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Muon-catalyzed fusion

Muon-catalyzed fusion (abbreviated as μCF or MCF) is a process allowing nuclear fusion to take place at temperatures significantly lower than the temperatures required for thermonuclear fusion, even at room temperature or lower. It is one of the few known ways of catalyzing nuclear fusion reactions.

Muons are unstable subatomic particles which are similar to electrons but 207 times more massive. If a muon replaces one of the electrons in a hydrogen molecule, the nuclei are consequently drawn 186 times closer than in a normal molecule, due to the reduced mass being 186 times the mass of an electron. When the nuclei move closer together, the fusion probability increases, to the point where a significant number of fusion events can happen at room temperature.

Methods for obtaining muons, however, require far more energy than can be produced by the resulting fusion reactions. Muons have a mean lifetime of $2.2 µs$, much longer than many other subatomic particles but nevertheless far too brief to allow their useful storage.

To create useful room-temperature muon-catalyzed fusion, reactors would need a cheap, efficient muon source and/or a way for each individual muon to catalyze many more fusion reactions.

History
Andrei Sakharov and F.C. Frank predicted the phenomenon of muon-catalyzed fusion on theoretical grounds before 1950. Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich also wrote about the phenomenon of muon-catalyzed fusion in 1954. Luis W. Alvarez et al., when analyzing the outcome of some experiments with muons incident on a hydrogen bubble chamber at Berkeley in 1956, observed muon-catalysis of exothermic p–d, proton and deuteron, nuclear fusion, which results in a helion, a gamma ray, and a release of about 5.5 MeV of energy. The Alvarez experimental results, in particular, spurred John David Jackson to publish one of the first comprehensive theoretical studies of muon-catalyzed fusion in his ground-breaking 1957 paper. This paper contained the first serious speculations on useful energy release from muon-catalyzed fusion. Jackson concluded that it would be impractical as an energy source, unless the "alpha-sticking problem" (see below) could be solved, leading potentially to an energetically cheaper and more efficient way of utilizing the catalyzing muons.

Potential benefits
If muon-catalyzed d–t nuclear fusion is realized practically, it will be a much more attractive way of generating power than conventional nuclear fission reactors because muon-catalyzed d–t nuclear fusion (like most other types of nuclear fusion), produces far fewer harmful (and far less long-lived) radioactive wastes.

The large number of neutrons produced in muon-catalyzed d–t nuclear fusions may be used to breed fissile fuels from fertile material – for example, thorium-232 could breed uranium-233 in this way. The fissile fuels that have been bred can then be "burned," either in a conventional critical nuclear fission reactor or in an unconventional subcritical fission reactor, for example, a reactor using nuclear transmutation to process nuclear waste, or a reactor using the energy amplifier concept devised by Carlo Rubbia and others.

Another benefit of muon-catalyzed fusion is that the fusion process can start with pure deuterium gas without tritium. Plasma fusion reactors like ITER or Wendelstein X7 need tritium to initiate and also need a tritium factory. Muon-catalyzed fusion generates tritium under operation and increases operating efficiency up to an optimum point when the deuterium:tritium ratio reaches about 1:1. Muon-catalyzed fusion can operate as a tritium factory and deliver tritium for material and plasma fusion research.

Problems facing practical exploitation
Except for some refinements, little has changed since Jackson's 1957 assessment of the feasibility of muon-catalyzed fusion other than Vesman's 1967 prediction of the hyperfine resonant formation of the muonic (d–μ–t)+ molecular ion which was subsequently experimentally observed. This helped spark renewed interest in the whole field of muon-catalyzed fusion, which remains an active area of research worldwide. However, as Jackson observed in his paper, muon-catalyzed fusion is "unlikely" to provide "useful power production ... unless an energetically cheaper way of producing μ−-mesons can be found."

One practical problem with the muon-catalyzed fusion process is that muons are unstable, decaying in $2.2 us$ (in their rest frame). Hence, there needs to be some cheap means of producing muons, and the muons must be arranged to catalyze as many nuclear fusion reactions as possible before decaying.

Another, and in many ways more serious, problem is the "alpha-sticking" problem, which was recognized by Jackson in his 1957 paper. The α-sticking problem is the approximately 1% probability of the muon "sticking" to the alpha particle that results from deuteron-triton nuclear fusion, thereby effectively removing the muon from the muon-catalysis process altogether. Even if muons were absolutely stable, each muon could catalyze, on average, only about 100 d-t fusions before sticking to an alpha particle, which is only about one-fifth the number of muon catalyzed d–t fusions needed for break-even, where as much thermal energy is generated as electrical energy is consumed to produce the muons in the first place, according to Jackson's rough estimate.

More recent measurements seem to point to more encouraging values for the α-sticking probability, finding the α-sticking probability to be around 0.3% to 0.5%, which could mean as many as about 200 (even up to 350) muon-catalyzed d–t fusions per muon. Indeed, the team led by Steven E. Jones achieved 150 d–t fusions per muon (average) at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility. The results were promising and almost enough to reach theoretical break-even. Unfortunately, these measurements for the number of muon-catalyzed d–t fusions per muon are still not enough to reach industrial break-even. Even with break-even, the conversion efficiency from thermal energy to electrical energy is only about 40% or so, further limiting viability. The best recent estimates of the electrical "energy cost" per muon is about $6 GeV$ with accelerators that are (coincidentally) about 40% efficient at transforming electrical energy from the power grid into acceleration of the deuterons.

As of 2012, no practical method of producing energy through this means has been published, although some discoveries using the Hall effect show promise.

Alternative estimation of breakeven
According to Gordon Pusch, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory, various breakeven calculations on muon-catalyzed fusion omit the heat energy the muon beam itself deposits in the target. By taking this factor into account, muon-catalyzed fusion can already exceed breakeven; however, the recirculated power is usually very large compared to power out to the electrical grid (about 3–5 times as large, according to estimates). Despite this rather high recirculated power, the overall cycle efficiency is comparable to conventional fission reactors; however the need for 4–6 MW electrical generating capacity for each megawatt out to the grid probably represents an unacceptably large capital investment. Pusch suggested using Bogdan Maglich's "migma" self-colliding beam concept to significantly increase the muon production efficiency, by eliminating target losses, and using tritium nuclei as the driver beam, to optimize the number of negative muons.

In 2021, Kelly, Hart and Rose produced a μCF model whereby the ratio, Q, of thermal energy produced to the kinetic energy of the accelerated deuterons used to create negative pions (and thus negative muons through pion decay) was optimized. In this model, the heat energy of the incoming deuterons as well as that of the particles produced due to the deuteron beam impacting a tungsten target was recaptured to the extent possible, as suggested by Gordon Pusch in the previous paragraph. Additionally, heat energy due to tritium breeding in a lithium-lead shell was recaptured, as suggested by Jändel, Danos and Rafelski in 1988. The best Q value was found to be about 130% assuming that 50% of the muons produced were actually utilized for fusion catalysis. Furthermore, assuming that the accelerator was 18% efficient at transforming electrical energy into deuteron kinetic energy and conversion efficiency of heat energy into electrical energy of 60%, they estimate that, currently, the amount of electrical energy that could be produced by a μCF reactor would be 14% of the electrical energy consumed. In order for this to improve, they suggest that some combination of a) increasing accelerator efficiency and b) increasing the number of fusion reactions per negative muon above the assumed level of 150 would be needed.

Process
To create this effect, a stream of negative muons, most often created by decaying pions, is sent to a block that may be made up of all three hydrogen isotopes (protium, deuterium, and/or tritium), where the block is usually frozen, and the block may be at temperatures of about 3 kelvin (−270 degrees Celsius) or so. The muon may bump the electron from one of the hydrogen isotopes. The muon, 207 times more massive than the electron, effectively shields and reduces the electromagnetic repulsion between two nuclei and draws them much closer into a covalent bond than an electron can. Because the nuclei are so close, the strong nuclear force is able to kick in and bind both nuclei together. They fuse, release the catalytic muon (most of the time), and part of the original mass of both nuclei is released as energetic particles, as with any other type of nuclear fusion. The release of the catalytic muon is critical to continue the reactions. The majority of the muons continue to bond with other hydrogen isotopes and continue fusing nuclei together. However, not all of the muons are recycled: some bond with other debris emitted following the fusion of the nuclei (such as alpha particles and helions), removing the muons from the catalytic process. This gradually chokes off the reactions, as there are fewer and fewer muons with which the nuclei may bond. The number of reactions achieved in the lab can be as high as 150 d–t fusions per muon (average).

