Yakutsk, Russia - The visionary project to create a rail link between the United States and Russia across the Bering Strait edged a little closer to reality this week, according to officials at a major infrastructure conference in Yakutsk, reports Konstantin Krylov of UPF-Russia.

The idea for a tunnel, first proposed over one hundred years ago, was again championed by UPF Founder Dr. Sun Myung Moon during his UPF Peace Tours of 2005 and 2006 as a way to bring peace by breaking through cultural and religious boundaries as well as geographic and political divisions.

A project of this size could only move forward as part of a combined international effort of will, and for several years the USA and Russia, as well as Europe and China, have been preoccupied with other issues, including the current world economic crisis. Yet, as Dr. Moon pointed out in 2005, the costs of building a tunnel – estimated at around $200bn – are really quite small compared to the costs of all the conflicts in the world, which run into trillions.

Link to the London Times report

Read more about the proposed Bering Strait crossing.