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

Mahmoud Abbas' first hours in office were marked by a series of crises from the resignation of 46 election officials who accused the ruling Fatah party of pressure to renewed violence that could threaten his leadership.

Titan's surface appears to be a pale-orange landscape with a thin crust that gives Saturn's largest moon a squishy consistency, scientists said after refining images from the planet's surface.

Many Iraqis reacted angrily Sunday to news that U.S. soldier Charles Graner had been sentenced to 10 years in jail for his role in prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib jail, saying he should have faced harsher punishment.

Surgutneftegaz's minority shareholders asked a Russian court to cancel shares held by Surgut subsidiaries, saying it will reduce management control over the oil company, the country's fourth-largest.

$1.7Bln Net for NLMK MOSCOW (Prime-Tass) -- Steelmaker Novolipetsk, or NLMK, expects its 2004 net profit under Russian accounting standards to double to 47.3 billion rubles ($1.7 billion), the company said Friday. The company said revenues for the year would be about 126.1 billion rubles, up 68 percent on the year. NLMK reported net profit of 22.569 billion rubles in 2003, up from about 15 billion rubles in 2002. EBRD: Clarity Needed LONDON (Reuters) -- Russia needs to step up reforms and provide clarity on the direction of its economic policies to hold the interest of foreign investors, said the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Jean Lemierre told reporters on Friday that Russia achieved high growth in 2004 and investors kept their faith in Moscow, but the challenge for authorities this year was to give clear signals about the government's economic route.