TODAY: Duma to extend definition of treason; grassroots protests succeed on car duty; analyst predicts 2009 will see Putin return to the Kremlin; ultra-nationalists, military reforms, Iran.

The State Duma is in the process of widening the definition of treason to include damage to the constitutional order and state integrity, with human rights activists protesting that the changes could impede the work of NGOs in the country.  The changes have reportedly been designed to intimidate opposition to the Kremlin, and were announced just as Andrei Lugovoi said that anyone causing damage to the Russian state ‘should be exterminated‘.  The raising of import duties on foreign cars is to be postponed following protests by drivers in Russia’s Primorye region in a ‘rare example of grassroots political power‘.