Russia honours US astronaut

Russia has decorated NASA astronaut Nick Hague, who survived an aborted space launch last year, with one of its highest honours, the Order of Courage, a Kremlin decree said yesterday. Hague along with Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin had a close brush with death when their Soyuz rocket failed minutes after blast-off from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in October last year. They were forced to eject and make a harrowing emergency landing.