4,500 Kilometers Around Berlin

TOMSK/MOSCOW/HANOVER/BERLIN (Own report) - The "Siberian Year in Germany" has been inaugurated at the industrial fair in Hanover (located in the German state of Lower Saxony). The promotion and contact offensive is intended to prepare an extension of German/Russian economic cooperation, aimed at the world's most profitable region of natural resources. In the gigantic, in part, unexplored, region of Siberia, 90% of Russia's natural gas reserves are deposited which makes up 30% of the global reserves. Also located in this region are large metallurgic works and significant branches of the aerospace industry. Ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder holds the strings to these civilian-military activities in Siberia. Already back in 1992, Schroeder, at the time, prime minister of Lower Saxony promoted the Siberian initiatives of the BASF Chemical Corp. and had the parliament in Hanover pass a "Declaration of Partnership Cooperation." During the course of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and with Schroeder's state assistance, the BASF subsidiary, Wintershall, was able to gain entry in the exploitation of the resources in the area of Tyumen, where the largest portion of Siberian natural gas deposits are to be found. Even today, Tyumen, Wintershall and Schroeder pursue common interests. The natural gas supply to be pumped to Germany through the so-called Baltic Pipeline (North Stream) originates in Tyumen. Gerhard Schroeder is Chairman of the Board of the pipeline consortium.