Thousands honour Kursk victims at a memorial service

Senior Russian ministers have led tributes to the crew of the nuclear submarine Kursk, at a memorial service attended by thousands of people. The 118 men - described at the service as the best crew in the Russian fleet - died after two explosions ripped through the Kursk in August, sending it to the bottom of the Barents Sea. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov promised to find out the cause of the explosions, and told the crew's relatives that they would be the first to know. The first four bodies recovered from the Kursk were flown to the service - among them that of the young lieutenant whose final letter to his family proved that some men had survived the initial catastrophe, BBC reports.