TODAY: International Women’s Day protests end in arrests; Voronezh protest against mining projects; Magnitsky trial begins today; Miss Russia defends Pussy Riot; Kremlin vows to keep close ties with Venezuela; Orthodox priests to join Emergency Services; RusHyro probe.

A sanctioned rally to mark International Women’s Day last Friday ended in the arrest of 16 ‘feminist protesters’ for violating public order and, according to the Interior Ministry, ‘shout[ing] slogans that had not been agreed on’; the protest was organised by Yabloko to support women’s social and economic equality.  In a separate protest outside the Federal Penitentiary Service, six pro-Pussy Riot activists were temporarily detained.  A leader of the Voina art group said that the event was intended to be a series of single-person pickets.  Over 1,000 people gathered in the village of Novokhopersk in the Voronezh region yesterday to protest against the projected launch of nickel and copper mining ventures, fearing that they will threaten the region’s environment.  The trial against dead lawyer Sergei Magnitsky is due to open today.  The European Parliament calls it ‘a violation of international and national laws and clearly shows the malfunctioning of the Russian criminal justice system’.  Magnitsky’s mother says she will refuse to take part in the ‘circus’ of his trial.  Newly-crowned Miss Russia Elmira Abdrazakova says that the two-year sentencing of Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was too harsh, suggesting that it might have been better to work with the girls to change their view of the world.