TODAY: Udalstov detained; opposition activities in Astrakhan continue; US slams Magnitsky verdict;will Putin’s last speech as PM will offer clues as to makeup of next cabinet? ROC attacks political correctness; Clinton takes Russia to task on Syria inaction; smoker to pay millions for forest fire damages; Aeroflot tests passengers’ nerves.

Police have detained opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov as he and scores of protestors attempted to rally outside the State Duma before the arrival of Prime Minister Putin to deliver a speech on the Cabinet’s performance.  The Moscow Times reports on how protest activities in Astrakhan continue to grab headlines.  Police have clashed with opposition activists in the southern city who gathered in support of hunger striker and Just Russia leader Oleg Shein.  RFE/RL considers the relationship between discontent in Astrakhan and other regional centers.  Astrakhan’s regional governor, Alexander Zhilikin, has vowed that the disputed election results, which prompted Shein’s hunger strike, will stand.  Moscow’s Tverskoi district court of justice has fined Ecodefense movement leader Yevgenia Chirikova 500 roubles for putting up a tent in Red Square during Sunday’s ‘White Square’ action.  The US state department has branded Russia’s investigation into the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky ‘inadequate’.  In the Moscow Times, Yulia Latynina draws a comparison between Chicago mobsters Murder Inc and the men who conducted the tax fraud at the heart of the Hermitage Capital case, ‘Serial Tax Refund Inc’.  Brian Whitmore meanwhile poses a comparison between Vladimir Putin’s rule and that of South Korea’s Park Chung Hee and Indonesia’s Suharto.