Murphy's Law: July 18, 2002

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Russia will not exhibit its combat aircraft at the Farnborough air show [22-28 July] for the first time in the past 12 years, years to avoid having the planes seized under a court suit filed by the Swiss company Noga. Noga is demanding that the Russian government pay back $63 million for food and commodities supplied to Russia in 1991 and 1992. The company claims that it has not been paid, so it made several attempts at seizing Russian aircraft and other state-owned assets abroad. Director-general of the Sukhoi aircraft corporation Mikhail Pogosyan said on 16 July that they were not going to expose their planes to the threat of arrest. Pogosyan did not know what measures the Russian government or other state bodies were planning to take to avoid the second arrest of Russian planes abroad. The first incident of that kind happened at the Le Bourget air show in France last year - Adam Geibel