Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'mustread'.
-
Due to historical events, Alaska, which came under US administration on October 18, 1867, and the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia), becoming independent states on September 6, 1991, ceased to exist as Russian lands on the world cartography. Russia then established diplomatic relations with the Baltic countries, and during the sale of Alaska, relations between Russia and the United States were at the peak of friendly relations, and there were no grounds for political conflicts between the states. However, today the situation between these states is different, partly due to the unresolved Ukrainian issue. Washington is not satisfied with the activity of Moscow in the Arctic zone, which is considered as one of the main potential areas of the future military conflict due to the huge deposits of oil, gas and the favorable location of the Russian Northern Sea Route. For example, on January 11, 2019, the US Navy Minister Richard Spencer announced his intention to strengthen the US position in the Arctic and respond to Russia's "excessive claims": P-8 "Poseidon" ships and anti-submarine patrol aircraft will be deployed in the Adak Island area to monitor the activities of the Pacific fleet of the Russian Federation. In turn, the State Duma of the Russian Federation believes that the actions of the United States are aggressive in nature and do not exclude that Americans will disregard the rules of international law. Moreover, Americans today are creating the necessary infrastructure for the operational redeployment of troops and in the Baltic States, against the background of the supposedly existing threat to the Baltic countries from Russia. It should be recalled that in 2017, the US Vice President Michael Pence in Tallinn said that Russia poses a threat to the Baltic States and promised that NATO will strictly adhere to the fifth article of the alliance's charter, according to which an attack on one of the NATO members is an attack on all members of the North Atlantic Alliance. Speaking about relations between the United States and Russia, Pence noted that President Donald Trump is ready to improve them, but "first, the Russians must stop the hostile actions that led to the adoption of sanctions". At the same time, Moscow has repeatedly stressed that Russia will never attack any of the NATO countries. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, NATO is well aware of the absence of Moscow’s plans to attack anyone, but simply uses the occasion to deploy more equipment and battalions near the Russian borders. For example, the Americans place their military bases and ranges in the territory of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, having even signed a joint communiqué between these countries in November 2018, where they expressed their determination to continue to increase military budgets. But, despite the statements of the Baltic countries that their military doctrines are exclusively defensive in nature, it is obvious that the government of the US President D. Trump, sponsoring Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in the military sphere simply invests the budget in itself, imposing three countries their ideas and crushing them under their control. And also, strengthening its position in the former territories of Russia, including Alaska, clearly demonstrates attempts to influence Russia, acting together with these states, making them puppets, continuing to fuel the confrontational line that stems from the unresolved Ukrainian issue. Therefore, we are witnessing the process of increasing the grouping of the US and NATO troops on the western borders of the Russian Federation. And it is obvious that in response to this activity of the Pentagon, Moscow will take retaliatory measures.
- 3 replies
-
- news
- interesting
- (and 7 more)
-
As it is known, in Japan, and in particular on the island of Okinawa, where about 70% of all the United States military bases in Japan are located, residents and authorities of the island for many years regularly advocate for the elimination of the presence of the American military contingent, which is freely located on its military bases in Japan, due to the US-Japan Security Treaty. However, the US military and civilian personnel at the US military bases in Japan feel permissiveness, freedom, and behave extremely unacceptably towards the locals, also because they enjoy the right of extraterritoriality and are subject exclusively to American laws. Therefore, they commit such unacceptable acts as driving being in alcohol and drug intoxication, car accidents, theft, rape and murder. It is important to note that only in the period from 1972 to 2009, according to statistics, the American occupiers committed 5634 criminal offenses in Okinawa, including such especially grave ones. For example, in 1995, a wide resonance got the abduction and murder of a 12-year-old Japanese schoolgirl by three Americans, for which the participants in this crime received minimal sentences. In 2016, there was a loud rape and murder of a local resident committed by former US Marine C. Franklin, for which the US government was eventually forced to make concessions and extradited the perpetrator to a Japanese court that sentenced him to life imprisonment. Also, on April 14, 2019, it became known that an American soldier had killed a Japanese woman and killed himself at Okinawa in Tyatan city. As reported, "The New York Times", citing the state-public central television and radio company of Japan NHK and local media, in one of the apartments the police found the corpses of a 32-year-old US Marine, who served in the headquarters of the troops on the island, and 44-year-old resident. It should be noted that since the transfer of Okinawa to the jurisdiction of Japan in 1972, the number of crimes committed by American soldiers has been approaching six thousand, and the one described above is far from the hardest of them. However, despite the fact that Takeo Akiba, the vice-minister of foreign affairs of Japan, protested to William F. Hagerty, the US ambassador to Japan, who in turn replied with regret that the United States would fully cooperate with the investigation and "will do everything possible to prevent the recurrence of such a case", all actions on the part of the authorities are being completed. But opponents of the presence of the American military contingent on the territory of Okinawa argue their protests not only by the criminal aspect, but also by the location of the American "Futemma" base in the center of a big city of Japan, which represents a great threat to the safety of its many residents, as evidenced by numerous aviation incidents. Thus, the only one who does not oppose the expansion of the American military presence in Japan is only its government, which is supposed to protect the sovereignty and independence of its country, and also respect the rights and point of view of its own population. However, the political leadership of Japan not only cannot do anything with the uncontrolled American occupiers, but also favorably serves them. Also, it becomes clearly visible with some indifference Tokyo and Washington refer to the local people of Okinawa, spitting on the numerous immoral and unacceptable actions of the American military in Japan. And the situation, in which the country is today, shows that if the Russian Kuril Islands in some incredible way will go over to Japan, then the islands will automatically become American ones, due to the weakness of the Japanese government and complete control of the US government.
