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

MVD Reforms MOSCOW (MT) -- The number of directorates in the Interior Ministry will be halved, while its interior troops and investigative committee will be downgraded into departments, Interfax cited a ministry source as saying. Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev will also see the number of his deputies cut to four and central staff personnel cut by 10 percent as part of the Kremlin's administrative reform of government, the source said. Wages will be increased for the remaining staffers. The remaining directorates will be reorganized to focus more on administration, while regional and local branches will bear the brunt of fighting crime, the source said. On Friday, an interior troops spokesman told Kommersant that the troops' commander, Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, had not been removed from his post, but had taken sick leave, contrary to earlier reports that he had resigned.

Same-sex weddings would be an unacceptable ""parody of marriage,"" the president said dismissively. No, not that president. The speaker this time was Jacques Chirac of France.

A U.S. airstrike on a house in Fallujah killed 11 Iraqis including women and children on Sunday, doctors said, in the latest in a series of attacks on buildings believed to be sheltering guerrillas and foreign militants.

Gunmen burned down offices of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority in Gaza on Sunday, as anger spread over the Palestinian leader's overhaul of his security forces that many saw as falling short of genuine reform.

More than two years after its spectacular collapse, Enron has won approval to emerge from bankruptcy under a plan in which creditors will receive less than 20 cents on the dollar and the Enron name will forever disappear.

PNC Financial Services Group Inc. agreed Friday to buy Riggs National Corp., which is under investigation for allegedly failing to prevent, and in some cases fostering money laundering, for about $779 million in stock and cash.