Deuterium–tritium (d–t or dt)
In the muon-catalyzed fusion of most interest, a positively charged deuteron (d), a positively charged triton (t), and a muon essentially form a positively charged muonic molecular heavy hydrogen ion (d–μ–t)+. The muon, with a rest mass 207 times greater than the rest mass of an electron, is able to drag the more massive triton and deuteron 207 times closer together to each other in the muonic (d–μ–t)+ molecular ion than can an electron in the corresponding electronic (d–e–t)+ molecular ion. The average separation between the triton and the deuteron in the electronic molecular ion is about one angstrom (100 pm), so the average separation between the triton and the deuteron in the muonic molecular ion is 207 times smaller than that. Due to the strong nuclear force, whenever the triton and the deuteron in the muonic molecular ion happen to get even closer to each other during their periodic vibrational motions, the probability is very greatly enhanced that the positively charged triton and the positively charged deuteron would undergo quantum tunnelling through the repulsive Coulomb barrier that acts to keep them apart. Indeed, the quantum mechanical tunnelling probability depends roughly exponentially on the average separation between the triton and the deuteron, allowing a single muon to catalyze the d–t nuclear fusion in less than about half a picosecond, once the muonic molecular ion is formed.

The formation time of the muonic molecular ion is one of the "rate-limiting steps" in muon-catalyzed fusion that can easily take up to ten thousand or more picoseconds in a liquid molecular deuterium and tritium mixture (D2, DT, T2), for example. Each catalyzing muon thus spends most of its ephemeral existence of 2.2 microseconds, as measured in its rest frame, wandering around looking for suitable deuterons and tritons with which to bind.

Another way of looking at muon-catalyzed fusion is to try to visualize the ground state orbit of a muon around either a deuteron or a triton. Suppose the muon happens to have fallen into an orbit around a deuteron initially, which it has about a 50% chance of doing if there are approximately equal numbers of deuterons and tritons present, forming an electrically neutral muonic deuterium atom (d–μ)0 that acts somewhat like a "fat, heavy neutron" due both to its relatively small size (again, 207 times smaller than an electrically neutral electronic deuterium atom (d–e)0) and to the very effective "shielding" by the muon of the positive charge of the proton in the deuteron. Even so, the muon still has a much greater chance of being transferred to any triton that comes near enough to the muonic deuterium than it does of forming a muonic molecular ion. The electrically neutral muonic tritium atom (t–μ)0 thus formed will act somewhat like an even "fatter, heavier neutron," but it will most likely hang on to its muon, eventually forming a muonic molecular ion, most likely due to the resonant formation of a hyperfine molecular state within an entire deuterium molecule D2 (d=e2=d), with the muonic molecular ion acting as a "fatter, heavier nucleus" of the "fatter, heavier" neutral "muonic/electronic" deuterium molecule ([d–μ–t]=e2=d), as predicted by Vesman, an Estonian graduate student, in 1967.

Once the muonic molecular ion state is formed, the shielding by the muon of the positive charges of the proton of the triton and the proton of the deuteron from each other allows the triton and the deuteron to tunnel through the Coulomb barrier in time span of order of a nanosecond The muon survives the d–t muon-catalyzed nuclear fusion reaction and remains available (usually) to catalyze further d–t muon-catalyzed nuclear fusions. Each exothermic d–t nuclear fusion releases about 17.6 MeV of energy in the form of a "very fast" neutron having a kinetic energy of about 14.1 MeV and an alpha particle α (a helium-4 nucleus) with a kinetic energy of about 3.5 MeV. An additional 4.8 MeV can be gleaned by having the fast neutrons moderated in a suitable "blanket" surrounding the reaction chamber, with the blanket containing lithium-6, whose nuclei, known by some as "lithions," readily and exothermically absorb thermal neutrons, the lithium-6 being transmuted thereby into an alpha particle and a triton.

Deuterium–deuterium and other types
The first kind of muon–catalyzed fusion to be observed experimentally, by L.W. Alvarez et al., was protium (H or 1H1) and deuterium (D or 1H2) muon-catalyzed fusion. The fusion rate for p–d (or pd) muon-catalyzed fusion has been estimated to be about a million times slower than the fusion rate for d–t muon-catalyzed fusion.

Of more practical interest, deuterium–deuterium muon-catalyzed fusion has been frequently observed and extensively studied experimentally, in large part because deuterium already exists in relative abundance and, like protium, deuterium is not at all radioactive. (Tritium rarely occurs naturally, and is radioactive with a half-life of about 12.5 years. )

The fusion rate for d–d muon-catalyzed fusion has been estimated to be only about 1% of the fusion rate for d–t muon-catalyzed fusion, but this still gives about one d–d nuclear fusion every 10 to 100 picoseconds or so. However, the energy released with every d–d muon-catalyzed fusion reaction is only about 20% or so of the energy released with every d–t muon-catalyzed fusion reaction. Moreover, the catalyzing muon has a probability of sticking to at least one of the d–d muon-catalyzed fusion reaction products that Jackson in this 1957 paper estimated to be at least 10 times greater than the corresponding probability of the catalyzing muon sticking to at least one of the d–t muon-catalyzed fusion reaction products, thereby preventing the muon from catalyzing any more nuclear fusions. Effectively, this means that each muon catalyzing d–d muon-catalyzed fusion reactions in pure deuterium is only able to catalyze about one-tenth of the number of d–t muon-catalyzed fusion reactions that each muon is able to catalyze in a mixture of equal amounts of deuterium and tritium, and each d–d fusion only yields about one-fifth of the yield of each d–t fusion, thereby making the prospects for useful energy release from d–d muon-catalyzed fusion at least 50 times worse than the already dim prospects for useful energy release from d–t muon-catalyzed fusion.

Potential "aneutronic" (or substantially aneutronic) nuclear fusion possibilities, which result in essentially no neutrons among the nuclear fusion products, are almost certainly not very amenable to muon-catalyzed fusion. One such essentially aneutronic nuclear fusion reaction involves a deuteron from deuterium fusing with a helion (He+2) from helium-3, which yields an energetic alpha particle and a much more energetic proton, both positively charged (with a few neutrons coming from inevitable d–d nuclear fusion side reactions). However, one muon with only one negative electric charge is incapable of shielding both positive charges of a helion from the one positive charge of a deuteron. The chances of the requisite two muons being present simultaneously are exceptionally remote.

In culture
The term "cold fusion" was coined to refer to muon-catalyzed fusion in a 1956 New York Times article about Luis W. Alvarez's paper.

In 1957 Theodore Sturgeon wrote a novelette, "The Pod in the Barrier", in which humanity has ubiquitous cold fusion reactors that work with muons. The reaction is "When hydrogen one and hydrogen two are in the presence of Mu mesons, they fuse into helium three, with an energy yield in electron volts of 5.4 times ten to the fifth power". Unlike the thermonuclear bomb contained in the Pod (which is used to destroy the Barrier) they can become temporarily disabled by "concentrated disbelief" that muon fusion works.

In Sir Arthur C. Clarke's third novel in the Space Odyssey series, 2061: Odyssey Three, muon-catalyzed fusion is the technology that allows mankind to achieve easy interplanetary travel. The main character, Heywood Floyd, compares Luis Alvarez to Lord Rutherford for underestimating the future potential of their discoveries.

title: Muon-catalyzed fusion


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Talk:Sakhalin

Moved from article
Moved fr. article

''Initial text from 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. Please update as needed.''

Finish mv

--Menchi 04:40, Jul 31, 2003 (UTC)

I deleted the last sentence of the opening paragraph, "Now, the opinion which should return Karafuto (Sakhalin) and the Chishima Islands to Japan and to carry out is also the world," as it seems like a poorly translated tag to the paragraph--TKE

Merge with Sakhalin Oblast.
It seems to me that the tradition here on Wikipedia is to use the same article from both the geographical area (such as an island) and the political entity if the latter has the exact same borders as the former. See examples such as Tasmania, Corsica, Sicily, Cuba and so on. The only exception to this rule that I know of is the Taiwan, but that's apparently due to the complicated political status of the island. With Sakhalin, however, it's political status as a Russian territory is undisputed. So, what does everyone think? --212.74.201.233 (talk) 10:32, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

 * Modern Sakhalin Oblast seems to also contain the Kuril Islands, which probably were not a part of historical Sakhalin, especially the early historical era when it was referred to by the Manchus as the island at the mouth of the black river. It's doubtful whether they knew the Kuril Islands even existed. For example this map of the Qing dynasty in 1821 shows it containing Sakhalin island, but not the Kurils:

 * Is there any historical evidence that the Kurils were considered the same geographical entity as Sakhalin island? Qiushufang (talk) 20:14, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * strong oppose (and would rather suggest WP:SNOW declining this proposal), not "exact same borders as the former" at all to start with. Sakhalin Oblast == Sakhalin (island) + Kuril Islands. Bests, --Seryo93 (talk) 21:16, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Extremely strong opose as above and that you would merge the Kuril Islands with the Island of Sakhalin, pretty much. Kuril Island have WAY MORE DIFFERENT HISTORY, so NO. Mausebru (talk) 21:50, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

