TODAY: Ekho Moskvy correspondent detained for report on Strategy 31 detainees; Dec 31 crackdown draws US criticism; Belarus frees one presidential candidate; Lithuania hopes to intervene on Minsk’s OSCE decision.  Medvedev to put off Israel trip; new initiative to fill vacant army positions; sailors trapped in Sea of Okhotsk; Tolstoy

Members of Russia’s opposition have picketed government buildings in the capital in protest against the incarceration of their movement’s leaders during the weekend’s freedom of assembly rallies.  Ria-Novosti reports that Ekho Moskvy correspondent Alexei Pozdnyakov was detained near a pretrial detention center as he reported about single-person pickets in support of the jailed activists.  US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley has criticized the Kremlin for the arrests, highlighting in a statement, ‘the importance of embracing and protecting universal values, including freedom of expression and assembly’.