Russia's Putin says wants to build "Eurasian Union"

Reuters via yahoo ^ | 10/03/11 | Gleb Bryanski

[barmag25]

MOSCOW (Reuters) - 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. Putin said last month he would run in the March 2012 presidential election and his current public approval ratings show that he is set to win. Putin's initiative comes as Russia nears the end of its 18-year-old negotiations to join the World Trade Organization. In the article Putin made no secret of his skepticism about the global trade watchdog. "The process of finding new post-crisis global development models is moving forward with difficulty. For example, the Doha round (of international trade talks) has practically stopped. There are objective difficulties inside the WTO," he wrote.

[Billthedrill]

That's great! In Russian, it'd be CCP, but unfortunately that's already taken by the Canadian Conservative Party, the Chinese Communist Party, the Community College of Philadelphis, all that...but CCCP, that's got some serious rhythm to it. We should copyright this stuff and make the buggers donate to FR for the usage fees.

[WVNan]

If I’m not mistaken, the Bible calls it Gog and Magog.

[ransomnote]

Yes, I remember the Commissar who told me that the USSR had a Constitution ‘just like the US’ has. But then, he also confided in me that the Soviets had composed film clips juxtaposing the music and lyrics of Louis Armstrong’s song What a Wonderful World to old film clips of American race wars, whites beating blacks with batons, crosses burning on lawns and klansman holding rallys etc. - just to ‘help’ their people and the rest of the world understand what the US really stood for,’cherished’. Hey they really were just like...the Left in the US, huh?

[spetznaz]

Wow. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes. While I may not necessarily see a new Russia as necessarily ‘evil’ (in some ways Russia has been becoming more Christian and capitalist), I am all the same fully cognizant that this turn of events 100% DEFINITELY requires a strong US and a strong US president. Especially considering that the new ‘Eurasian Union’ will not have the inate problems that plagued the old Soviet Union (e.g. a socialist economy), and that at the same time an even bigger potential threat (China) is also a growing capitalist economy (with a communist political heart) and certain designs. If cloning works a certain chap called Ronald needs to be brought back, because the way the world is going it is looking more and more ‘interesting.’ A weaker US, a far stronger China, and now a Russia (that has been getting quite rich for the last decade) now calling for a ‘Eurasian Union.’

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks barmag25.

Hey Europe! Go for it!