 * So are neither of the 3 editors above bothered by the fact that the province of Sicily includes multiple nearby islands (e.g. Lampedouza with their total area larger than the area of the Kuril isles? As does Cuba? There are other examples but i am not sure i should even bother, you guys dont seem to factcheck any of your own statements that you make on wikipedia. I thought this site would have better users. 212.74.201.233 (talk) 18:32, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I am also not sure what the editors are supposed to infer from the map posted above? If the map includes the Sakhalin but not the Kurils that means... What, exactly? This makes 0 sense to me. 212.74.201.233 (talk) 18:33, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Cuba refers to a country. Sakhalin refers to the island of Sakhalin and not the Kuril islands. It makes sense that they each have their own articles because they refer to different entities and have different history. Qiushufang (talk) 18:39, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * , exactly! They are indeed different entities and have different history. Sakhalin, for example, has had a continuous uninterrupted Russian presence since mid-XIX century (even after Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 Russia/USSR retained a foothold on the island, the only exception being a brief Japanese occupation of Northern Sakhalin during the Russian Civil War, which was reversed in 1925), whilst Kuriles were, at some time (1875-1945) entierly outside Russia/USSR — and, partially (southern ones), are in sovereignty dispute today. And well, the Cuban example actually works against proposed merger, when we consult RS (Britannica): Cuba is a single article for an island and a country, whilst Sakhalin has one article for island and another for oblast. Bests, Seryo93 (talk) 20:28, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

 * Strong oppose, not an improvement at all. Apcbg (talk) 07:44, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose. Sakhalin Oblast is an administrative division, a human-made geographic entity with human-made boundaries. This article talks about the island of Sakhalin, a geographic entity with clear natural boundaries. NotAldariasky (talk) 05:30, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose. As already mentioned, Sakhalin Oblast refers to the federal subject of Russia specifically which also includes the Kuril Islands, while the Sakhalin article is about the island itself. Mellk (talk) 17:12, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose. Of course, no. Danloud  (talk) 20:18, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose Sakhalin is about the geographical island itself, Sakhalin Oblast is about the geopolitical subsidiary of Russia so to summaraize... no — SuperSkaterDude45 (talk) 08:39, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:21, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Sakhalin Region Product Exports (2020).svg

Nothing on Culture
I would like to see a subcategory or discussion on the culture of Sakhalin.

It’s alarming that we have info on their economy and transportation and resources but nothing on the local daily culture and lifestyles and values of the people. This seems important for global education as the media doesn’t cover this region and yet it’s such a massive economic driver and island. 133.159.150.116 (talk) 06:15, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Western Gray Whale
A very small point, but I didn't want to make a change since a hyperlink is involved, but according to the IUCN, the subpopulation of the Western Gray Whale that feeds off the coast of the island has rebounded sufficiently to be moved from the "critically endangered" list to the "endangered" list. Amocito0113 (talk) 15:45, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Sakhalin


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HRG Group

HRG Group, Inc., formerly Harbinger Group Inc. and Zapata Corporation, was a holding company based in Rochester, New York, having originated from an oil company started by a group including future U.S. president George H. W. Bush. In 2009, it was renamed the Harbinger Group Inc.

Early business history
The company traced its origins to Zapata Petroleum Corporation, founded in 1953 by future U.S. President George H. W. Bush, along with his business partners John Overbey, Hugh Liedtke, Bill Liedtke, and Thomas J. Devine. Overbey was a "landman" skilled in scouting oil fields and obtaining drilling rights cheaply. Bush and Thomas J. Devine were oil-wildcatting associates. Their joint activities culminated in the establishment of Zapata Oil. The company was named for Viva Zapata!, a 1952 biographical film starring Marlon Brando as Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. The initial $1 million investment for Zapata was provided by the Liedtke brothers and their circle of investors, by Bush's father Prescott Bush and his maternal grandfather George Herbert Walker, and their family's circle of friends. Hugh Liedtke was named president, Bush was vice president; Overbey soon left.

According to a CIA internal memo dated November 29, 1975, Zapata Petroleum began in 1953 through Bush's joint efforts with Thomas J. Devine, a CIA staffer who had resigned his agency position that same year to go into private business, but who continued to work for the CIA under commercial cover. Devine would later accompany Bush to Vietnam in late 1967 as a "cleared and witting commercial asset" of the agency, acted as his informal foreign affairs advisor, and had a close relationship with him through 1975.

In 1954, Zapata Off-Shore Company was formed as a subsidiary of Zapata Oil, with Bush as president of the new company. He raised some startup money from Eugene Meyer, publisher of the Washington Post, and his son-in-law, Philip Graham.

Zapata Off-Shore accepted an offer from an inventor, R. G. LeTourneau, for the development of a mobile but secure drilling rig. Zapata advanced him $400,000, which was to be refundable if the completed rig did not function, followed by an additional $550,000 together with 38,000 shares of Zapata Off-Shore common stock when it did.

The U.S. government began to auction off mineral rights to the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and islands off the Central American coast in 1954, and in the late 1950s and early 1960, Zapata Off-Shore concentrated its business in these areas. In 1958, drilling contracts with the seven largest U.S. oil producers included wells 40 mi north of Isabela, Cuba, near the island Cay Sal.

In 1959 Bush bought control of Zapata Off-Shore, funded with $800,000, splitting Zapata Corporation into two independent companies with the Liedtkes still in control of Zapata Petroleum. Bush moved his offices and family that year from Midland, Texas to Houston for access to the Caribbean through the Houston Ship Channel. But although Zapata Offshore had only a few drilling rigs, Bush set up operations also in the Gulf of Mexico, the Persian Gulf, Trinidad, Borneo, and Medellín, Colombia, and the Kuwait Shell Petroleum Development Company was among the company's clients.

In 1960, Jorge Díaz Serrano of Mexico was put in touch with Bush by Dresser Industries. Dresser was owned by Prescott Bush's Yale friends Roland and W. Averell Harriman, and had been George H.W. Bush's first employer upon his graduation from Yale, giving him his start in both the oil business and the defense contractor business. Serrano and Bush created a new company, Perforaciones Marinas del Golfo, aka Permargo, in conjunction with Edwin Pauley of Pan American Petroleum, with whom Zapata had a previous offshore contract. The deal with Permargo is not mentioned in Zapata's annual reports, and SEC records are missing. In 1988, a Bush spokesman claimed that the deal lasted only from March to September 1960. However, Zapata sold the oil-drilling rig Nola I to Pemargo in 1964.

Zapata's filing records with the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission are intact for the years 1955–1959, and again from 1967 onwards. However, records for the years 1960–1966 are missing. The commission's records officer stated that the records were inadvertently placed in a session file to be destroyed by a federal warehouse, and that a total of 1,000 boxes were pulped in this procedure. The destruction of records occurred either in October 1983 (according to the records officer), or in 1981 shortly after Bush became Vice President of the United States (according to, Wison Carpenter, a record analyst with the commission).

During the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Zapata allowed its oil rigs to be used as listening posts. In 1988, Barron's said Zapata was "a part time purchasing front for the [ Central Intelligence Agency ] ".

In 1962, Bush was joined in Zapata Off-Shore by Robert Gow. By 1963, Zapata Off-Shore had four operational oil-drilling rigs—Scorpion (from 1956, the first oil-drilling jackup rig ever built), Vinegaroon (from 1957), Sidewinder, and (in the Persian Gulf) Nola III.

In 1963, Zapata Petroleum merged with South Penn Oil to become Pennzoil.

By 1964, Zapata Off-Shore had a number of subsidiaries, including: Seacat-Zapata Offshore Company (Persian Gulf), Zapata de Mexico, Zapata International Corporation, Zapata Mining Corporation, Zavala Oil Company, Zapata Overseas Corporation, and a 41% share of Amata Gas Corporation.

In 1964, Bush ran for the United States Senate, and lost; he continued as president of Zapata Off-Shore until 1966, when he sold his interest to Doyle Mize and ran for the U.S. House of Representatives.

On September 9, 1965, Hurricane Betsy struck the coast of Louisiana sinking the oil rig Maverick. There were no deaths, however, $8 million in Zapata assets were lost. A helicopter flew Bush over the area for several days until debris was located. After evidence was submitted to Lloyd's of London for the loss, they paid Zapata for the claim.

In 1966, William Stamps Farish III, age 28, joined the board of Zapata.

Decline
Zapata sought to acquire a controlling interest in the United Fruit Company in 1969, but was outbid by Eli M. Black's AMK Corp. Robert Gow's father, Ralph Gow, was on United Fruit's board of directors.

In the 1970s, under chairman and CEO William Flynn, Zapata expanded its business to include subsidiaries in dredging, construction, coal mining, copper mining and fishing.

By the late 1970s, saddled with weak operations, high debt and low return on investment, the company again began undergoing changes in management and direction. Led by John Mackin, who succeeded William Flynn, the company began selling off some of those businesses and refocused on offshore oil and gas exploration and production.

