As the BBC reports:

Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has told a court in Moscow that the fate of all Russians rests on the outcome of his trial for embezzlement.

He said no-one believed he would be acquitted of the latest charges, which could extend his jail term until 2017.

The former head of the Yukos oil company has already spent seven years in prison for tax evasion and is scheduled for release next year.

The judge has adjourned the case until he delivers a verdict on 15 December.

Khodorkovsky, 47, and his business partner Platon Lebedev stand accused of stealing more than two billion barrels of oil between 1998 and 2003, charges which the former tycoon has denounced as rubbish.

“It’s not me and Platon Lebedev who are now standing trial, it’s all the Russian people,” he told the court in his final address on Tuesday.

He sympathised with the judge, Viktor Danilkin, and said that millions of people were following the trial, hoping that Russia would become a country of freedom and law.

Khodorkovsky added that he did not wish to die in jail, but added: “If that is what is needed, I have no hesitation.”

Prosecutor Valery Lakhtin said on Monday that Khodorkovsky’s defence had been built on a lie, based on creating a public perception of a political element to the trial.

Many critics believe the government wants the former tycoon kept behind bars for as long as possible because he challenged former president Vladimir Putin by financing the opposition.

Now prime minister, Mr Putin, is thought likely to run for the presidency again in 2012.

Khodorkovsky has already spent time in prisons in eastern Siberia and in the capital.

But prosecutors have asked the judge for a long prison sentence.

Crowds of Khodorkovsky’s friends and relatives as well as observers and journalists have been battling to get inside a small courtroom in central Moscow to hear the closing stages of this latest trial.

Khodorkovsky’s closing speech can be read in its entirety in English here and in Russian here.

The band members were ordered to appear at the headquarters of the Moscow City Police on Monday for an “interrogation,” said group soloist Maria Lyubicheva.

The phone call from the police headquarters informed the band that the electro-punk song “Gotov” (“Ready”), which was performed at the rally on Moscow’s Pushkin Square, can be interpreted as extremist.

Lyubicheva told the BBC that the offending lyrics – “to set fire to cop cars at night” and “the law is garbage” – have been taken out of context.

The chorus of the song, which was read without instrumental accompaniment at the rally, reads: I’m ready!/ And are you ready?/ To set fire to cop cars at night?/ It’s like a principle of life, a sign of good taste/ For those to whom the law is garbage.

“The song needs to be listened to in its entirety, because if you take lines out of context, then you can intentionally misconstrue any piece of work and call it extremist,” said Lyubicheva, who wrote the song’s lyrics.

According to the artist, the chorus speaks about the sacrifices that two people are prepared to make for the sake of their love.

Songs containing derogatory remarks about the Russian police cost popular rapper Noize MC a ten-day jail sentence in August.

The rapper, famous for his indictment of the Moscow police in his song “Mercedes S-666,” labeled some law enforcement officers “animals with red insignia” after they tried to stop him from handing a hat to attendees of one of his concerts in Volgograd in order to collect donations – a routine part of the artist’s program.

After the concert, Noize MC was detained for 48 hours and convicted the next day of minor hooliganism.

The rally in defense of the Khimki Forest on August 22 was sanctioned by the Moscow city authorities, a move that surprised organizers used to being denied permission to hold opposition events. At the same time, police refused to allow sound equipment to be set up on the stage.

The authorities argued that the use of sound equipment would turn the rally into a concert, which they did not grant permission to hold. However, as oppositionists noted, sound equipment is always used at their various other rallies.

In the end, a variety of musical groups, including Barto and headlined by rock singer Yury Shevchuk, performed acoustically with only the aid of megaphones.

Standing in front of the forest, the president explained the decision came as a result of the massive number of requests sent to him by everyone from the ruling United Russia Party to opposition parties and environmental groups.

Activists had hailed the decision earlier in the day by United Russia and Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov to call on the president to halt the construction.

“I’m dumbfounded! This is tremendous!” was the initial reaction from Yevgenia Chirikova, leader of the movement in defense of the forest. “I’m very glad that the party United Russia has heard the voice of the people. We appealed to all parties about this problem. I think that the decision by United Russia has to do with the fact that saw the amount of people who are outraged by the felling of the forest.”

As the BBC reports:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the suspension of controversial plans to build a new motorway through a forest outside Moscow.

Mr Medvedev said construction of the road from the capital to St Petersburg, via the Khimki forest, would be halted until a public hearing had been held.

The decision came after appeals from environmental groups and, surprisingly, the governing United Russia party.

