings in the Chechen capital Grozny and other cities were damaged.

Moscow  - Russian diplomats and politicians on Friday slammed the award of the Nobel Prize to ex-Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari as an ill-veiled political ploy to justify Kosovo's independence.

Ahtisaari, who won the honour for "more than three decades" of peace brokering, the committee said, is persona non grata in Russia for advocating Kosovo's independence from Serbia in his post as UN envoy to the region from 2005.

Moscow - Cross-country skiing Olympic champion Alexei Prokurorov of Russia died on Friday in a traffic accident, police said. He was 44 years old.

Moscow - Russia's market authorities still had not opened the MICEX and RTS exchanges for trading Friday afternoon after US stocks tumbled to five-year lows and world markets sank on fears of a recession.

The Federal Financial Markets Service said Friday it suspended trade indefinitely on both indexes "in view of dramatic breakdowns on stock exchanges in Europe, Asia and the United States."

Moscow's bourses have been assailed not only by the global financial crisis, but undercut by their reliance on energy commodities, with the drop in oil prices and a war with Georgia two months ago that spooked risk-averse investors.