In 1982, chief operating officer Ronald Lassiter assumed the role of CEO, and presided over a decade of loss-making brought on by the collapse of oil prices. In 1982, Zapata Off-shore became Zapata Corporation. Its stock performed poorly. By 1986, Zapata was one of the bad loans that shook the foundations of San Francisco-based Bank of America, with a debt of more than $500 million and a fiscal year loss of $250 million. The company announced several restructurings during those years and managed to stave off bankruptcy, but continued to incur major losses. In 1990 the oil drilling company proposed selling its entire fleet of offshore drilling rigs to focus solely on fishing. The company had not had a profitable quarter in more than five years.

In 1990, Zapata Offshore sold 12 of its drilling rigs to Arethusa Offshore, which a few years later merged with Diamond Offshore. Still struggling with debt by 1993, Zapata signed a deal with Norex America to raise more than $100 million through a loan and stock sale. But financier Malcolm Glazer, owner of the NFL franchise Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Premier League club Manchester United, and at the time owner of 40 percent of Zapata, did not want his holdings diluted and filed a lawsuit to block the deal.

Glazer era and the birth of Harbinger Group Inc.
By 1994, the company had come under Glazer's control, after a proxy fight. Glazer became chairman of Zapata, replacing Ronald Lassiter, and in 1995 Avram Glazer, son of Malcolm, was named CEO and president of Zapata. De facto headquarters moved from Houston to Rochester, New York. It no longer engaged in exploration, but owned several natural gas service companies. It also produced protein products from the menhaden fish. In subsequent years Zapata sold its energy-related businesses and focused on marine protein.

Between 1998 and 2000, Zapata tried to position itself as an internet media company under the "zap.com" name. In July 1998, Zapata announced its plans to acquire several web sites, including ChatPlanet, TravelPage and DailyStocks.com. The company's stock boomed and crashed along with other dot-coms, and on January 24, 2001 the company conducted a 1 for 10 reverse stock split. The venture was cited by many investment journalists as an example of a company jumping on the internet bandwagon without any relevant experience. This period is probably best remembered for Zapata's unsolicited (and unsuccessful) takeover bid of the Excite internet portal.

During this period, Zapata also built up a controlling stake in Safety Components International, a manufacturer of air bag fabrics and cushions.

On December 2, 2005, Zapata Corporation Chairman, Avram ("Avi") Glazer, announced the sale of 4,162,394 shares, 77.3%, of Safety Components International to Wilbur L. Ross Jr. for $51.2 million. The company sold its remaining stock in Omega Proteine on December 1, 2006, leaving it with no active subsidiary. The Glazer family sold its controlling stock of the Zapata Corporation to Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital in 2009, and the company's name was changed to Harbinger Group Inc. with the ticker symbol HRG on the NYSE. In 2010–2011, Harbinger Capital Partners LLC transferred its 54.4% interest in Spectrum Brands to Harbinger Group Inc. giving the company controlling interest in that company. Also in 2011 Harbinger Group Inc. acquired the insurance company Old Mutual U.S. Life Holdings, Inc. from Old Mutual.

In December 2013, Salus Capital (a unit of Harbinger Group) and Cerberus Capital Management issued a quarter-billion dollars in financing to struggling retailer RadioShack Corporation. Among the terms of this deal were restrictions which prevented RadioShack from closing more than 200 of its 4275 company-owned retail stores a year and limited its ability to refinance, which proved to be a key obstacle leading to that firm's February 2015 Chapter 11 bankruptcy as the chain was forced to keep more than a thousand unprofitable stores open. Fidelity & Guaranty Life, the insurer backed by Harbinger Group, also has a $50 million stake in the RadioShack bankruptcy. An impairment of $105.0, out of the $150 million net exposure, recognized as of March 31, 2015.

On February 26, 2018, the company announced it was merging with Spectrum Brands, which it was a controlling shareholder of. The merger was completed on July 13.

Public records

 * SEC filings of Zapata Corporation
 * Zapata Offshore Annual Reports, Microform Reading Room, Library of Congress.
 * National Security Archives documentation of GHW Bush's CIA involvement in the early 1960s.
 * United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Action 88–2600 GHR, Archives and Research Center v. Central Intelligence Agency, Affidavit of George William Bush, September 21, 1988.

Zapata

 * Franklin, H. Bruce, "Net Losses", Mother Jones, March 2006 – extensive article on role of Menhaded in ecosystem and possible results of overfishing. Retrieved February 21, 2006

George H.W. Bush

 * Kevin Philips,  American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, Penguin (2004), esp. pp. 200–208.
 * Joseph McBride, "The Man Who Wasn't There: 'George Bush,' CIA Operative", The Nation, July 16/23, 1988, p. 42.
 * Joseph McBride, "Where Was George?", The Nation, August 13/20, 1988, on the whereabouts of GHW Bush on November 22, 1963.
 * Nicolas King, George Bush: A Biography.
 * Anthony L. Kimery, "George Bush and the CIA: In the Company of Friends", Covert Action Quarterly, Summer, 1992.
 * The Mafia, CIA & George [HW] Bush, Pete Brewton, S.P.I. Books, 1992

CIA

 * Beschloss, Michael R. 1991. The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960–63 Edward Burlingame Books, p. 89 refers to "Operation Zapata" as the codename for the Bay of Pigs operation.
 * Bissell, Richard M. Jr., with Jonathan E. Lewis and Frances T. Pudlo. 1996. Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs Yale University Press ISBN 978-0-300-06430-8

Others

 * Daniel Yergin, The Prize, (1991).

title: HRG Group


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Tara Palmer-Tomkinson

Tara Claire Palmer-Tomkinson (23 December 1971 – 8 February 2017) was an English socialite and television personality. She appeared in several television shows, including the reality programme I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!. She died from a perforated ulcer on 8 February 2017.

Early life
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire on 23 December 1971, the daughter of Patricia (née Dawson) and Charles Palmer-Tomkinson. Her father represented Great Britain as a skier at the 1964 Winter Olympics. She was the younger sister of author Santa Montefiore. Her mother was of Argentine descent. Palmer-Tomkinson was educated at Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset. After she left school, she worked briefly in the City of London for Rothschilds bank.

Writing career
In the mid- to late 1990s, a weekly column for The Sunday Times appeared under her name. However, this was actually ghostwritten by author Wendy Holden based on Palmer-Tomkinson's "phoned in description of her activities during the preceding week." She subsequently similarly contributed to The Spectator, The Mail on Sunday, GQ, Eve, Harpers and Queen, Tatler, InStyle and The Observer sporadically.

In September 2007, her book The Naughty Girl's Guide to Life, co-authored with Sharon Marshall, was published by Sphere. It was serialised in The Sunday Times Style magazine.

In October 2010, her first novel, Inheritance, was published by Pan Books. This was also ghostwritten.

In 2012, her second novel, Infidelity, was published by Pan Books.

Television appearances
In 2002, Palmer-Tomkinson made an appearance on the first series of the British television series I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, finishing as runner up. She was a contestant on a celebrity Christmas edition of Blind Date later that year. She appeared as a Star in a Reasonably Priced Car in Top Gear's sixth episode of series one. In November 2005, she presented her third behind the scenes series on ITV2 for I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! NOW!. She was also a guest on the first and second series of 'Would I Lie to You?' in 2007 and 2008.

Palmer-Tomkinson's presenting credits included Animals Do the Funniest Things with Tony Blackburn, the UK selection for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2003, The British Comedy Awards...Party On, What Kids Really Think, Popworld, Top of the Pops, SMTV Live, Company Magazine Bachelor of the Year, Dumb Britain, Extreme, a role as a team captain on Bognor or Bust which was hosted by Angus Deayton and work for GMTV, Five, LBC radio, the music channel The Hits and the Living TV programme Dirty Cows.

In 2007, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was a contestant on Comic Relief Does Fame Academy for the BBC. She gave away tickets to see her compete in the show to "ordinary people" who had helped her out (the other contestants generally giving their free tickets to other celebrities). She invited the policeman who found her stolen car, the locksmith who helped when she was locked out of her house and her parents' local shopkeepers.

Other work
Palmer-Tomkinson played the piano, as was demonstrated at events at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with the National Symphony Orchestra, at the Royal Albert Hall, and at The Coliseum during a Leonard Bernstein Tribute. She hosted the Classic FM Gramophone Awards in 2005. She wrote a pop song called "5 Seconds" which she performed on Loose Women.

From 2013 to 2014, Palmer-Tomkinson, herself autistic, was patron of Scottish charity Speur Ghlan, which delivers early intervention for young children diagnosed with autism or developmental delays. The appointment garnered media attention for having been facilitated through social media.

Personal life
Palmer-Tomkinson's family have a close relationship with the British royal family. She attended the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles as well as the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

In 2004, Paul Harvey's painting of Palmer-Tomkinson was exhibited in The Stuckists Punk Victorian show at the Walker Art Gallery for the Liverpool Biennial.

