TODAY: Moscow agrees to protest rally, opposition reject proposed route; Putin rails against U.S.; election observers plan their moves; draft law to ban ‘extremists’ from teaching; presidential candidate list finalised; Medvedev Q&A at Moscow State Uni; Russia Today wins Assange series broadcast rights.

Moscow’s City Hall agreed to sanction an opposition protest of 50,000 people on February 4, but Sergei Udaltsov, who is co-organising the next opposition protest march, says that protesters will not accept the alternative routes that authorities have proposed.  At a campaign meeting in Tomsk yesterday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin engaged in some ‘pre-election saber-rattling’ by accusing the U.S. of ‘want[ing] to control everything’.  Golos has promised to deploy 2,000 election observers in March, despite facing ‘intensifying harassment’ from the authorities.  United Russia says that it is ready to work with Yabloko’s election observers.  The President’s Human Rights Council has launched a campaign for fair elections.  Blogger Ilya Varlamov has been questioned by police for posting photographs of ‘strategic buildings’ online.  A new draft law has been approved in the State Duma to ban citizens convicted of extremism from teaching in educational institutions at all levels.  Mikhail Prokhorov’s presidential candidacy has been approved, finalising the ballot which comprises five candidates: Prokhorov, Vladimir Putin, Gennady Zyuganov, Sergei Mironov, and Vladimir Zhirinovsky.