TODAY: Medvedev’s first comments on Putin’s popular front; President agrees on security and economic cooperation with Pakistan; an obstacle for START?  Amnesty attacks Russia rights failings; nationalist group legalized; economic criminals to receive clemency? Putin reaches idol status

President Medvedev has spoken for the first time about Vladimir Putin’s All-Russia Popular Front, (seen as a move to strengthen the Prime Minister’s position pre-election) with a set of oblique comments: ‘All political battles are still ahead of us, and no single party can see itself as dominant‘.  Meanwhile Prime Minister Putin apparently told reporters he had discussed the idea with the President and received his support.   ‘Medvedev is addressing minorities and Putin is addressing majorities’: Gregory Shvedov tells the Washington Post’s Postpartisan blog about the psychology behind the ruling tandem.  Robert Coalson on RFE/RL argues that ‘Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is sending the strongest signals yet that he intends to return to the presidency in 2012′.  The FT offers an in-depth analysis of how Medvedev has negotiated the path between his own identity as a politician and his role within the diarchy.  The President and Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari have agreed on cooperation in the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking, at the latter’s first major foreign trip since Osama Bin Laden was killed on his territory.  Problems for START: a U.S. congressional panel has accepted a defense bill that would place limits on President Barack Obama’s authority to implement the arms control treaty.