TODAY: Journalist censored for critique of over-centralization; Council of Europe to assess human rights in Russia; a look at North Koreans seeking asylum.  Analysis of START slow down; Russian Defense Minister in Vietnam.  Smuggling-corruption case draws to a close; hackers arrested; penal reforms.  Paralympian success.

Journalist Maksim Sokolov has resigned from his job at newspaper Izvestia, after editors rejected an article which criticized Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s suggestion that the Russian Silicon Valley be located in a former car factory in Moscow, which Sokolov views as reflecting a dangerous trend of ‘geographical super-ultra centralization’.  Senior lawmakers from the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly have landed in Moscow to determine the extent to which Russia is complying with its human rights commitments.  Rapporteur Dick Marti’s first stop will be Ingushetia.  ‘In the end, the political spectrum has become more narrow and primitive’: why the ostensible opening of elections is little more than a smoke screen in an op-ed in the Moscow Times.  Tens of thousands of North Korean loggers apparently work in grim conditions in Russia’s Far East; the Moscow Times looks at the uncertain fortunes of those bidding for asylum.