A brief look at the stories making headlines in the Russian-language press

Eight Russian infantrymen sprinted for cover behind a wooden wall. The soldiers began firing, first with assault rifles, then with grenade launchers and antitank rockets.

The maker of Marlboro cigarettes agreed Friday to pay 1 billion euros ($1.25 billion) to help the European Union combat smuggling and counterfeiting -- and to end years of legal wrangling over a black market that both sides say costs them hundreds of millions of euros annually.

A group of Democratic lawmakers announced legislation on that would force the Republican administration of President George W. Bush to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization that could call for the break-up of OPEC.

Dividend Tax to Rise MOSCOW (Reuters) -- The State Duma approved on Friday an increase in the tax on dividends to 9 percent from 6 percent, part of efforts to reduce schemes the help tax avoidance. The vote, in the third and final reading, had been expected. The amendment to the Tax Code has to be approved by the Federation Council and signed by President Vladimir Putin to come into force from January. The Finance Ministry proposed the measure in April, saying it would force Russian firms to abandon schemes under which employees are often paid large dividends but low salaries, which are subject to a 13 percent tax. Reactor Race Heats Up MOSCOW (Bloomberg) -- Russia plans to compete with General Electric, the world's largest company by market value, and Areva, France's state-controlled nuclear fuel maker, for new nuclear reactor orders from China, India and Bulgaria.

A few days before Secretary of State Colin Powell gave his 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council on Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction -- with its startling allegation that four individuals had confirmed that Iraq had mobile biological weapons laboratories -- a government analyst who had read a draft of the speech sent an urgent e-mail to his boss.