TODAY: Medvedev and Obama discuss WTO and missile defence at APEC conference; Medvedev talks with Japanese PM; South Ossetia holds election; United Russia anti-LGBT law drafted; A Just Russia charged for election propaganda; Putin accepts accusations of political inertia.

The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference was held in Honolulu over the weekend; Presidents Medvedev and Obama praised each other for ongoing cooperation and Russia’s imminent WTO accession (‘Obama found it incomprehensible that a country the size and importance of Russia was outside the WTO’, on the other side, the New York Times says that ‘the Russian government has been ambivalent about the merits of joining a group that would limit its policy choices’); the U.S. president said that China and Russia share his objective of ensuring that Iran does not make nuclear weapons.  Medvedev has expressed confusion about what the U.S. is offering in terms of its European missile defense system and says that the two sides remain ‘far apart’ on the issue.  He also met with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to discuss possible cooperation in defense and security, urging Noda to put trade before politics on the question of the Kuril Islands.