Posted on 08/03/2006 1:41:53 PM PDT by Jedi Master Pikachu
The Russian government has backed a 17bn-rouble ($630m) plan to develop the Kuril Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
The draft plan for 2007-15 aims to improve the islands' energy and transport infrastructure, including the construction of an all-weather airport.
Russia has a long-standing territorial dispute with Japan over four Kuril islands, seized after World War II.
Meanwhile, Russia plans to expand its restricted border zones that could be as big as in Soviet times, reports say.
'Ignored region'
The government plans to spend nearly $1,000 for every resident of the chain of 56 Pacific islands a month - more than in any other region in Russia.
"This is an important Russian region. It is a remote region that has been ignored for a long time," Russia's First Vice-Premier, Dmitry Medvedev, was quoted as saying at the meeting by the NEWSru.com website.
Among the priorities is the construction of an all-weather airport, that Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said "must be built" in 2006.
He said that currently the Kurils did not have "a reliable air link" with mainland Russia, citing several instances when bad weather forced travellers to wait for weeks for their flights.
Mr Gref also said that Moscow had no plans for a handover of the islands to Japan, according to Russia's Itar-Tass news agency.
In the past, Moscow had said it may surrender two of the islands seized during World War II, but Japan wants all four returned.
The four southernmost islands are known as the southern Kurils in Russia, and the Northern Territories in Japan.
The dispute has prevented the two sides from signing a peace treaty formally ending World War II hostilities.
'Closed' border
The backing of the Kurils plan comes as Russia's security service FSB plans to expand the country's restricted border areas, according to Russia's Kommersant newspaper.
It said that large swathes of land near the border could be closed to outsiders unless they had a special permit.
Some border zones had already been expanded to as deep as 30km (19 miles), it said, and now the total area under the FSB control amounted to the size of France.
Kommersant also reported that the changes had provoked an angry outcry in the Russian Far East, where residents are now being prevented from entering beaches without special permission.
In Soviet times, Russia's vast border was controlled by the KGB, but that power was transferred to federal border guards in 1991.
In 2003, President Vladimir Putin handed control back to the FSB, which succeeded the KGB.
A $630 million project doesn't even merit a sideways glance in D.C. (sigh).
Some historians think Russia's land grab was more of a determining factor in causing the Japanese to surrender than the atom bombs. The Tokyo firestorms were worse; people are expendable; but land lost to the Soviets is a precious resource lost for centuries
Well, no, not the end of the story. The whole continental shelf in that area is probably lousy with fossil hydrocarbons. Very definitely including the Kuril Islands.
Give it back to Japan? Less than a snowball's chance in Hell.
A Businessweek "executive overview".
This is a description of Phase II, not yet started.
Japan gave up her claims to Karafuto in the 1870's in return for Russia giving up all claims to the Kuriles. Russia then tried to renege on the agreement, leading to the Russo-Japanese War where Russia got spanked bad and was forced to return the southern half of Karafuto.
During World War II, Russia had a non-agression/recognition of territorial integrety pact with Japan, an agreement which the Japanese never violated.
Russia has no right to keep any territories seized in the waning days of a war (after the atomic bomb) in which they entered in violation of a treaty.
To take it a step further, North Korea's very existence and China's communist regime owes their founding to Russia's violation of this treaty.
So if we are really going to set things right, the govenment in Taiwan has the right to rule in Beijing and the government in Seoul has the right to rule in Pyongyang.
The Japanese knew they were going to loose before either the nuclear bombs or Russia's assault on the Japanese home islands. Russia simply took the land, probably in part as a sort of revenge for Japan's beating them in the Russo-Japanese War.
And for World War 2, if Japan had attacked the Russians, Russia would have been in a pincer between Japan and Germany. Also, Japan would have been able to take sparsely populated land with lots of resources.
"In Soviet times, Russia's vast border was controlled by the KGB, but that power was transferred to federal border guards in 1991.
In 2003, President Vladimir Putin handed control back to the FSB, which succeeded the KGB."
Sounds like communism to me
History would have turned out entirely differently had Admiral Yamamoto's viewpoint prevailed over General Tojo's.
So using your logic - President Bush, when placing the Border Patrol under the Department of Homeland Security, also was engaging in "communism"? You really don't think things through do you?
I didn't know that Bush placed Texas off limits to US citizens?
I didn't claim he had - but maybe you should ask some Americans who have been to the Kurile Islands how "off limits" it really is... Still doesn't answer your claims that Putin placing the BG under the FSB is "communism."
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