Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Russia

North Korea Clears Way For Russian Trans-Korea Railroad

Kim Jong-Il, the leader of North Korea (file photo) (epa)

March 17, 2006 -- North Korea has agreed in principle to the creation of an international consortium to re-establish and rebuild a railway from Russia to the border with South Korea, the head of Russia's rail system says.

Russian Vessel Detained Off North Korean

TEXT SIZE - +

March 17, 2006

Vladimir Yakunin said $2.5 billion is needed to modernize the 800 kilometers of track running from North Korea to the South Korean border.

The preliminary agreement was reached after talks between Russian, North and South Korean officials in the city of Vladivostok in the Russian Far East. Negotiations about the railway link have been under way since 2001, but have foundered on the proposal to create a consortium, a spokeswoman for Russian Railways said.

China and Japan have previously expressed an interest in joining an international consortium.

(AFP, AP)

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin covers his face during a conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow on February 9.

Administrative (Resource) Breakdown

Administrative resources make up the glue that holds authoritarian structures like Putin's power vertical together. And there have been plenty of signs recently that this glue is weakening. More

Syrians in the northwestern town of Kfar Nubul pose with a cartoon depicting Russia

Angry Over Syria, Arab World Threatens Russian Boycott

Groups in a number of Arab states, angry over the Russian-Chinese veto of a UN resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, have called for a one-day boycott of Russian and Chinese goods on February 12. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More