In President Medvedev’s second state-of-the-nation address, highlights of which can be found here, he warned opposition politicians not to use democracy as a way to ‘destabilize the state and split society’. The fact that the speech emphasized long-term goals, related to cutting time zones, technology and industrial modernization, heralds a call for re-election argues one analyst, quoted in the Moscow Times. The Guardian suggests that zone trimming would allow the government a firmer hold over the occasionally restive Far East. No criticisms of Prime Minister Putin were apparently explicitly made, but ‘in targeting inefficient state-owned corporations, he also is attacking the centralization of economic power under his predecessor and current prime minister’, argues the Wall Street Journal. Opposition politicians are apparently scathing about the prospect of reform, citing the fact that the President made no mention of the disputed October elections. He has ‘precious few policies to back up his liberal rhetoric’ says Shaun Walker in the Independent. The more the President talks of reform, the more palpable the actual lack of it becomes, suggests an article in the Times. The Moscow Times has a run down of what the President proposed in his first state of the nation speech, and what he achieved.