TODAY: Ethnic tensions rise in Moscow as nationalists riot over football death; Beketov defamation ruling overturned; ‘Kushchevskaya model’ provokes continued fears; opposition parties’ brief foray into parliamentary discussions. Wikileaks suggest Russia tried to track Litvinenko killers?  Russia’s ‘own Assange’ under investigation; Medvedev hoping for a stab at 2010 presidency? Limonov interview; Putin sings.

The killing of a Spartak fan allegedly by a migrant from the North Caucasus last week sparked a nationalist rally in Moscow which culminated in violent disorder.   Several opposition activists were apparently detained.  President Medvedev praised the actions of police in quelling nationalist furor.  The President has signed a bill which would establish new minor restrictions on rally holding.  A court has overturned a defamation conviction against journalist Mikhail Beketov, whose investigations into the Khimki forest saw him viciously attacked.  Reporter Oleg Kashin recounts the chilling story of his own beating in the New York Times.  Michael Swartz examines the ‘Kushchevskaya model’, in other words a ‘fusion of government and criminals’, prompted by November 5’s massacre of 12 people in the farming town.  RFE/RL looks into those who are seemingly profiting from collusion with criminal elements in the region.  Constitutional Court chief justice Valery Zorkin has apparently warned that if this kind of lawlessness continues, Russians may look to a ‘dictatorship’.  The Moscow Times reports on how three parties without representation were allowed to participate in a parliamentary discussion, for the duration of your average coffee break.