Just Russia party to name its presidential candidate autumn 2011.

MOSCOW, September 25 (Itar-Tass) -- The Just Russia party will decide on its candidate for the president of Russia in the autumn of 2011, its leader, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, said on Friday.

The party, he said, "will make up its mind by the autumn of 2011,
depending on the situation in the economy and in the country who will be
its nominee."
Mironov does not exclude that may be put forward as a candidate.
"It may be me or someone else," he said. For the time being, "time is
not ripe yet for such a decision," he added.
"As a major party Just Russia can not remain aloof from the election
campaign and it will participate in it in one way or another," concluded
Mironov.
Earlier, Mironov repeatedly said that his party in the presidential
election of 2012 would not officially support the candidate to be put
forward by United Russia. The question of nominating its own candidate the
party had intended to decide during the parliamentary election campaign.
As a party represented in the Duma, Just Russia is entitled to
nominate its candidate in the presidential elections without gathering
voters' signatures.

.Supporters of modernization to set up Forward, Russia movement.

MOSCOW, September 25 (Itar-Tass) -- The all-Russia public movement for
the country's accelerated modernization, called Forward, Russia!, will be
established on Saturday. The constituent conference is to be held at
Moscow's President Hotel. It is expected to be attended by around 400
delegates representing various political and social movements. The
initiative to create such a structure was put forward by the Just Russia
party back last spring.
A member of the organizing committee, State Duma deputy Gennady
Gudkov, said the decision to act followed the publication of President
Dmitry Medvedev's policy article of the same name. He is convinced that
for solving the problems Medvedev identified a year ago efforts by
political parties would be not enough.
"Our task is to create a broad civic coalition of representatives from
different walks of life, to mobilize them for the sake of genuine
modernization of the country," said Gudkov. He makes no secret of his fear
the president's declared policy of modernization, "may be drowned by the
army of functionaries in the bureaucratic swamp."
Meanwhile, two days before this constituent conference, convened by
Just Russia, an application for the same brand was filed by United Russia.
It became known that in the coming days, under the auspices of the ruling
party, there will be established a social movement carrying the same name.
Moreover, the United Russia party secured the consent of the author of the
popular slogan - the Russian president.
The chairman of the United Russia Supreme Council, State Duma Speaker
Boris Gryzlov, said that, unlike the opposition, which is creating a
movement of supporters of "accelerated modernization", the parliamentary
majority party initiates a movement of those already involved in this
process. He declared that at a meeting with the head of state on Thursday
representatives of the party's leadership discussed ways of raising public
support for the modernization policy and suggested creating a "social
movement participants in the process of modernization." The movement's
name was discussed, too. "I believe that such a movement might be called
Forward, Russia," Gryzlov said after the meeting with Medvedev.
According to one of the participants in the meeting - the secretary of
the United Russia General Council's Presidium, Vyacheslav Volodin, the
president supported the initiative of United Russia.
"It would be correct for people of action and initiative, who want to
participate in the modernization of the economy, to gather within one
movement. It is good that United Russia is engaged in this work," he
quoted Medvedev as saying.
The Just Russia is not inclined to over-dramatize the situation. The
existence of two applications for the promotion of ideas of modernization
is evidence of "civil society's activity, which can only be welcomed,"
says the leader of Just Russia's Duma faction, Nikolai Levichev.
As for competition for the title, Levichev believes the one who is the
first to file documents at the Ministry of Justice will have priority.
"If in this competition my fellow party members lose, I do not think
anything terrible will happen. They will think up another name," he said.
"Competition is absolutely normal."

.RF stuck to its interests as it dropped S-300 deal with Iran - view.

UNITED NATIONS, September 25 (Itar-Tass) -- When it made the decision
to give up the plan to sell S-300 air defense complexes to Iran S-300,
Russia was guided by its own national interests and international security
considerations, the chairman of the Federation Council's Foreign Affairs
Committee, Mikhail Margelov, told Itar-Tass.
"It has been for more than a decade now that in our policy we have
protected our national interests, and not serviced somebody else's," said
Margelov. "So, to say that we are exposed to someone's pressures is just
not serious."
Asked if Russia had taken into account possible penalties for
breaching the contract for the supply of equipment, Margelov: "When
decisions of this sort are taken - decisions of such importance and
seriousness - any commercial issues are of secondary value."
"It is clear that the top Russian political leadership weighed all
pros and cons," Margelov said. "But in world politics there are certain
values that cannot be measured with money."
"The most important of those values is the awareness of responsibility
for international security, and Russia as a permanent member of the UN
Security Council demonstrates this responsibility on a regular basis," he
said. "And we displayed it once again when we decided not to supply
advanced weapons systems to Iran."

-0-str