The first in the history of bilateral relations official visit by a Russian leader to Brazil "is to sum up the joint work on promoting ties with the largest country in South America and to synchronize the two countries' approaches to the main challenges of our times", according to Russian Federation presidential aide Sergey Prikhodko.

The Russian president has embarked on an official visit to Chile, the first one in the history of bilateral relations. Immediately after arrival, Vladimir Putin had a meeting with the president of that country, Ricardo Lagos. A large package of bilateral documents was signed after the talks.

President Vladimir Putin and President George Bush have reached preliminary agreement to hold their next summit meeting in early 2005

Chinese experts are expressing their interest in cooperating with Russian companies in order to develop active phased array radars, Yuriy Guskov, first deputy designer general of the Fazotron-NIIR Corporation, told Interfax Military News Agency.

if we don't sell weapons somebody else will, right? get back to millbank. for the rest of us, try doing something about the arms trade. begin here:

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/11/301630.html

or anywhere

listen up.

"we"? who's that? not me, certainly- never knowingly sold arms to anyone...

one needs to be informed in order to act effectively. i did not know about Russia selling to Brazil. now i do. i am now better informed than i was. some people might be happy with knowing that the arms trade is "A Bad Thing". i think it is important to know a little more than that.

millbank?

i prefer the Connaught, darling!

The thing is, I just don't know if it's a bad thing anymore.

In a world where the US is arming Israel, Indonesia, various cruel regimes and dictatorships all over the world, and threatening all kinds of things to countries it doesn't agree with, I'm kind of happy that someone is selling weapons to, for example, Iran, so it can defend itself if need be. Russia also recently sold Venezuela some helicopters, which has a progressive regime, while the US sold it's neighbour Colombia some more tanks, which has a right-wing regime.

But then, I'm not a big fan of Russia, it has to be said, and of what they are doing in Chechnya. Making a deal with the devil is risky business. But if the US keep pursuing their imperial policies, you know, I want their troops to be met with showers of bullets, not with showers of flowers.

Maybe I have an anger management problem these days...

yes the USA is certainly keeping israel well up to date with the latest in high tech killing machines.
But I saw a BBC report recently which stated that Israel had recently overtaken russia as the main supplier
of arms to India. There are arms factories all over europe. It's a very profitable industry although a lot of
the firms hide behind facades and pretend to be Electronix companies and the like..
good on you guys who are trying to stop these crooks that is basically what most of them are and the mafia
looks after the logistix side of things, embargo's are very handy for bumping up the price .