The Bering Strait:
global context is needed, says British author
JAMES OLIVER, theauthor of The
Bering Strait Crossing published worldwide in
2006, has this to say about the Russia's recently announced
(April 2007) TKM-World Link initiative.
"Russia's proposals for a
multi-modal transport and energy corridor between Eurasia
and the Americas across the Bering Strait needs to be
viewed in the global context (“Hopes for Bering Strait
tunnel linking Russia and Alaska revived", IHT
, Friday 20 th April, and numerous newspapers worldwide.)
"As the only British (or EU) delegate
to attend the 24 April conference in Moscow at the Russian
Academy of Sciences, I am able to report that geography
lessons do not come much bigger. "
The overall plan is now being termed
the TKM-World Link, and is integral with Russian Railways
(RZD) recently announced strategy for 2016-2030 to reach
out for Uelen on the Bering Strait with a rail corridor
extending over 2,100 miles from Yakutsk via the Sea of
Okhotsk to reach the Intercontinental Divide.
"The world's press is inclined
to view the project as one big, inflexible scheme, which
makes no sense of the reality: the North Pacific corridor
is already the globe's richest trade route. As such, the
strategic locus for the overall Beringia scheme, and its
many components, has global implications - tunnel or no
tunnel – for energy and transport in the 21 st century.
"
The Bering Strait is the world's
geographical crossroads
The familiar maps of the Mercator projection
inadvertently thrust the strait to the extremes of the
chart. A Pacific-centred or global view reveals the 53-mile
wide Bering Strait as the world's geographical nexus:
(N-S) between the Arctic Ocean and Pacific Ocean; and
(E-W) Eurasia and the Americas. The strait, then, has
the potential for: inter- and multi-modal overland crossings
(the air corridor is already in place) and for the emergent
northern seas routes, since the strait forms the confluence
of the Northwest Passage (USA-Canada) and the Northern
Sea Route (Norway-Russia. Exploitation of this potential
has as much to do with the political software (a treaty
or agreement is needed) as much as any grandiose engineering
proposal to link the continents.
"The governments of the USA and
Canada, with their North Pacific allies, and the agencies
f the UN and the EU, now need to find the courage or resolve
to respond to Russia's historic initiative.
"The realisation of the globe's
crossroads, in an era of globalisation, is not something
for Mother Russia to pursue alone. "
Refer also to: Http://www.beringstraitcrossing.com
Posted: 14 May 2007
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