TODAY: Shein reduces hunger strike as CEC pledges to examine Astrakhan evidence; Bout asks Moscow to sue the US; Russia refuses to grant special group status to homosexuals in G8 resolution.  Don’t visit Georgia, says Foreign Ministry.  Libel suit by Stalin’s grandson thrown out; Putin invokes space race glory days with plans for new $1 billion cosmodrome

Astrakhan’s Just Russia leader Oleg Shein has pledged to ‘lighten’ his hunger strike in a gesture of goodwill towards the Central Elections Committee after its head, Vladimir Churov, promised party leader Sergei Mironov that he would examine evidence of electoral fraud.  At a special session of Astrakhan’s regional legislature, local prosecutor Oleg Dubak said that an inquiry into Shein’s complaint has found only a ‘few minor violations’, insufficient to warrant a re-run of the election.  Churov has told the press that as of yet he sees no reason for annulling the mayoral election results.  Shein’s hunger strike has attracted international media attention, but how do locals feel about the action? asks Reuters.  ‘Their indifference poses a major challenge for antigovernment activists from Moscow who have flocked south in recent days to lend him support’ says the New York Times.  Fear of losing their jobs by showing active support for the opposition is the reason, says one resident interviewed in the Washington Post.  The Independent argues that the State Duma walk-out shows that the local action is having a national impact.