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

Lomokotiv Moscow took a huge step toward the Russian Premier League title on Saturday when it disposed of rival CSKA in a 3-2 derby victory thanks to a last-minute strike by defender Oleg Pashinin, taking Loko 13 points clear of CSKA at the top of the table.

For long-term portfolio and strategic investors looking at Russia today, political stability and economic predictability are much more important issues than, say, the price of oil. If the price of a barrel of crude were to fall tomorrow, it would not be the loss of budget revenue as such that might undermine the investment attractiveness of the country, but rather a poorly thought-out and executed economic response.

On July 20, President Vladimir Putin finally convened the Council for Fostering the Development Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights, the new version of the Human Rights Commission. The meeting came right before the president was supposed to announce his candidates to fill one-third of the slots in the new Public Chamber, apparently an alternative to the council.

A bombing suspect arrested in Rome has told investigators that he and his conspirators wanted to frighten rather than kill with last week's aborted attacks on London's transit system and claimed they had no connection to the explosions two weeks earlier that killed 56 people, the Italian press reported Saturday.

Dozens of protesters were kicked, beaten with clubs and thrown into trucks Saturday by hundreds of police and plainclothes agents who rushed the streets to stifle a protest against President Hosni Mubarak.

It is July, when climate and custom tell the Lev-Ran family that the time has come to plant again. Planting now might seem folly -- the Israeli government plans to remove all Jewish settlers, including the Lev-Rans, from Gaza next month.