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President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama departed Friday morning for Southeast Asia, where they will spend the next ten days.

Boy, 5, blew £60,000 at shops A five-year-old boy went on a £60,000 shopping spree after finding a fortune in cash in his dad's safe. The boy took a gang of friends to a shopping mall and blew the lot on clothes, toys, bicycles, sweets, computers and games. His father Slobodan Markovic, a Serbian businessman, kept the money in a safe at home, only realised what had happened when his son and his friends came home with dozens of shopping bags.

Mega import deals with US likely soon By Jiang Wei (China Daily) Updated: 2007-04-18 07:10 China is likely to ink mega import deals, possibly amounting to $12 billion, with the United States during the second Sino-US strategic economic dialogue next month, in a move to narrow the trade gap. The talks, which will be co-chaired by Vice-Premier Wu Yi and US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, are the highest-profile dialogue mechanism over economic issues between the two. The proposed procurement delegation is likely to be led by Vice-Minister of Commerce Ma Xiuhong, covering a wide range of US agricultural and industrial...

Via this site or the news, I learn that the Venezuelan Government will acquire 100,000 AK-103 and AK-104 assault rifles from the Russians and license the manufacturing of another 200,000. While the discussion seems to center around the US or Russia difference and whether the guns are the rights one or not, I am simply flabbergasted that this Government will spend some US$ 300 million to acquire more guns and this price does not even include the bullets! Imagine a country where only twelve million Venezuelans are above 18, whose military already has more than half a million assault rifles...