TODAY: Motorist protests are first sign of public anger over financial crisis, activists concerned over widening of treason definition; Russia to give Lebanon fighter jets; Medvedev to have early meeting with Obama.

Protests by Russian motorists on foreign car duty, some of which involved clashes with riot police, ‘were on such a scale that they can no longer be considered only isolated affairs‘, writes Boris Kagarlitsky, who sees the tariffs as an opportunity for ‘disenchanted citizens to mobilize‘.  Sunday’s protests, reporting of which was very limited in Russia, may have been ‘the first visible public anger at one of the government’s responses to the global financial crisis‘.  Activists and opposition members are concerned that the Kremlin’s move to widen the definition of treason will outlaw protests and completely shatter the remains of Russian civil society.  Solidarity, the new opposition party, intends to ‘dismantle‘ the present system of power.  But with pressure from the government increasing, how is it going to do this, wonders a Guardian columnist.