Moscow - Russian President Dmirty Medvedev on Wednesday brokered peace talks in the 20-year-old frozen conflict between Moldova and its separatist region.

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and Transdniestr leader Igor Smirnov signed a statement in Moscow pledging to continue direct talks "with the goal of invigorating the negotiating process for the political resolution of the Transdniestr conflict," news agency Interfax reported.

The meeting comes ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections in Moldova on April 5.

Moscow - Azeris went to the polls in droves Wednesday to vote on whether to scrap term limits for President Ilham Aliyev and extend the family's dynastic rule over oil-rich Azerbaijan.

Opposition forces called for a boycott of the vote, but Azeri elections authorities reported a high turnout in the referendum almost certain to secure Aliyev's a prolonged seat in power. There is 25 per cent threshold for the constitutional amendment to hold.

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Moscow - A Moscow court Tuesday refused to dismiss new charges of embezzlement and fraud against former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russian news agencies reported.

District Court Judge Viktor Danilkin rejected defence's request that the case be thrown out, and set March 31 for the first trial hearings against Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev.

Prosecutors say the two defrauded investors in their oil major Yukos out of 890 billion rubles (25 billion dollars).

Moscow - Russia successfully sent into orbit Tuesday one of the European Space Agency's (ESA) most advanced missions to date that aims to map the Earth's gravity field, the Russian Space Forces said.

Spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Alexei Zolotukhin was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying the satellite took off on the back of modified Russian ballistic missile at 1421 GMT from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in north-west Russia.

"Approximately 1.5 hours after its start, the satellite will already be on its second lap around the Earth," Zolotukhin told Interfax.

Moscow - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday said modernization of the country's nuclear forces was imperative in part because of the threat of NATO's eastward expansion, Russian news agencies reported.

"Attempts to spread NATO's military infrastructure along Russia's borders have not stopped," Medvedev said at a Defence Ministry meeting. "All of this requires a high-level modernization of our military forces.