Geneva  - All the delegations attended "constructive" talks on the Russia-Georgia conflict Wednesday and agreed to meet again for another round of negotiations next month, the European Union representative to the discussions said.

"We had constructive meetings of the two working groups," said Pierre Morel. As planned, the two groups, with eight delegations in total, met on security and refugee issues for about three hours each.

The first round of talks last month ended with Moscow and Tbilisi accusing each other of walking out without the two sides having sat in the same room.

"Today, we have taken a big step forward," said Morel, adding that the talks had entered a "fully operational phase."

Star City, Russia  - Astronaut Garrett Reisman uttered a first word in heavily-accented Russian and his homegrown audience exploded into applause, giving a taste of how space can clear national differences.

The welcome back for the crew 17th International Space Station (ISS) mission at Star City, a formerly secret military base outside Moscow, is a familiar affair with the Soviet-tinged feel of war heroes coming home to children holding balloons as they line the walkway.

Two teenage girls cooed over how cute first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was in a huge black-and-white shot above the stage where NASA officials sat with translator ear pieces one row back behind the cosmonauts and officials from the Russian space agency, Roscosmos.

Moscow - A Russian court ruled Wednesday to bar the media and the public from the trial of three men charged with the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

The judge at Moscow's Military Court reversed his decision to make the trial open to the public after the jury refused to hear the case in front of the press.

"This is in consideration of the security of the participants in the trial and that of their families," Judge Yevgeny Zubov was quoted by news agency Interfax as saying on Wednesday.

Geneva - All the delegations attended "constructive" talks on the Russia-Georgia conflict Wednesday and agreed to meet again for another round of negotiations next month, the European Union representative to the discussions said.

"We had constructive meetings of the two working groups," said Pierre Morel. As planned, the two groups, with eight delegations in total, met on security and refugee issues for about three hours each.

Moscow - A Russian court reversed its decision Tuesday to open to the public the trial of three men charged with the murder investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

The Moscow District Military Court ruled that the media and public would be barred from the trial after the jury's refusal to hear the case in front of the press.

Moscow - A Kremlin bill to extend the presidential term from four to six years was almost unanimously voted through its second reading Wednesday in Russia's lower house of parliament.

The proposed constitutional amendment now faces one final reading.

While President Dmitry Medvedev launched the draft law, constitutional experts say the law would not apply to him.

Many analysts say he is just a seat warmer setting the way for 12 more years of Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. Currently serving as prime minister, Putin has not ruled out another presidential term.

Putin backed the term extensions this week but said it was "premature" to say who they might benefit.