MOSCOW (Reuters) - When Russia opens a "billion-dollar bridge" on its Pacific coast this summer, Vladimir Putin can expect an enthusiastic audience among the 5,000 islanders whom it will connect to the mainland, at an eye-popping cost per head. But the president will be looking, too, for attention from a few miles further off, in China, whose rise as a trading and diplomatic partner but also as a potential rival for control of thinly populated Siberia's resources has brought a new focus in Moscow on both business and military investment in the far east. ...
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June 5th, 2012
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