Kazbek Vakhayev / EPA

Residents and firefighters watch flames rising from the burning 'Grozny City' luxury apartment tower in Grozny, Chechen Republic, Russia, April 3, 2013.

AFP - A fire raged in a 40-storey skyscraper in the Chechnya capital Grozny on Wednesday, a building which is a centrepiece of a drive by local authorities to promote the city as a glitzy and modern hub.

Musa Sadulayev / AP

A local resident makes photos with a mobile phone of a fire in a high-rise apartment building in provincial capital Grozny, Russia, April 3, 2013.

"We have no reports of casualties... The fire is currently spreading across the building's facade via the plastic outer panels," the spokesman for the North Caucasus regional branch of the Emergency Situations ministry, Kantemir Davydov, told the Interfax news agency.

A witness photograph posted on Twitter showed flames and smoke pouring from the building in the Grozny-City complex named the Olympus tower, which is topped by a giant clock face and stands 145 metres (475 feet) tall. Full Story

Soccer legend Diego Maradona took to the field Wednesday to captain a team of retired superstars in a ceremonial match to mark the opening of a new stadium in Chechnya.

AFP - Getty Images

Football legend Diego Maradona, right, fights for the ball against Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov, left, during a demonstration soccer match between Maradona's all-star squad of former internationals and a team of local officials and players in Grozny, Chechnya, on May 11.

The 50-year-old Argentine icon was joined by Luis Figo, Steve McManaman, Franco Baresi and other former stars of the game. But they were all outshone by Ramzan Kadyrov, the feared political leader of the volatile Russian republic, who scored a hat-trick at the stadium dedicated to his father and predecessor, who was assassinated in 2004.

The hosts won 5-2 in an often comical match that featured out-of-shape players and sportingly inept officials. The thousands of local fans who turned out in the rain were treated to one moment of Maradona magic, however, when the 1986 World Cup winner knocked in a free kick from the edge of the penalty area.

S. Dal / Reuters

A light show before the match marking the opening of the new Akhmad-Hajji Kadyrov stadium in the Chechen capital Grozny on May 11.

In March, members of Brazil's 1994 and 2002 World Cup-winning teams, including Romario, also played an exhibition match in Grozny.

Officials have denied paying players to attend, but it has been difficult to otherwise explain the willingness of so many of the world's greatest soccer names to show up in a part of the world seldom associated with the game.

Eduard Korniyenko / Reuters

Ramzan Kadyrov, left, shares a joke with Argentinian soccer legend Diego Maradona during the match.

Their appearance has the double advantage of demonstrating Chechnya's worthiness as a venue to showcase such talent. Russia will host the World Cup for the first time in 2018.

The stadium was christened in style Wednesday with an extravagant laser and fireworks opening ceremony. Banners bearing the slogan "Russia-2018" were draped around the tribunes. A video screened before the match praised Chechnya as a modern-day investment haven, with the horrors of two separatist wars in the past 16 years consigned firmly to the past.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Mikhail Mordasov / AFP - Getty Images

Headscarf-wearing female students attend classes at the Grozny State Oil Institute in the capital of the Russian Caucasus region of Chechnya on March 21. Chechnya's Kremlin-appointed leader Ramzan Kadyrov, 34, has been quietly allowed to de-secularise his Muslim majority homeland. His hugely controversial decree tells female public servants how to dress in an Islamically-acceptable way at work, stating that women's heads should be covered with a headscarf.

Vladimir Isachenkov of AP reports from Grozny: The cars pull up in broad daylight. Security forces point guns at terrified women and shoot. It turns out they're paintball pellets, but still harsh punishment in Chechnya for leaving home without a headscarf.

Chechnya's strongman Ramzan Kadyrov has imposed an Islamic dress code on women, and his feared security forces have used paintball guns, threats and insults against those refusing to obey. In a 40-page report released earlier this month, Human Rights Watch condemned the campaign as a flagrant violation of women's rights and urged other nations to raise the issue with Moscow.

"The enforcement of a compulsory Islamic dress code on women in Chechnya violates their rights to private life, personal autonomy, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion, thought, and conscience," the report said. Continue reading.