On Sunday, some 2,000 people attended a concert to protest against the road.

Environmentalists say there several options for the route to bypass the forest, which they say is a unique ecosystem that is home to centuries-old oak trees and many species of wildlife.

In a message posted on his video blog on Thursday, Mr Medvedev said he had ordered the suspension because “our people, from the governing United Russia party to united opposition groups to circles of experts, are saying this demands more analysis”.

“Considering the number of appeals, I have taken the following decision: I order the government to halt the implementation of the orders to build the road in question and hold additional public and expert discussions.”

Earlier, the party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made an unprecedented appeal to the president to halt the project.

“United Russia has turned to the president of Russia… with the request to halt the construction of the highway through the Khimki forest,” chairman Boris Gryzlov said in a statement.

“We have different opinions within United Russia about this question. But the situation does not look simple.

“We think that it is necessary to carefully deal with the question and accordingly either change the route of the construction of the road or continue the work taking account of a deeper study of this question.”

The announcement was welcomed by the Union of Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations.

“This is our victory,” spokesman Andrei Morgulyov told Associated Press news agency. “This decision would have never happened if we were not fighting for our cause.”

Speaking to the BBC, Volkov said that construction of major Olympic facilities in Sochi is being done “too hastily, without a proper system for the engineering research that would be appropriate for these environmental dangers.”

Numerous ecologists have been voicing concerns for years already that Olympic construction in Sochi will lead to irreparable damage of one of the world’s most unique biospheres. In February, the Russian bureau of the World Wildlife Foundation issued a scathing press release slamming Olympstroy’s failure to heed objections and warnings made by their ecologists, and decrying preparations for the games as “out of control.” Meanwhile, residents have complained of forced evictions to make way for new facilities, and some unpaid workers have staged hunger strikes to draw attention to their plight.

But as a geologist, Dr. Volkov is primarily concerned about plans for a combination road and railway that will link the coastal center of the city of Sochi with the mountains in Krasnaya Polyana, where most of the Olympic events are planned to take place. When then-President Vladimir Putin won the bid in 2007 to hold the games in Sochi, only a very rudimentary roadway connected these two areas. With its $8 billion price tag, the new one is the most expensive Olympic project of all, and Volkov argues that its construction could lead to a series of geological disasters.

“It’s a potentially dangerous area,” said the geologist, writing an open letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev from his hiding place in Ukraine. “There have been big landslides in the past and there are large deposits of mercury, uranium and other potentially dangerous minerals. But all scientific advice is being ignored.”

Dr. Volkov also says that he has repeatedly appealed to regional authorities in the Southern Federal District as well as Olympstroy management, but to no avail.

Speaking to the BBC – which notably happened upon an active landslide in the Krasnaya Polyana mountains during its research on this report – Krasnaya Polyana Mayor Sergei Avdeev said that he shared Dr. Volkov’s concerns. “When the International Olympic Committee awarded the games to Russia, they knew full well that Russia did not have enough time to do proper research and build all the facilities in line with international environmental and construction standards,” he said. “I pray to God that there will not be any consequences. The only thing we can do is pray and hope.”

A video report on Dr. Volkov by the BBC can be found by clicking here, and a photo gallery by clicking here.

Litvinenko, a former KGB officer and vocal critic of former Russian President Vladimir Putin, was poisoned with a radioactive substance in London in 2006. One high-ranking official said he had “very strong indications it was a state action.”

British investigators have complained that Russian authorities have not been cooperative. Citing a law barring extradition for its citizens, Russia has refused to hand over Andrei Lugovoi, another former KGB officer suspected by UK authorities of the murder. Lugovoi maintains his innocence.

MI5 officers also said they had averted an assassination attempt against Boris Berezovsky, a wealthy Russian oligarch living in exile in London. Russia has previously tried to extradite Berezovsky, a vocal Putin critic charged with fraud and political corruption.

Relations between the UK and Russia reached post Cold-war lows after the Litvinenko murder, and have remained rocky ever since. The Times newspaper reported on July 4th that British security services see Russia as the third most serious threat facing the country, after Iran and Al-Qaeda.

Other officials told the Telegraph newspaper that that Russia’s spy efforts in the country have taken resources away from fighting terrorism.

“MI5’s resources have been stretched to the limit for the past few years,” one source said. “There have been times when there was nothing left in the locker, when all of our assets were being used on one operation.”

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev are currently meeting at talks of the Group of 8 in Japan.