TODAY: More than 1000 people detained in Moscow in anticipation of ethnic clashes; rights activist attacked; Wikileaks reveal Politkovskaya faced barrage of death threats. START avoids delays, democrats hopeful; Russia attacks Britain for ‘spymania’; verdict on Khodorkovsky delay; corruption; extremism; Putin Q+A

A heavy police presence was seen in Moscow yesterday amid fears of a repeat of the weekend’s ultranationalist rioting, with law enforcement officers detaining around 1000 people.  According to the New York Times, many of the detainees were armed with ‘knives, clubs or stun guns’.  Mikhail Fedotov, the head of Russia’s presidential council on human rights, suggests that these mass ultra-right mobilizations have been ‘specially organized’ to destabilize the state.  A US embassy cable reprinted by the Guardian reveals that Anna Politkovskaya ‘constantly’ received death threats prior to her assassination.  Nadezhda Azhgikhina, executive secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists pays tribute 300 slain colleagues in the Moscow Times.  Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov is pursuing a hunger strike in protest against his detention on charges of disobeying police orders during a sanctioned weekend rally.  Yevgeny Bobrov, the head of the Voskhod human rights organization, claims to have been attacked by two men on December 14, an assault which he believes to have been motivated by his journalistic activities.