I don´t want to insult our Croatian friends but, from what I´ve heard corruption is very widespread in Croatia. With a deal of this size I´m afraid there will be another “Saudi deal”. The winner the F-16 😎

I am sure that our Czech members will correct me if I am wrong, but the original deal for the Gripen failed by just one vote in the Czech parliament. As a result the sale was re-worked so that it was Government-to-Government (SAAB had to sell to the Sweden Gov’t who in turn sold it to the Czech Gov’t, rather than through another company selling onto the Czech Gov’t). I understand there was ample compensation all round but the Czech Gov’t did not lose out.

The leasing option with a purchase option at the end of the lease term for new build aircraft with lower running costs rather than an outright upfront purchase of second hand planes might have better cash flow advantages for some Governments unless they’re going to get freebies for political reasons.

Beautiful shot Robbo! Framing in black makes the picture.

Distiller, btw where is that unknown city?

Andrewman, great shot!

Mine nowhere as exciting but for the first time in London the wind was strong enough to take the shoe off my friend by the outdoor ice rink in Canary Wharf. Luckily I caught it (and put it back on her:p). The wind was so strong you could hardly breathe but for some strange reason all the girls looked great in skirts!:D :diablo:

…but the men were Sergei Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard (was a body guard to Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar who recently was vomiting blood in Dublin) and businessman who runs a security company in Moscow, Dmitry Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko.

Dmitry Kovtun one of the three men that met Mr Litvinenko at the Pine Bar in London’s Millennium Hotel on 1 November has fallen into a coma in Moscow (Russian Interfax News agency and BBC newsflash 6 December).

Another Russian who was at the same meeting, ex-spy Andrei Lugovoy, is also in hospital.

These men came to London allegedly to see the Arsenal-CSKA Moscow Champions League match in the Gunners Emirates stadium on 1 November. Trace of Polonium-210 have been found in Arsenal’s Emirates stadium as well as on the British Airways Boeing 767 flight from Moscow that brought the men to London.

Russian prosecutors are currently investigating what they are treating as the murder of Mr Litvinenko and the attempted murder of Mr Kovtun.

A statement from the Russian prosecutor’s office said checks had established Mr Litvinenko died as a result of poisoning

Earlier today, seven workers at the Millennium Hotel’s Pine bar tested positive for low levels of polonium-210, the radioactive substance blamed for Litvinenko’s death, according to the UK’s Health Protection Agency

After a Muslim prayer service, ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko was laid to rest Thursday in a rain-swept funeral at London’s Highgate Cemetery attended by a Russian tycoon, a Chechen rebel leader and other exiled Kremlin critics.
In Moscow, Russian prosecutors opened their own investigation into the former KGB agent’s poisoning death.

Self-exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky, Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev and some 50 mourners consoled Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, and 12-year-old son, Anatoly, beside his (lead lined radiation-proof) dark oak casket as a steady rain fell.

Litvinenko, who also criticized Putin’s policies in Chechnya, reportedly had converted to Islam before his death, and some of the mourners were dressed in traditional Muslim robes. They left red flowers and an orange and yellow wreath at the stone gate of the famous cemetery where communist revolutionary Karl Marx is buried.

Earlier Thursday, Zakayev and Litvinenko’s father, Walter, joined hundreds of Muslims who had gathered at London’s Regent’s Park Mosque for regular daily prayer to attend a memorial service, where the imam recited a funeral prayer.

(Associated Press, London, Thursday 6 December)

Sorry for my rant, I’m sure I’ll get crucified for it, but as one of the members on the forum who likely has more enemies than friends here…. ….

That’s not true Coop, people on this forum who are genuine aviation enthusiasts respect those who post interesting threads that add to our aviation knowledge (someone springs to mind…;) ) . Also, I would add there must be only a tiny handful who don’t actually like the US or Americans (don’t ask me why:p) but there is also a fair number that see nothing wrong with disagreeing with some aspects of US foreign policy (no different from some Americans who do the same thing!).

You have to stand up to tyranny and oppression and terror or they will never go away….

I agree with you. However, I would also add that I voted for Blair (:eek: ) but I admit I was taken in and in hindsight would not vote for him again. Similarly, only a few Americans were against the Viet Nam war in the beginning in the late sixties (pinko liberal degenerates!…) but the general consensus by 1975 came to be that it was a good thing for the US to pull out and stop the losses at 50,000 servicemen.

And what about these?

Matthew 12:30: He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. (This one sounds very familiar, for some reason…… 😉 )

😀 😀 😀

People of all faiths (and of none) are happily oppressing, assaulting and butchering one another on a daily basis the wide world over. A large fraction of them are doing so in the name of what they claim to be their various Gods.

For my part, I still contend that the common factor in all of this is Man’s inhumanity to Man and that pretending that such acts are only carried out by those of a single faith flies in the face of both reason and of fact.

Well said Grey Area! So bleeding obvious even the blind can see! 😉 (A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat!)