Drug addiction
Palmer-Tomkinson was addicted to cocaine in her early career. In 1999, she appeared on The Frank Skinner Show, slurring her words and forgetting the host's name. In 2006, she received extensive publicity after her nasal septum collapsed due to her cocaine addiction. Pictures were printed in several British tabloids. She underwent cosmetic surgery to have it rebuilt.

Arrest
On 22 December 2014, Palmer-Tomkinson was arrested at Heathrow Airport. This followed her reaction to being refused access to a first-class lounge. Following her arrest, she said that a panic attack triggered her behaviour. She stated: "I wasn't drunk, there was no disorderly. I was cautioned, I saw a doctor, they were nice to me", before flying to Switzerland to celebrate her 43rd birthday.

Illness and death
In January 2016, Palmer-Tomkinson was diagnosed with a prolactinoma, a benign tumour (adenoma) of the pituitary gland, and announced her illness publicly in November of that year. Prolactinomas are non-malignant, and treatment was successful. She also had ANCA Associated Vasculitis. On 8 February 2017, Palmer-Tomkinson was found dead at her home in London. The death was treated as unexplained but not suspicious. Her sister later told the media that the cause of death was a perforated ulcer and peritonitis.

title: Tara Palmer-Tomkinson


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Kuril Islands dispute

The Kuril Islands dispute, known as the Northern Territories dispute in Japan, is a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia over the ownership of the four southernmost Kuril Islands. The Kuril Islands are a chain of islands that stretch between the Japanese island of Hokkaido at their southern end and the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula at their northern end. The islands separate the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. The four disputed islands, like other islands in the Kuril chain which are not in dispute, were unilaterally annexed by the Soviet Union following the Kuril Islands landing operation at the end of World War II. The disputed islands are under Russian administration as the South Kuril District and part of  the Kuril District of the Sakhalin Oblast (Сахалинская область, Sakhalinskaya oblast). They are claimed by Japan, which refers to them as its Northern Territories or Southern Chishima, and considers them part of the Nemuro Subprefecture of Hokkaido Prefecture.

The islands in dispute are:

 * Iturup (Итуруп)—Etorofu Island (Japanese: 択捉島, Etorofu-tō)
 * Kunashir (Кунашир)—Kunashiri Island (Japanese: 国後島, Kunashiri-tō)
 * Shikotan (Шикотан)—Shikotan Island (Japanese: 色丹島, Shikotan-tō)
 * Habomai Islands (острова Хабомаи ostrova Khabomai)—Habomai Islands (Japanese: 歯舞群島, Habomai-guntō)

The San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed between the Allies and Japan in 1951, states that Japan renounces "all right, title and claim to the Kuril Islands", but does not explicitly recognize the Soviet Union's sovereignty over them. Japan claims that at least some of the disputed islands are not a part of the Kuril Islands, and thus are not covered by the treaty. Russia maintains that the Soviet Union's sovereignty over the islands was recognized in post-war agreements. Japan and the Soviet Union ended their formal state of war with the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956 but did not sign a peace treaty. During talks leading to the joint declaration, the Soviet Union offered Japan the two smaller islands of Shikotan and the Habomai Islands in exchange for Japan renouncing all claims to the two bigger islands of Iturup and Kunashir, but Japan declined the offer. This disagreement between the two-island offer made by the Soviet Union and Japan's demand of regaining two bigger islands as well became the cornerstone for continuation of the dispute into the present day.

Background

The first Russo-Japanese agreement to deal with the status of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands was the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda, which first established official relations between the Russian Empire and Tokugawa Japan. Article 2 of the Treaty of Shimoda, which provided for an agreement on borders, states "Henceforth the borders between Russia and Japan will pass between the islands Iturup (Etorofu) and Urup (Uruppu). The whole island of Iturup belongs to Japan and the whole island Urup and the other Kuril Islands to the north constitute possessions of Russia". The islands of Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai Islands, all lying to the south of Iturup, are not explicitly mentioned in the treaty and were understood at the time to be a non-disputed part of Japan. The treaty also specified that the island of Sakhalin/Karafuto was not to be partitioned but was to remain under a joint Russo-Japanese condominium.

In the 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg, Russia and Japan agreed that Japan would give up all rights to Sakhalin in exchange for Russia giving up all rights to the Kuril Islands in favor of Japan. However, a controversy remains as to what constitutes the Kuril Islands, due to translation discrepancies in the French official text of that treaty.

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 was a military disaster for Russia. The 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth, concluded at the end of this war, gave the southern half of Sakhalin Island to Japan.

Although Japan occupied parts of Russia's Far East during the Russian Civil War following the October Revolution, Japan did not formally annex any of these territories and they were depopulated by Japan by the mid-1920s.

Japan was a main ally of Nazi Germany, which the USSR initially had an understanding with, but found itself at war with from June 22, 1941. However, after the Battles of Khalkhin Gol ended the Japanese–Soviet Border War in 1939 and before the USSR declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945, there was practically no hostile activity between the USSR and the Empire of Japan. Between 1939 and 1945, millions of Soviet and Japanese soldiers were facing each other along the Manchurian border. The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact was signed in Moscow on April 13, 1941, and became effective on April 25, but was renounced by the Soviet Union on April 5, 1945. On May 8 Nazi Germany surrendered to the Western allies, on May 9 to the USSR, which ended the war in Europe and started the secret three-month countdown for the Russians to start hostilities against Japan, as per the Yalta Agreement. On August 9, 1945, just after midnight in Manchuria, the Soviets invaded Manchuria and the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, beginning the Soviet–Japanese War. The Soviet Union invaded South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the subsequent days.

The Invasion of the Kuril Islands took place between August 18 and September 3 (Japan had announced its surrender August 15, and formally signed it September 2). The Japanese inhabitants of the Kurils were expelled two years later. The United States had helped the preparation of the Soviet invasion through Project Hula, transferring naval vessels to the Soviet Union.

World War II agreements

The modern Kuril Islands dispute arose in the aftermath of World War II and results from the ambiguities in and disagreements about the meaning of the Yalta agreement (February 1945), the Potsdam Declaration (July 1945), and the Treaty of San Francisco (September 1951). The Yalta Agreement, signed by the US, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, stated:

"The leaders of the three great powers – the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain – have agreed that in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe is terminated, the Soviet Union shall enter into war against Japan on the side of the Allies on condition that: ... 2. The former rights of Russia violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 shall be restored, viz.: (a) The southern part of Sakhalin as well as the islands adjacent to it shall be returned to the Soviet Union; ... 3. The Kuril islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union."

Japan and the US claimed that the Yalta agreement did not apply to the Northern Territories because they were not a part of the Kuril Islands, although US geographers have traditionally listed them as part of the Kuril chain. In a 1998 article in the journal Pacific Affairs, Bruce Elleman, Michael Nichols and Matthew Ouimet argue that the US never accepted the cession of all the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union and has maintained from Yalta onward that it simply agreed at Yalta that Moscow could negotiate directly with Tokyo to come to a mutually acceptable solution, and that the US would support in such a peace agreement the Soviet acquisition of the Kurils. As a key piece of evidence, the same article quotes an August 27, 1945, letter from U.S. President Harry Truman to Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin: "You evidently misunderstood my message [about the Kuril Islands] ... I was not speaking of any territory of the Soviet Republic. I was speaking of the Kurile Islands, Japanese territory, disposition of which must be made at a peace settlement. I was advised that my predecessor agreed to support in the peace settlement the Soviet acquisition of those islands." The Soviet Union—and subsequently, Russia—rejected this position.

The Potsdam Declaration states the following regarding the Japanese territories: "8. The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshū, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine". The islands comprising the Northern Territories are not explicitly included in this list, but the US subsequently maintained, particularly during the preparation of the Treaty of San Francisco, that the phrase "and such minor islands as we determine" could be used to justify transferring the Northern Territories to Japan.

The Cairo Declaration of 1943 did not explicitly mention the Kuril Islands but stated: "Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed".

Japan later claimed that the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration did not apply to the islands on the grounds that they had never belonged to Russia or been claimed by it since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1855, and thus they were not among the territories acquired by Japan "by violence and greed".

San Francisco Treaty
A substantial dispute regarding the status of the Kuril Islands arose between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the preparation of the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951. The Treaty was supposed to be a permanent peace treaty between Japan and the Allied Powers of World War II. By that time, the Cold War had already taken hold, and the position of the U.S. in relation to the Yalta and Potsdam agreements had changed considerably. The U.S. had come to maintain that the Potsdam Declaration should take precedence and that strict adherence to the Yalta agreement was not necessary since, in the view of the U.S., the Soviet Union itself violated several provisions of the Yalta agreement in relation to the rights of other countries. The Soviet Union vehemently disagreed and demanded that the U.S. adhere to its promises made to the Soviet Union in Yalta as a condition of the Soviet Union's entry into the war with Japan. A particular point of disagreement at the time was the fact that the draft text of the treaty, while stating that Japan will renounce all rights to Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, did not state explicitly that Japan would recognize the Soviet Union's sovereignty over these territories.

