Selling Weapons Again

Russia’s outgoing President Vladimir Putin is making an official visit to Libya on April 16-17. Libya plans to purchase Russia’s military hardware in the sum of almost three billion dollars. Respective contracts have been prepared on the threshold of Putin’s visit to Libya. However, it is not ruled out that the contract because of Libya's debt.

Putin is visiting Libya on the invitation from the leader of the Libyan revolution, Muamar Kaddafi. Russia’s Finance Minister, Aleksei Kudrin and the Director of Russia’s major defense export enterprise Rosoboronexport, Anatoly Isaikin, are traveling to Libya with Putin, the Vedomosti newspaper reports will not be signed due to the problem with the Libyan debt.

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Once again Putin is trying to sell twenty year old weapons to another country. Since Brazil, and other african countries turned them down, its nice to see that someone is cooperating with Russia. Oh Wait! Libya might be in way to much debt to even pay the 3 billion dollars this will cost. But in actuallity the planes are up-to-date and could be semi-decent fighters. This could help stabalize Russia's economy more, but I doubt the deal will go through.

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US Missles in Europe.....Probably Not

George W. Bush accepted Moscow’s invitation and will come to Russia to meet Vladimir Putin. The US-Russian presidential meeting will take place on April 6 in the city of Sochi, on the Black Sea coast of Russia, after the NATO Summit and after Bush’s visit to Croatia.

“We are glad that President Bush accepted President Putin’s invitation to hold a work meeting and discuss a wide range of questions,” an official spokesman for the Russian presidential administration, Sergei Prikhodko said.

Bush’s national security advisor Steven Hadley said that the forthcoming talks will give an opportunity to estimate the achieved progress and see if the two countries can solve serval other problems.

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So Bush will meet once again with Putin. This time the only real issue the United States is trying to push is the missile defense system. However, this may prove to be another waste of time seeing how Russia doesn't trust the US, and neither does the US trust Russia. With both countries trying to make sure the other won't stab them in the back nothing can be accomplished. So for the sake of truth please no one get there hopes up about a missile defense system, because Russia will not have it.

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To change or not to change? That is the question...

Russia's presidential election this weekend may have been flawed, but it reflected that most Russians are pleased with the nation's strong economy and assertive foreign policy, experts and election observers said Monday.

Such views make it unlikely that President-elect Dmitry Medvedev, at least initially, will embark on a far different course from his predecessor and mentor, Vladimir Putin.

Medvedev (pronounced med-VEHD-ev) vowed to uphold Putin's policies. "We will increase stability, improve the quality of life and move forward on the path we have chosen," he said. "We will be able to preserve the course of President Putin."

Medvedev is "going to have an unreceptive public for any real changes … because a lot of people are satisfied," said Toby Gati, who was a State Department official under President Bill Clinton.

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Change has occurred in the form of a new President, but seeing as how Medvedev was handpicked by Putin, the policy of the country will most likely not change. Putin most likely supported him because he knew that he would be willing to follow his path and not change the path that Russia is going down. Though the article does say that the country is content with the way it is run, so maybe that is the way that they should live.

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