Its nice russia just wanting to be friends. Russia had such a bad image for long, at least internationally, they may be starting to change that. Good on them.

This makes the Georgia and the US look even worse, especially after the Russian president's speech to the EU last week where he said that all Russia wants is to be friends and economic allies while the US is paranoid and warmongering.

Hmmm, this is definitely a play for global friendship.. but its a good one.

Maybe a calculated move by Russia in securing allies given that war generally follows periods of economic instability.
The worlds banks desperately need to raise their balance sheets, so they can lend their printed money to all sides of the conflict. The greater the destruction, the greater the end profits to the banks. They will receive the interest charged to both the victors and the defeated . Unfortunately, the defeated will be forced to pay war reparations, thus subsidising the victor nations. The ordinary people, who never wanted war in the first place, will however be the ones to suffer without any personal gains, unlike the serpent banksters.
Ordinary people need to unite and refuse to war again for the hidden hand regardless of their false flag attacks designed to swing people's emotions and attitudes in favour of waging war. Surely the last couple of hundred years of ever repeating wars for the serpent class has run its' course. High time to grow up and break free people.

This agreement was actually signed months ago. These islands were long disputed between the two nations. At one period in the 60's there was even a small-scale military confrontation with casualties.

The fact is - neither Russia nor China need these islands. They do not represent any fertile or usable land. Russia never had any use for them whatsoever, and China will likely leave them as they are. The contention was more about ego and determination than anything else.

So Russia thought that it would be a goodwill gesture to put the past behind them, and to just let China have them. It's not about land - it's about showing willingness and readiness to move forward and leave the past behind. This was the principal territorial dispute between the two nations, and it caused much unneeded anymosity during the Cold War. Hopefully this will improve relations between Russia and China.



I bet that this agreement is something to watch for the Japanese. There has been a long-standing disagreement between Russia and Japan regard several small unpopulated islands South of Sakhalin. These islands mean a great deal to the Japanese, and are mostly useless to Russia other than nearby fishing rights. Same goes for several rock islands off Norway -contributing to a dispute between Russia and Norway. I hope that Russia resolves these conflicts by similar goodwill gestures. It can really improve Russia's foreign relations without seeming weak, and without losing much if anything.

[edit on 14-10-2008 by maloy]