The Treaty of San Francisco was signed by 49 nations, including Japan and the United States, on September 8, 1951. Article (2c) states:

"Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands, and to that portion of Sakhalin and the islands adjacent to it over which Japan acquired sovereignty as a consequence of the Treaty of Portsmouth of 5 September 1905."

The State Department later clarified that "the Habomai Islands and Shikotan ... are properly part of Hokkaido and that Japan is entitled to sovereignty over them". Britain and the United States agreed that territorial rights would not be granted to nations that did not sign the Treaty of San Francisco, and therefore the islands were not formally recognized as Soviet territory.

The Soviet Union refused to sign the Treaty of San Francisco and publicly stated that the Kuril Islands issue was one of the reasons for its opposition to the Treaty. Japan signed and ratified the San Francisco treaty. However, both the Japanese government and most of the Japanese media currently claim that already at the time of the 1951 San Francisco peace conference, Japan held that the islands of Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and the Habomai Islands were technically not a part of the Kuril Islands and thus were not covered by the provisions of Article (2c) of the treaty. The timing of this claim is disputed by Russia and by some western historians. In a 2005 article in The Japan Times, journalist Gregory Clark writes that official Japanese statements, maps and other documents from 1951, and the statements by the head of the U.S. delegation to the San Francisco conference—John Foster Dulles—make it clear that at the time the San Francisco Treaty was concluded in October 1951, both Japan and the United States considered the islands of Kunashiri and Etorofu to be a part of the Kuril Islands and to be covered by Article (2c) of the Treaty. Clark made a similar point in a 1992 New York Times opinion column.

In a 2001 book, Seokwoo Lee, a Korean scholar of international law, quotes the October 19, 1951, statement in Japan's Diet by Kumao Nishimura, Director of the Treaties Bureau of the Foreign Ministry of Japan, stating that both Etorofu and Kunashiri are a part of the Kuril Islands and thus covered by Article (2c) of the San Francisco Treaty.

The U.S. Senate Resolution of April 28, 1952, ratifying of the San Francisco Treaty, explicitly stated that the USSR had no title to the Kurils, the resolution stating:

"As part of such advice and consent the Senate states that nothing the treaty [San Francisco Peace Treaty] contains is deemed to diminish or prejudice, in favor of the Soviet Union, the right, title, and interest of Japan, or the Allied Powers as defined in said treaty, in and to South Sakhalin and its adjacent islands, the Kurile Islands, the Habomai Islands, the Island of Shikotan, or any other territory, rights, or interests possessed by Japan on December 7, 1941, or to confer any right, title, or benefit therein or thereto on the Soviet Union."

The U.S. maintains that until a peace treaty between Japan and Russia is concluded, the disputed Northern Territories remain occupied territory under Russian control via General Order No. 1. According to the Russian Embassy in Japan, "A peace treaty has not yet been concluded between the two countries, due to Tokyo's groundless territorial claims to the southern Kuril Islands."

1956 Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration
During the 1956 peace talks between Japan and the Soviet Union, the Soviet side proposed to settle the dispute by returning Shikotan and Habomai to Japan. In the final round of the talks, the Japanese side accepted the weakness of its claim to Iturup and Kunashiri and agreed to settle on the return of Shikotan and the Habomai Islands, in exchange for a peace treaty. On October 19, 1956, in Moscow, the USSR and Japan signed the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration. The Declaration ended the state of war between the Soviet Union and Japan, which technically had still existed between the two countries since August 1945, and stipulated that "The U.S.S.R. and Japan have agreed to continue, after the establishment of normal diplomatic relations between them, negotiations for the conclusion of a peace treaty. Hereby, the U.S.S.R., in response to the desires of Japan and taking into consideration the interest of the Japanese state, agrees to hand over to Japan the Habomai and the Shikotan Islands, provided that the actual changing over to Japan of these islands will be carried out after the conclusion of a peace treaty."

The Joint Declaration did not settle the Kuril Islands dispute, however. In particular, the disagreement emerged over the interpretation of the territorial provisions of the Declaration, despite the Soviet efforts to avoid precisely that. The Soviet position was that the Declaration resolved the dispute and that no territorial demarcation will be discussed beyond promised transfer of Shikotan and Habomai, whilst Japan maintains that negotiations for conclusion of a peace treaty necessarily imply continuation of negotiations over the two larger islands as well.

Continuation of the deadlock is often attributed to the United States' intervention in the negotiations, when the US warned Japan that a withdrawal of the Japanese claim on the other islands would mean the U.S. would keep both Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands, while asserting that the San Francisco Peace Treaty "did not determine the sovereignty of the territories renounced by Japan", but that "Japan does not have the right to transfer sovereignty over such territories",  although this attribution is problematic, since the decision to stand firm on demanding "four island return" (rather than following initial "minimal requirement" line of demanding only Shikotan and Habomai) was made by Japan long before the United States' decision to "morally support" these claims.

Dispute over the composition of the Kuril Islands
The question of whether Etorofu and Kunashiri islands are a part of the Kurils, and thus whether they are covered by Article (2c) of the Treaty of San Francisco, remains one of the main outstanding issues in the Kuril Islands dispute. Based on a 1966 book by a former Japanese diplomat and a member of the 1956 Japanese delegation for the Moscow peace talks, Clark traces the first Japanese claim that Etorofu and Kunashiri islands are not a part of the Kurils to the 1956 negotiations on the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956. The Soviet Union rejected that view at the time, and Russia has subsequently maintained the same position.

21st-century developments
The positions of the two sides have not substantially changed since the 1956 Joint Declaration, and a permanent peace treaty between Japan and Russia has not been concluded.

On July 7, 2005, the European Parliament issued an official statement recommending the return of the territories in dispute, which Russia immediately protested.

As late as 2006, the Russian government of Vladimir Putin offered Japan the return of Shikotan and the Habomais (about 6% of the disputed area) if Japan would renounce its claims to the other two islands, referring to the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956, which promised Shikotan and the Habomais would be ceded to Japan once a peace treaty was signed.

Japan has offered substantial financial aid to the Kuril Islands if they are handed over. However, by 2007, residents of the islands were starting to benefit from economic growth and improved living standards, arising in particular from expansion in the fish processing industry. As a result, it is thought that islanders are less likely to be won over by Japanese offers of financial support.

On February 7, 2008, Reuters reported that Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda stated that he had received a letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin in which Putin expressed a willingness to resolve the territorial dispute, and proposed a new round of talks to do so.

The dispute over the Kuril Islands was exacerbated on July 16, 2008, when the Japanese government published new school textbook guidelines directing teachers to say that Japan has sovereignty over the Southern Kuril Islands. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on July 18, "[these actions] contribute neither to the development of positive cooperation between the two countries, nor to the settlement of the dispute" and reaffirmed its sovereignty over the islands.

Japanese Prime Minister Tarō Asō and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met in Sakhalin on February 18, 2009, to discuss the Kuril Islands issue. Aso said after the meeting that they had agreed to speed up efforts to resolve the dispute so that it would not be left to future generations to find a solution.

Visa issues
Russia has given several concessions to Japan in the dispute. For example, Russia has introduced visa-free trips for Japanese citizens to the Kuril Islands. Japan's fishermen are also allowed to catch fish in Russia's claimed exclusive economic zone.

The Russian Head of the Kuril Region has called for dropping the visa-free programme and Japanese fishermen were fired upon for allegedly fishing illegally in Russian waters. A Japanese fisherman was shot dead by a Russian patrol in 2006.

Visit by President Medvedev

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was quoted by Reuters on September 29, 2010, as saying he planned a visit to the disputed islands soon and calling the South Kurils "an important region of our country". The Japanese Foreign Ministry criticized Medvedev's statement, calling it regrettable. Many analysts also viewed that the announcement of the visit is correlated with the recent joint declaration regarding World War II between China and Russia, and linked to the Senkaku Islands dispute between Japan and Taiwan. On November 1, Medvedev visited Kunashir Island, sparking a row with Japan. The visit by Medvedev was seen in Moscow as a signal to Japan that its loudspeaker diplomacy on the islands would fail. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan called this visit "impermissible rudeness" and subsequently recalled his country's ambassador to Moscow. The day after the visit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Medvedev planned more visits to the disputed islands, sparking a warning from Tokyo.

