Eurasian Transport Infrastructure Advances

July 17 (EIRNS)—Goods can now be transported from Russia's western borders to the Pacific Ocean in 11 days at a speed of more than 1,000 kilometers per day. This was announced by Alexei Mironov, the head of Russian Railways Central Transport Control Directorate, at the second UIC (International Union of Railways) Global Rail Conference.

"Customs documentation procedures for freight have been simplified, and a range of other measures have been taken to simplify the procedure for crossing borders. A simplified procedure has been put in place for declaring cargo transported in containers, which has reduced the standing time of containers on the border from three to five days to a few hours. The application of modern information technologies enables us to control the movement of carriages and containers in real time," Mironov said. Mironov said work on introducing progressive combined transport technologies in Russia, in particular of flat wagons carrying trailers or full road trains, needs to be stepped up. He noted that the Russian Railways company has gained specific experience from test runs of flat cars carrying trailers, and that this rolling stock has been developed and tested.

Mironov said that the cooperation between Germany, Russia, and China was particularly important in developing the transcontinental trade route. In addition he noted that the North-South International Transport Corridor, stretching through Russia from Scandinavia to ports in Iran and India, has reduced delivery time compared to sea routes by between one-third and one-half. On her recent visit to Russia, German Chancellor Angela Merkel witnessed the signing of an agreement between Siemens and Russian Railways, in which Siemens agreed to produce 1,200 electric carriages for the Russian suburban rail system, some of the production being located in Russia itself. In addition, agreements were signed involving German assistance in modernizing the Russian rail hubs.

LaRouche's Latest Widely Read in Russia

July 20 (EIRNS)—Lyndon LaRouche's July 12 release, "End-game Is On: Getting Out in Time!" has been issued in Russian and posted to EIR's Russian website. Meanwhile, the Russian VVP magazine article on "End-Game," leading with LaRouche's statement at the State Duma in 1995 about a derivatives vs. physical economy discontinuity marking the end of the system, was a "Top 5" Russian blog entry last week, visited over 110,000 times (~ 20,000 different users) on author Alexei Perochinny's "Alexsword" blog, in addition to the 20,000 print circulation of VVP, and more readers at many other locations where it was reposted. That article appear in the current InDepth section of EIR, with a short critical commentary by LaRouche.