#1

Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he wants to bring ex-Soviet states into a “Eurasian Union” in an article which outlined his first foreign policy initiative as he prepares to return to the Kremlin as the country’s next president.

Putin said the new union would build on an existing Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan which from next year will remove all barriers to trade, capital and labor movement between the three countries.

“We are not going to stop there and are setting an ambitious goal — to achieve an even higher integration level in the Eurasian Union,” Putin wrote in an article which will be published in Izvestia newspaper on October 4.



http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE7926ZK20111003

#2

#3
Kool New EUAFTA??
#4
eurasia! yes!
#5
a communal eurasian sk8park siick im scoping a putin 5050 boardslide
#6
Never gonna happen. Comrade Lukashenko (PBUH) has long struggled against union with the fascist Russian oppressor state, and will never allow the glorious nation of Belarus to be overcome by Putin's blatant imperialism!
#7
seriously though, this is yet more evidence of the increasing inevitability of a worldwide economic superstructure akin to the EU taking shape. see my science fiction setting, Age of Avarice, for more details.
#8
Bhadrakumar on Putin's visit to China and developing mutual interests:

Energy cooperation, which is an important vector of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership, will inevitably form the focal point of the visit. But as the rare "double veto" over Syria at the United Nations Security Council this week signifies, the Sino-Russian partnership is assuming a new flavor. The two countries have never had such a shared concern over the Middle East or displayed such a common will to preserve their interests in the region.

Putin is traveling to China against a much bigger backdrop of Russia's relations with the West, especially the United States. Not only has the US-Russia "reset" ground to a halt, things are actually looking down as if the clock has been rewound to an earlier, pre-Barack Obama, era.

Across the board, the Obama administration is resuscitating contentious issues - principally, missile defense, Caspian rivalries, a "greater Central Asia" strategy, and so on. These issues also happen to impact on China's core interests, and the big question is to what extent Moscow and Beijing will regard it useful or expedient to coordinate their stances.



http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/MJ08Ag01.html