Three charged for Moscow bombing

A third person has been charged with racially motivated murder over a bomb blast at a Moscow market that left 10 people dead on Monday.

A Moscow court also issued a warrant for the arrest of the third suspect - a university student in the capital.

Two other suspects - also students - were arrested earlier this week.

The Cherkizovsky market where the bomb went off is used mostly by traders from China and Central Asia. The victims are still being identified.

More than 10 people remain in critical condition, hospital official said. There were two children among the dead.

The blast hit a two-storey trading arcade, destroying several pavilions.

Police says the two suspects arrested earlier this week have confessed to the bombing.

Prosecutors initially suggested that the suspects belonged to an extremist group but later said they were not members of any organisation, Russian media reported.

Russia has been plagued by a series of ethnically motivated assaults, some of them fatal, in recent months.

Moscow's booming economy has attracted a recent influx of workers - many of them from the various parts of the former Soviet Union.

Along with students from Africa and Asia, they have become potential targets for racist attacks, correspondents say.

The perpetrators are often gangs of skinheads, their actions inspired by white supremacist websites preaching messages of hatred.

Many non-white foreigners in Russia say they are nervous about going out into the streets or underground railways.