Russia earns 8 billion dollars on arms

The volume of Russian military production export in 2008 has exceeded $US 8 billion, the Deputy PM of Russia Sergey Ivanov said. Speaking at the Gold Idea award ceremony in Moscow, he called Russia “one of three leading exporters of military production”.

“At a rough guess, the volume of weapon export in 2008 will exceed $US 8 billion, and the orders for military-technical cooperation with Russia will reach a sum of $US 33 billion. Despite the global financial crisis no customers of Russian military products have called off their orders”, he said during his speech.

Sergey Ivanov also noted that the Russian government intends to allocate extra financial support to the domestic military-industrial enterprises.

“We will not leave our military industry alone with problems connected with the world financial crisis”, he said.

In 2007 Russia sold $US 7 billion worth of arms.

Anachronous discovery: Swiss watch in ancient tomb

Chinese archaeologists have found a tiny Swiss watch in a tomb dating back to the Ming dynasty, which they believed has been intact for four centuries.

The watch was discovered by scientists making a documentary, reports ananova.com website.

The out-of-time piece of jewellery was pressed into the soil covering one of the coffins.

The watch is stopped at 10:06, and there is the word “Swiss” on its back.

Work at the archaeological site has been suspended and experts from Beijing have been called in to help solve this mystery, which appears to belong in a sci-fi flick.