TODAY: Russia and China planning to push world currency at G20?; NATO highlights perceived tensions; industrial regions increasingly troubled; opposition activists charged for blog post; Russia calls for OSCE monitoring in South Ossetia; space tensions; Nikolai Gogol.

President Dmitry Medvedev will pay a one-day visit to Germany next week to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of the G20 summit to discuss Russia-EU relations.  During the summit, ‘Russia will side with the Germans and other Europeans who oppose US-British plans to drag the world out of recession by further spending,’ predicts The Guardian.  The Kremlin says Russia will push the possibility of creating a new world reserve currency at the summit, and has suggested that it is coordinating these proposals with China.  Reuters says it is ‘way too early for a productive debate about a new world currency’.  NATO’s top commander and the chief of US forces in Europe, General John Craddock has suggested that Russia’s ‘overall intent may be to weaken European solidarity and systematically reduce US influence’.  But on the other side, ‘NATO’s eastward expansion has unquestionably come at the expense of its relationship with Russia,’ says the New York Times, calling on the alliance to ‘recognize the limits of its own success’.