Yeltsin funeral held in Moscow

Russia has paid its last respects to former Russian president Boris Yeltsin at his state funeral in Moscow.

Around a dozen former and current foreign heads of state and dignitaries attended the service at Christ the Saviour Cathedral, including Sir John Major, the Duke of York and ex-US presidents George Bush Senior and Bill Clinton.

Hundreds of mourners filed past Mr Yeltsin's open coffin at the cathedral after the 76-year-old's death on Monday from heart failure.

In a break with tradition, Mr Yeltsin has not been buried alongside previous Kremlin leaders on Red Square but at the capital's Novodevichy Cemetery near to composer Dmitry Shostakovich and writer Anton Chekhov.

The Russian leader was hailed around the world as a hero in the late 1990s when he took on the Soviet establishment. He famously climbed onto a tank to rally a crowd against hardline coup plotters who wanted to turn back the perestroika reforms.

He was the driving force behind an agreement to split up the Soviet Union into independent states but his years in office were marked by economic meltdown, political chaos, a costly war against rebels in Chechnya and vodka-fuelled gaffes.

Millions of people lost their savings through his tough economic reforms and the country's state assets were sold off to politically connected businessmen for a fraction of their true value.

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