DOES SLOVAK RIGHT-WING PARTY HAVE A NEW LEADER?
Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Yakovenko said on 4 May that President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush will “without a doubt” discuss cooperation on missile defense when they meet at St. Petersburg’s 300th anniversary celebration later this month, Interfax reported on 4 May. The issue, Yakovenko said, will be discussed in the context of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, which the two presidents signed in May 2002 and which, he predicted, will be ratified by the State Duma this month. Russia, Yakovenko said, is also discussing a potential European missile-defense system with NATO members in the NATO-Russia Council and is seeking a new UN treaty banning weapons in space and at space facilities similar to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. Russian Space Agency head Yurii Koptev said on 4 May that the United States wants to militarize space, calling such a move a “destabilizing factor” that would force Russia to review its “doctrine and plans…to deal with the