Reinforcement of defences
On February 10, 2011, President Dmitry Medvedev ordered advanced weapons to be deployed on the Kuril Islands, "in order to ensure the security of the islands as an integral part of Russia". On February 15, plans for deploying advanced anti-air missiles systems on the Islands were announced. According to a military source interviewed by Russia Today, as part of the reinforcements, the 18th Machine Gun Artillery Division may be upgraded to a modern motorized infantry brigade. The division is to receive an air defense brigade, possibly armed with S-400 SAM systems, according to the Russian General Staff. The Russian military has also announced intention to deploy the new Mistral class amphibious assault ships, and one Steregushchy class corvette in its Pacific Fleet to protect the islands. Russia signed a deal with France in January 2011 to buy four such vessels. However, the deal has since been canceled.

On March 25, 2016, Russian Minister of Defence Sergey Shoygu announced that Bal rocket systems in Kunashir, Bastion in Iturup and Eleron-3 UAVs are going to be stationed on the Kuril Islands within that year.

Russian fighter jets intrusion
On February 7, 2013, Russian Su-27 fighter jets entered airspace over Japanese territorial waters north of the island of Hokkaido. Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2s were scrambled in response. Russia had been conducting scheduled flights over the Kuril Islands, but a spokesman for the Russian Air Force said that none of their aircraft entered Japanese airspace. This is the first incursion by Russian aircraft since 2008.

2013 Abe visit to Moscow
After winning the 2012 Japanese election, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe made good on promises to restart talks on the disputed nature of the islands. At the end of April 2013, he visited Moscow for discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Abe said: "The potential for cooperation has not been unlocked sufficiently and it is necessary to increase the cooperation between our countries as partners"; he added that he intended to have a good personal relationship with Putin as a basis for resolving the dispute.

2017 Abe visit to Vladivostok
Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin met at the Eastern Economic Forum, which was held at the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok.

2018 Abe visit to Vladivostok
Russian President and Japanese Prime minister met in Eastern Economic Forum in September 2018. Putin said, "We agreed to hold the third Japanese–Russian business mission to the South Kuril Islands by the end of this year, after which the fourth round of negotiations on joint activities will take place."

On September 12, 2018, Russian president Vladimir Putin offered Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe a peace treaty "before the end of the year, without any preconditions". Abe did not respond. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said "there is absolutely no change to our country's perspective of resolving the problem of rights over the Northern Territories before sealing a peace treaty".

2018 East Asia Summit
At the Thirteenth East Asia Summit (November 2018) in Singapore, Shinzo Abe followed up on Vladimir Putin's proposal from September in Vladivostok. He said that the leaders would seek a peace treaty to the terms of the 1956 Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration. The declaration gave Japan the Habomai islet group and Shikotan while the Soviet Union claimed the remaining islands, but the United States did not allow the 1956 treaty. Putin and Abe agreed that the terms of the 1956 deal would be part of a bilateral peace treaty.

January 2019 talks in Moscow
The Japanese foreign minister Taro Kono visited Moscow and held talks on the Kuril Islands dispute with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on January 14, 2019. At the conclusion of their meeting, Lavrov said that they agreed on wanting to increase ties between the two countries but serious differences remained between the Russian and Japanese positions on the issue. He also said that Japan must recognize them as sovereign Russian territory as a start. In a statement to reporters he had said "Russia's sovereignty over the islands isn't subject to discussion. They are part of the territory of the Russian Federation." A couple days later on January 16, Lavrov questioned whether or not Japan has accepted the result of World War II.

A meeting between Vladimir Putin and Shinzō Abe on January 22 also did not bring about breakthrough.

2020 Russia deploys missile systems
In October 2020, Russia said it planned to deploy an anti-air missile system for military drills on the Kuril Islands. On December 1, 2020, Russian Defence Ministry's Zvezda TV station reported that Russia deployed several S-300V4 versions of the S-300VM missile system for combat duty on the disputed island Iturup. There were already short-range anti-aircraft missiles systems on Iturup.

2021 Mishustin visit to Iturup Island
On July 26, 2021, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin visited the Iturup Island. Mishustin said Moscow planned to set up a special economic zone with no customs duties and a reduced set of taxes on the island chain.

2022 return to old stance and halting of peace treaty talks
On March 7, 2022, Prime Minister of Japan Fumio Kishida declared that the southern Kurils are "a territory peculiar to Japan, a territory in which Japan has sovereignty." On March 8, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi described the four islands as an "integral part" of Japan. This was in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Japanese leadership had been reluctant to use language that could be seen as provocative by Russia when discussing the islands in recent years. When Shinzo Abe was asked if he considered the islands to be an integral part of Japan in 2019, he declined to respond so as not to damage negotiations with Russia. However, following the outbreak of Russia's war against Ukraine and the implication of sanctions against Russia, the Japanese government has returned to a more hardline stance on the islands as shown by Kishida's statement.

On March 21, 2022, Russia announced its withdrawal from peace treaty talks with Japan and freeze of joint economic projects related to the disputed Kuril Islands due to sanctions imposed by Japan over Ukraine.

On March 25, 2022, Russia started a military drill with over 3,000 troops and hundreds of vehicles on the Kuril Islands, including the disputed islands.

On March 31, 2022, Japan redesignated the disputed islands as being under an "illegal occupation" in a draft for the 2022 Diplomatic Bluebook.

On June 7, 2022, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced Russia's intent to cancel a 1998 agreement with Japan allowing Japanese fishermen to operate near the southern Kuril Islands, claiming that Japan is not meeting the financial obligations outlined in the agreement.

On September 5, 2022, a document was published signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin about Russia's unilateral withdrawal from a visa agreement which allowed former Japanese residents to visit the disputed islands without visas. The Russian lawmaker said this was due to Japan's participation in international sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine war.

Japan reaffirms its position that the islands are illegally occupied
On February 7, 2023, the 168th anniversary of the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda, Japan reaffirmed its position that it considers the four islands to be illegally occupied by Russia. In a statement, Fumio Kishida stated that "It is completely unacceptable that the Northern Territories have yet to be returned since the Soviet Union's illegal occupation of them 77 years ago". This was the first time in 5 years that the Japanese government had used the term 'illegal occupation' when referring to the four islands.

On March 22, 2023, Russia said it deployed a division of its Bastion coastal defense missile systems to Paramushir. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said it was to bolster Russian security around the Kuril Islands and partly in response to the United States efforts to "contain" Russia and China.

On April 21, 2023, Russia's prosecutor general designated the League of Residents of Chishima and Habomai Islands (Chishima Renmei) as “an undesirable organization.” These former residents of the islands are likely barred from visiting the four disputed islands.

Japan's view
Japan's current view of the dispute is given in the official pamphlet of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

 * The Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration did not apply to the disputed islands because those islands had never belonged to Russia even before 1904–1905.
 * Russia had not previously claimed the disputed islands since it began diplomatic relations with Japan in 1855. Therefore, the disputed islands could not be considered part of the territories acquired by Japan "by violence and greed".
 * The Yalta Agreement "did not determine the final settlement of the territorial problem, as it was no more than a statement by the then leaders of the Allied Powers as to principles of the postwar settlement. (Territorial issues should be settled by a peace treaty.) Furthermore, Japan is not bound by this document, to which it did not agree."
 * The Soviet Union's 1945 entry into the war against Japan was a violation of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, and the occupation of the islands was therefore a violation of international law. Although the Soviet Union renounced the neutrality pact on April 5, 1945, Japan contends that the pact remained in effect until April 25, 1946, the 5 year anniversary of the pact's ratification. However possibility of denunciation was described in third article of the pact: "In case neither of the Contracting Parties denounces the Pact one year before the expiration of the term, it will be considered automatically prolonged for the next five years."
 * Although by the terms of Article (2c) of the 1951 San Francisco treaty, Japan renounced all rights to the Kuril Islands, the Japanese government claims that the islands of Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and Habomai are not part of the Kuril Islands but "Northern Territories". Also, the Soviet Union did not sign the San Francisco treaty.
 * In addition, the Japanese government renounced its sovereignty over southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands from Sims to Urup, but the San Francisco Peace Treaty did not specify which country it belonged to, and the Soviet Union did not sign the treaty. Therefore, it claims that the land is undetermined under international law according to Article 25 of the treaty.

Public attitudes in Japan
In Japan, there are various private groups cooperating with local and national government to encourage the Japanese people to push for the return of the islands. One man whose family was evicted from the islands, Kenjirō Suzuki, heads the Tokachi branch of the League of Chishima Habomai Islands Residents (Chishima is the Japanese name for the Kuril Islands). In 2008, the main organization had a budget of approximately 187 million yen (US$1.7 million).

In 2018 the National Museum of Territory and Sovereignty (currently located in the Toranomon Mitsui Building, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) was established by the Japanese government to raise public awareness of Japanese territorial rights issues concerning the Kuril Islands dispute, as well as issues concerning territorial claims to Takeshima and Senkaku Islands.

