TODAY: Medvedev grants Putin foreign policy implementation rights, admits Russia has no independent judiciary; Khodorkovsky to seek parole?; 90th anniversary of Czar Nicholas II’s death; NATO calls Russia over Georgia. This week’s hardline foreign policy statements from Dmitry Medvedev are being taken as evidence that the new president “will not stray from the often contentious course set by his predecessor.” Crucially, the new foreign policy strategy “grants unprecedented rights to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin” to implement foreign policy measures, a role previously only granted to the president. It is being reported that former Yukos chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who “has become a symbol of the country’s politicized legal system”, may request parole this week. The Justice Ministry has replaced Russia’s representative to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg twice in one month. Yulia Latynina on the Cherney/Deripaska case which is to be heard in London: “It is truly a sad testament to the current state of affairs when a London court considers Russia’s reputation as being worse than Cherney’s.”