As the Moscow Times reports, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov invited Japan to work with Russia on building a 10-km bridge to connect Sakhalin Island with the Russian mainland.

Landing missions on celestial bodies in the Solar System will form the backbone of Russia's space research program in the coming decades, a prominent Russian expert said yesterday.

While NASA is busy trying to figure out which programs it will have to delay or kill if federal spending is sequestered, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced, today, that its next orbital manned mission, Shenzhou-10, will launch between June and August this year.

Addressing the joint session of the Upper and Lower House of the Indian Parliament at the start of the budget session on Feb. 20, India's President Pranab Mukherjee told the parliamentarians "several space missions are planned for 2013, including India's first mission to Mars and the launch of our first navigational satellite."

Some events of the past week illustrate what is becoming the "new normal" for China, but sadly, NOT for most of the rest of the world. Sunday saw China's second west-to-east gas pipeline, the world's longest line, became fully operational, and four new subway lines opened for travel in Beijing.

The world’s longest high-speed rail route was inaugurated on Wednesday, as the first bullet train linking China's capital with Guangzhou, left Beijing on Wednesday morning. The distance of 2,298 km is equivalent to a trip from Washington, DC, to Houston, Texas. The travel time of 22-hours on the existing lines will now be reduced to about 8 hours.

While the media focuses upon Russian President Vladimir Putin's signing of a bill regarding U.S. adoptions of Russian children, Putin’s schedule over recent days reflects his focus upon more serious strategic matters, such as strengthening Russia’s alliances with India.

As the headlines today are dominated by shrieking reports over the rate of the melting Arctic Sea ice, several nations of the Pacific are taking advantage of this fact, in pursuit of new Arctic sea routes. While many immediately assume that this fact of melting Arctic ice means than human economic activity must be halted, these nations are not so easily fooled.

While Hillary Clinton's State Department has taken credit (with justification) for opening up relations with Myanmar and dropping the useless sanctions policies imposed for years by the U.S., it is often played as an effort to drag Myanmar away from China. This is also how many viewed Obama’s recent “historic” trip to that nation.

In a beautiful affirmation of the rights of the peoples and nations of this planet to develop their resources, the builder of the 3.5-billion-dollar Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River in Laos announced a ground-breaking ceremony for the beginning of river-bed work this Wednesday, Nov. 7, despite howls of protest from the Queen's Green hoards.

China's Institute of Atomic Energy announced yesterday that its indigenously-developed China Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) has passed its final reactor checks, and is ready for full operation. The small demonstration reactor, which has a generating capacity of 20MW, achieved nuclear fission criticality in July 2010, and was connected to the electric grid a year later.

An agreement has been signed between astronomers and space scientists in China and the U.S. to exchange data and cooperate in using lunar science instruments that will be on Chinese and American spacecraft. Next year, China plans to launch its Chang'e-3 mission, which will land a rover on the Moon.

When the United States dropped out of the ExoMars mission with the European Space Agency last year, ESA invited Russia to become its partner. Now, as the U.S. also has no firm plans for lunar exploration, Europe and Russia are teaming up for a multi-mission effort to explore the Moon together.

Following the successful launch of its 3,400 kg GSAT-10 communications satellite--the heaviest ever built by India--aboard an Ariane-5 rocket, Russia Today (RT) said on Sept. 30 that India is stepping up its space program with a higher budget, the launch of a new satellite, and a proposed mission to Mars.

Were the U.S. to proceed with a bold plan for our space program, carrying out follow-up missions to Curiosity for which plans already exist, we would find willing international collaborators, also eager to venture into space and to Mars.

China and Argentina signed a space cooperation treaty on July 20, by which a tracking, command, and data-acquisition center will be built in the province of Neuquen, Argentina, containing an antenna for research of outerspace.

“...once the election was over in Russia, and Putin came in with a solid position, then they began to sing the song that they wanted to sing. And the China situation has changed, the Japan situation has conspicuously changed on the question of getting the nuclear plants back into function. All of these things are part of the same pattern.”

In this report we take up the recent speech given by Vladimir Putin on Russia's policy to continue cooperation with China and to extend that to Europe and the United States. We also take a look at the developments in Syria, the recent findings in the fast and furious trial as well as the latest on Glass-Steagall.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a meeting of Russian ambassadors and permanent representatives in Moscow, in the biannual meeting of this group. The theme was titled "Russia in a Changing World: Stable Priorities and New Opportunities."

A clear line has been drawn between the Transatlantic nations that seek to hold on to their bankrupt system, and the pro-development Pacific oriented nations that seek genuine progress. Russia and China have recently begun allying with kindred interests in South America to seek new development agreements.