TODAY: Other Russia members detained; Popular Front’s electoral program; mayoral elections under threat; Rogozin not keen on Republicans; Muscovites protest stone tiles; Lebedev’s parole hearing continues; man-made disasters, forest fires. Church will not assume authority over Georgian breakaway regions.

Four members of the Other Russia group have been detained in Nizhny Novgorod for protesting what they call the political arrest of Taisia Osipova.  The Popular Front’s electoral program is ‘surprisingly liberal’, says Brian Whitmore, reporting that the program argues for increased political competition and higher authoritative accountability.  Fears are growing that mayoral elections could be done away with completely.  NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin is not excited about the prospects of a Republican U.S. government: ‘the alternative to Barack Obama is folding of all cooperation programs between Russia and the United States’.  Moscow posters of Dmitry Medvedev dressed as Captain America, put up in ‘an act of hooliganism’, have been taken down.  Muscovites are protesting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s plan to repave the streets with stone tiles, as Sobyanin’s wife apparently owns a stone tile business. ‘There are serious grounds to suspect an element of corruption.’