Russia gov't approves election protest

The Russian government has approved a political rally for Saturday that is expected to draw some 50,000 election protesters, opposition activists said. The rally will be held on Sakharov Avenue north of Moscow's Garden Ring, Ilya Ponomarev, a member of the A Just Russia party, said in his Twitter blog. RIA Novosti said organizers had requested two other venues that were denied. "City Hall said that we are not allowed to stage a rally at the Vasilyevsky Spusk and Manezhnaya Square because these sites had already been booked. ... We haven't been told who has booked them," the news Web site Gazeta.ru quoted Ponomarev as saying. Tens of thousands of people protested in Moscow's Bolotnaya Square last weekend to demand a rerun of national parliamentary elections allegedly marred by fraud and ballot stuffing, RIA Novosti said Wednesday.