TODAY: Medvedev hints at a job swap but remains vague on 2012 election; suggests Iran sanctions as last resort; Saakashvili hopes to see Abkhazia return; new Moldova leadership to encourage Russia to remove soldiers from Transdnestr; historic moment for Japan and Russia; Kadyrov plans his legacy; police to show content of their pockets.

‘The main thing is to be useful to the nation’.  If only it were that simple: Medvedev has retained his vague line on the  2012 elections, but implied that a job swap with Prime Minister Putin could be on the cards.  ‘If we run out of all other options‘ then sanctions could be used on Iran, Medvedev told an audience at the University of Pennsylvania, but ‘positive incentives’ should first be applied.  He also told students that Obama’s decision on missile defense was not ‘pro-Russian’, but was pleased to see that ‘Barack Obama listened and analyzed what I said…’  The Economist has a detailed analysis of missile threats.  Mikhail Gorbachev has penned an article in the International Herald Tribune in which he affirms that there is a clear relationship, ‘for the most part ignored’ by analysts, between the scrapping of missile defense plans and a commitment to nuclear disarmament.  NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has described his meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as ‘very constructive’.