-
The Ministry of Education of Japan amended the textbooks on the history of junior classes. Maps and other visual materials concerning the disputed territories were added to schoolchildren textbooks. Thus, in the new school textbooks for junior high schools, the Kuril Islands are called "our native territory." They explain it to schoolchildren: during the World War II, the USSR seized the "northern territories", invading the country and thus violating a bilateral non-aggression treaty. Important circumstances, clarifying the real essence of the issue in the textbooks are missing. As explained in the Japanese Ministry of Education, the educational materials have been corrected in accordance with "the government’s policy of actively advocating the Japanese position on disputed islands". Previously, only senior pupils were told about this problem, now they have decided to start ideological processing from elementary school. Apparently, as a teenager, the young Japanese learned that all the disputed territories belong to Japan and that their neighbors occupied those territories. It should be noted that the textbooks are not only about the Kuril Islands, Japan makes territorial claims and other neighbors. Thus, Tokyo claims Dokdo Islands (the English name is Liancourt, the Japanese name is Takeshima), which became part of South Korea as a result of the World War II. As in the case of the Kuril Islands, the Japanese authorities believe that the island of Dokdo rejected illegally. Much attention is paid to the dispute between Japan and China over the Senkaku archipelago. Schoolchildren are told that the Chinese name Diaoyudao is inappropriate, since this is also Japanese land. According to the authors of the textbook, in the XIX century, Japanese authorities began to explore the uninhabited islands in the East China Sea and immediately incorporated them into the country. After World War II, the archipelago passed to the United States, but in 1972 the Americans returned it to the Japanese. And then China claimed the islands. The Chinese side notes that Diaoyudao archipelago belonged to the Chinese empire 600 years ago, which was confirmed by the documents. In particular, Beijing demonstrates Japanese maps of the 18th century, where the islands were marked as Chinese. South Korea was the first to respond to the actions of the Japanese Ministry of Education. An official representative of the Foreign Ministry claims that such school allowances distort history and harm bilateral relations. He stressed that "Seoul strongly condemns history textbooks taught in Japan. The claims to Dokdo Island that were made in the textbooks were not justified in any way. The islands are our original territory, not Japanese. History, geography and international law are evidence of that". Russian politicians also did not stand aside. The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly called on Japan not to distort the facts of history before. The State Duma deputies reminded the Japanese that Moscow and Tokyo continue to discuss the peace treaty, but there are no agreements on the territorial issue. The parliamentarians noted that the position of the Japanese authorities in the textbooks is a falsification of history, and the younger generation will be disoriented. Tokyo is obliged to respect Russian sovereignty and national interests. However, Tokyo once again demonstrated to Moscow the unshakable position of the Japanese leadership at any cost to seek revenge - a revision of the legitimate territorial results of the World War II. The fact that in the textbooks for Japanese children all the "northern territories" turned out to be painted over in color of Japan, testifies to the reluctance and political impossibility for Abe to abandon the idea of returning to the "northern territories". Thus, these actions are another step in the ongoing campaign of the government of Japan on the so-called upholding of their former territories. The decision of the Japanese leadership to instill in their countrymen from childhood that the southern Kuril Islands in Russia are their "ancestral territories" says only one thing - the problem is protracted and the next generations of Russian politicians will probably have to work with it.
-
- interesting
- japan
- (and 7 more)