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

Moscow is relying on its presentation to sway delegates to at least look at its bid and give it a shot at hosting the 2012 Games.

Workers on Tuesday began tearing down a memorial to people killed at the East German border during the Cold War after the private Checkpoint Charlie museum lost a court fight over the real estate where the field of 1,067 crosses stood.

Unidentified militants blew up a security wall with a car bomb and stormed one of India's most revered Hindu religious sites Tuesday, setting off a fierce gunbattle with police and paramilitary forces that left all five attackers dead, a senior official said.

China's state television broadcasts were interrupted for nearly 15 minutes by a video about the banned Falun Gong spiritual group, a spokesman for a Hong Kong-based satellite company said Tuesday.

June Inflation Up Russia's inflation rate accelerated 0.6 percent in June from the previous month, Interfax reported, citing Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref. Consumer prices rose 7.3 percent in January through May, including 0.8 percent in May, the news service said. (Bloomberg) Russia First Debt Payment Russia disbursed the first installment of a $15 billion debt repayment to the Paris Club of lender countries on Tuesday, paying an unspecified amount to key creditor Germany, Vneshekonombank said. In May, Russia signed an agreement to repay early $15 billion of the $40 billion debt it inherited from the Soviet Union to the Paris Club. (Reuters) June Services PMI Expands Russia's services industries expanded in June at the fastest pace since May 2004, as the growing economy gave consumers more money to spend, an index of industry managers showed. Moscow Narodny Bank's seasonally adjusted services index rose to 59.3 in June, from 57.6 in May, the British-based bank said.

The amount being invested in Russian companies from abroad hit a record in the first half of the year, more than doubling on the same period last year, the Central Bank said.

The draft law on special economic zones is set to pass its two remaining readings in the State Duma on Friday, Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Andrei Sharonov said Tuesday.

The government said Tuesday that its landmark new subsoil law might not come into force this year, but that it still planned to achieve the key goal of barring foreigners from certain mineral assets by amending existing laws.

State-owned oil firm Rosneft said its biggest unit, Yuganskneftegaz, was worth 76 percent more than the price at a 2004 state auction after the authorities seized Yugansk from Yukos oil firm.

One day in February, Maxim Kononenko's satirical web site ran a story about General Albert Makashov, a Communist State Duma deputy who had acquired notoriety for his anti-Jewish comments. In the story, President Vladimir Putin and his deputy chief of staff Vladislav Surkov are watching Makashov expounding his ideas on television. Makashov's greatest fear, explains Surkov, is to be accosted by a gang of skinheads.

I told you so. Right after an explosion derailed the Grozny-Moscow train last month, I was sure that the culprits would be found and found fast. And lo and behold, two suspects are already in custody. But I have to admit that I failed to grasp the full depth and breadth of the bigger picture.

2 Officers Killed ROSTOV-ON-DON -- Two police officers investigating the shooting death of a Chechen regional administrator were killed by masked gunmen, a regional police official said Tuesday. Another investigator was wounded in the incident Monday in the village of Burganoi, said a spokesman for the regional Interior Ministry. The officers were looking into the shooting death earlier Monday of Abdul-Aziz Yangulbekov, administration chief of the southern village of Zumsoi, when masked gunmen stopped their car and killed them. (AP) 10 National Bolsheviks Held Moscow police arrested 10 activists from the ultranationalist National Bolshevik Party after they staged a protest outside the Uzbek Embassy on Tuesday, carrying photographs of people killed during a violent demonstration in May in Andijan. Itar-Tass said the detainees would be released soon. Activists wearing red-and-white hammer-and-sickle T-shirts said they were targeting Uzbek President Islam Karimov's authoritarian government.

Russia, China and five Central Asian nations call for a timetable on the withdrawal of the U.S. coalition from Central Asia.

President Vladimir Putin is set to arrive at the Group of Eight summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, on Wednesday, even as Russia's contribution to the group increasingly comes into question.

An Uzbek human rights activist who criticized a recent bloody government crackdown on protesters has been arrested in neighboring Kazakhstan following a request from Uzbekistan to deport him, the UN refugee agency said Tuesday.

United Russia has agreed to advise Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions in the run-up to the country's parliamentary elections next year.

The split in the nationalist Rodina faction was formalized Tuesday by the State Duma Management Committee, which registered a breakaway group of nine deputies as a separate Duma faction, also under the name of Rodina.

Prosecutors have filed new charges against the former Yukos security chief Alexei Pichugin, who has already been sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder, officials said Tuesday.

The Kremlin was widely expected to ask Magomedali Magomedov, who has run Dagestan since 1991, to step down on the eve of his 75th birthday. But the June birthday has come and gone, and Russia's oldest and longest-serving regional leader remains at the helm despite insurgency and economic woes that increasingly destabilize the mountainous republic.