Over 58 percent of voters turn up at early elections in Moldova.

CHISINAU, November 29 (Itar-Tass) - The turnout at Moldova's
parliamentary elections was 58.9 percent when polling stations closed on
Sunday, according to Yuri Chokan, the secretary of Moldova's Central
Electoral Commission.
In the meantime, opposition communist party spokesperson Mark Tkachuk
said that he didn't believe the results of exit polls that predicted his
party's loss in Moldova's early parliamentary elections.
"Those who are now drinking whiskey have jumped the gun" Tkachuk went
on to say. He said the Communists would soon announce the results of their
own vote count. At the same time, Tkachuk emphasized that the Communists
would comment only on official results, which the Central Electoral
Commission would start announcing in several hours.

.Communists leading after first election results announced in Moldova.

CHISINAU, November 29 (Itar-Tass) -- Moldova's Central Electoral
Commission has announced the first official results of Sunday's early
parliamentary elections. They show that the Communist Party is leading
with 50% after the first four percent of votes have been counted. The
figure differs significantly from the results of exit polls, which didn't
predict the party to lead, Yuri Chokan, the secretary of Moldova's
Central Electoral Commission, told Itar-Tass.
The Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova is running up with 21.7
percent, the Democratic Party has 12.6 percent and the Liberal Party - 6.5
percent.
The other parties have failed to pass a 4-percent vote threshold.
In the meantime, as the polling stations closed on Sunday, the
Communist Party spokesperson Mark Tkachuk said that he didn't believe the
results of exit polls that predicted his party's loss in Moldova's early
parliamentary elections.
"Those who are now drinking whiskey have jumped the gun" Tkachuk went
on to say. He said the Communists would soon announce the results of their
own vote count. At the same time, Tkachuk emphasized that the Communists
would comment only on official election results that will be announced by
the Central Electoral Commission.

. Russia's modernization commission to discuss six amendments.

MOSCOW, November 29 (Itar-Tass) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
will on Monday chair a meeting of the modernization and technological
development commission to discuss how to remove barriers to innovative
activities in Russia.
"Unlike in most cases, this time the commission will not dwell on
separate projects or discuss problems related to various branches of
industry. It will focus on the general problem of barriers to innovative
activities in Russia, the barriers that exist both at the legislative
level and in law enforcement," presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich told
journalists on Friday.
"We've arrived at a point when it became clear that we need to change
or remove the most crucial elements in legislation and administrative
practice to make our projects work. Otherwise, we will be unable to
achieve the goals assigned to us," Dvorkovich went on to say.
Dvorkovich said that the commission would discuss six concrete
amendments to Russian legislation that are supposed to reverse the
situation in the field of innovations in Russia.
Dvorkovich said that amendment to the law on state purchases would
make the innovative criteria, the quality of goods and services play a
more significant role alongside with the price criteria. "That will call
for serious revision of separate provisions of the legislation,
particularly in terms of long-term purchases and application of
multi-phased system of purchases," the presidential aide said.
The second major change, according to Dvorkovich, concerns
intellectual property, such as transmission of rights.
"The third sphere is customs regulation linked to exports of
manufactured goods and imports of necessary equipment. Without the
solution of these issues, we can hardly hope that any significant
development will ever appear in Russia," Dvorkovich went on to say.
The next area is export and currency control.
Dvorkovich said Russia had made first amendments to its migration
legislation to attract highly qualified experts to Russia but that hadn't
solved the problem of movement of these specialists inside Russia. "We can
find a quick solution to these problems," Dvorkovich said.
Standardization will be the sixth item on the agenda.
The commission's decisions are to be implemented before March 1, 2011.
But first they'll have to be approved by the Russian government.

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