Russian czar bones probe to be published

A Russian government commission says it will publish on Friday its definitive report into human remains, believed to be those of the last Russian czar, Nicholas the Second, and his family.

The commission head, the first deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, said earlier this month that there were no longer any doubts as to the authernticity of the nine sets of bones, unearthed near Yekaterinburg in the late 1970s.

The czar and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks after the Russian revolution in 1917.

Correspondents say the official publication of the forensic tests into the bones will open the way for President Yeltsin to set a burial date.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service