TODAY: Pussy Riot member on hunger strike; Milonov warns Kremlin on new iPhone; Putin meets with Lukashenko to discuss potash row; Syria, Eurasia, North Korea, Iran, and Germany; Medvedev wants consensus on raising divorce tax; floating nuclear technology.

Jailed Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has gone on hunger strike in protest against what she calls ‘slavery-like conditions’ at her penal colony in Mordovia.  Her open letter, published in the Guardian, documents these in detail, including 16 hour working days, hazing, arbitrary work quota increases, and death threats from the prison administration.  Tolokonnikova is due to be released this March.  Vitaly Milonov, a pro-Kremlin St. Petersburg politician, is warning state officials not to buy the new iPhone 5S for fear that the U.S. security service could use its technology to gather their fingerprints.  Technical gadgets were completely banned from the U.S. embassy in Moscow yesterday, leaving visa-seeking Russians to bury their devices in nearby flowerbeds.  Analysts debate the wider implication of Vladislav Surkov’s imminent return to the Kremlin. ‘It’s better to keep Surkov within the system than out of it,’ said one. Another called it a ‘birthday gift’.  Putin met with his Belarusian counterpart yesterday to discuss the dispute over potash producer Uralkali, although no agreements have been announced as yet.  A senior official at the Moscow United Energy Company has been arrested on suspicion of eliciting bribes.