Many former Japanese residents of the disputed islands and their descendants live in Japan, and since 1964 some have been allowed to visit family graves for humanitarian reasons. However, they have long sought easier access, and the ability to land on islands other than Kunashir. In 2018, Russia started to allow visits to the smaller islands in the archipelago, under a new system involving checks of tour ships as they approached from the sea. The new procedure to process entry requests to the four Russian-held islands was expected to reduce travel time from five hours to about three hours.

Russia's view
Russia maintains that all the Kuril Islands, including those that Japan calls the Northern Territories, are legally a part of Russia as a result of World War II, and the acquisition was as proper as any other change of international boundaries following the war. Moscow cites the following points:

 * The explicit language of the Yalta Agreement gave the Soviet Union a right to the Kurils, and the Soviet Union upheld its own obligations under that treaty.
 * Russia inherited possession of the islands from the former Soviet Union, as its successor state, in accordance with international law.
 * The Japanese assertion that the disputed islands are not part of the Kurils is simply a tactic to bolster Japan's territorial claim and is not supported by history or geography.

On December 21, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his annual news conference that the United States' military presence in Japan was complicating the search for a formal peace treaty between Moscow and Tokyo. Putin told reporters that Moscow was concerned by the deployment of a U.S. air defense system in Japan.

In March 2022, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy Chair of the Security Council of Russia, admitted that Russia was never serious about reaching a territorial agreement. He said: "Obviously, we would never have found any consensus with Japan on the island issue … Negotiations about the Kurils always had a ritualistic character. The new version of the constitution of the Russian Federation [which was introduced in 2020] directly states that our country’s territories are not subject to alienation. The question is closed."

Public attitudes in Russia
In Russia, most of the population and mass media strongly oppose any territorial concessions to Japan. A common view is that the Soviet Union won the Kuril Islands during World War II and is entitled to keep them regardless of the prior history of the disputed territories. Many believe that taking these islands away from Japan was a just reward for the Soviet Union's sacrifices during World War II and for its agreement to enter the war against Japan at the request of its allies. The attitudes of the Russian public have hardened in the 2000s. According to a July 2009 poll conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), 89% of respondents were against territorial concessions to Japan in the Kuril Islands dispute, compared to 76% from a similar poll in 1994. The Zemlyak movement in Russia advocated a return of the islands to Japan during the 90s, but since then Moscow has begun to invest money into Kuril islands and the movement has ceased to exist supporting the return.

A poll in May 2016 showed that the percentage of respondents that said they would support giving the islands to Japan was 7%. In November 2018 a similar poll was conducted, and the number supporting giving the islands was at 17%.

Ainu view
Some Ainu also claim the Kuril Islands, on the basis that their ethnic group inhabited the archipelago and Sakhalin prior to the arrival of Japanese and Russian settlers in the 19th century.

In 2004, the small Ainu community living in Kamchatka Krai wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin, urging him to reconsider any move to award the Southern Kuril Islands to Japan. In the letter they blamed the Japanese, the Tsarist Russians, and the Soviets for crimes against the Ainu such as killings and assimilation, and they also urged him to recognize the Japanese genocide against the Ainu people, a request which was turned down by Putin.

Opinions of third party countries and organizations
🇪🇺's European Parliament issued a resolution "Relations between the EU, China and Taiwan and Security in the Far East", adopted on July 7, 2005, which called on Russia to return to Japan the "occupied" South Kuril Islands.

🇺🇸 recognizes Japan's sovereignty over the islands. Since 2018, the US government has required people seeking permanent residency (known as a green card) to list Japan as their birthplace if they were born on the four disputed islands.

once supported the Soviet Union's claim over the islands in the 1950s, however, after the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, China then turned to support Japanese sovereignty of the islands. After the Sino-Soviet border conflict in 1969, maps published in China began to mark the islands as Japanese territory with a note "Occupied by Russia". During a news conference on July 27, 2021, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian commented on the issue of Russian–Japanese dispute of the islands. He said, "It is China's consistent belief that the outcomes of the victorious anti-fascist war should be earnestly respected and upheld." Russia often cites "the results of the victorious war against fascism" to justify its ownership of the islands following the defeat of Imperial Japan in World War II. By saying "the results be respected", China apparently accepted the Russian argument. During a March 20-21 2023 meeting in Moscow, Xi Jinping told Putin that China "does not take either side" regarding the territorial dispute. This is a shift to neutrality compared to Mao Zedong who in 1964 said the islands belonged to Japan.

is officially neutral in the Russia–Japan conflict over the islands.

🇺🇦's national parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, voted on October 7, 2022, to recognize the Kuril Islands as integral Japanese territories, illegally occupied by the Russian Federation. The same day President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree recognizing the Kuril Islands as territory of Japan temporarily occupied by Russia.

🇮🇷 has called for bilateral negotiations between Japan and Russia over the ownership of the Kuril Islands.

Interests of both parties
The meeting between the leaders of two countries that took place on May 5, 2016, in Moscow was expected to make progress in the resolution of a prolonged territorial disputes. However, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and Russian president Vladimir Putin focused on the "current state and the prospects of development of bilateral cooperation in trade and economy as well as in the humanitarian field". Close to the end of May, Sergey Shoygu, the Russian Defence Minister, announced that Russia is ready to protect the islands against foreign air traffic over the islands by positioning defence systems along the main islands. Furthermore, on June 8, 2015, there was an order from the Defence Minister to expedite the construction of military facilities on Iturup and Kunashir islands. This news generated a wave of Japanese dissatisfaction. Although Japan objected to the actions of Russia, the latter did not show any signs for changing its plans. On November 19, 2018, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that upcoming talks about resolving a dispute with Japan over a group of islands claimed by Tokyo would not necessarily result in Russia relinquishing them.

Political and strategic issues
A Japanese online resource reports that military infrastructure that is springing up in the Kuril Islands is believed to be part of the future plan of "Northern Sea Route", a sea route between the Kara Sea in the Arctic and the Pacific Ocean. The source believes that the route might be in hand to Russia since its power in the Pacific has been weakened for the last several decades. Moreover, the transfer of the Kurils to Japan would escalate territorial disputes Russia has with other countries.

title: Kuril Islands dispute


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Vimana

Vimāna are mythological flying palaces or chariots described in Hindu texts and Sanskrit epics. The "Pushpaka Vimana" of Ravana (who took it from Kubera; Rama returned it to Kubera) is the most quoted example of a vimana. Vimanas are also mentioned in Jain texts.

Etymology
The Sanskrit word vimāna (विमान) literally means "measuring out, traversing" or "having been measured out". Monier Monier-Williams defines vimāna as "a car or a chariot of the gods, any self-moving aerial car sometimes serving as a seat or throne, sometimes self-moving and carrying its occupant through the air; other descriptions make the Vimana more like a house or palace, and one kind is said to be seven stories high", and quotes the Pushpaka Vimana of Ravana as an example. It may denote any car or vehicle, especially a bier or a ship as well as a palace of an emperor, especially with seven stories. Nowadays, vimāna, vimān or biman means "aircraft" in Indian languages. For example in the town name Vimanapura (a suburb of Bangalore) and Vimannagar, a town in Pune. In another context, Vimana is a feature in Hindu temple architecture.

Ramayana
In the Ramayana, the pushpaka ("flowery") vimana of Ravana is described as follows:
 * "The Pushpaka Vimana that resembles the Sun and belongs to my brother was brought by the powerful Ravana; that aerial and excellent Vimana going everywhere at will ... that chariot resembling a bright cloud in the sky ... and the King [Rama] got in, and the excellent chariot at the command of the Raghira, rose up into the higher atmosphere.'"

It is the first flying vimana mentioned in existing Hindu texts (as distinct from the gods' flying horse-drawn chariots). Pushpaka was originally made by Vishvakarma for Brahma, the Hindu god of creation; later Brahma gave it to Kubera, the God of wealth; but it was later stolen, along with Lanka, by his half-brother, king Ravana.

Jain literature
Vimāna-vāsin ('dweller in vimāna') is a class of deities who served the. These Vaimānika deities dwell in the Ūrdhva Loka heavens. According to the Kalpa Sūtra of Bhadra-bāhu, the 24th himself emerged from the great ; whereas the 22nd  emerged from the great vimāna Aparijita. The (4th) and Sumati-nātha (5th) both traveled through the sky in the "Jayanta-vimāna", namely the great vimāna Sarva-artha-siddhi, which was owned by the Jayanta deities; whereas the  (15th) traveled through the sky in the "Vijaya-vimāna". A vimāna may be seen in a dream, such as the nalinī-gulma.

Ashoka Edict IV
Ashoka mentions a model vimana ("aerial chariot") as part of the festivities or procession which were organised during his reign.

Samarangana Sutradhara
Chapter 31 of Samarangana Sutradhara, an 11th-century treatise on architecture, discusses machinery and automata, discussing their operation in terms of the four elements and aether, but suggesting that mercury may be an element in its own right. The author says he has personally seen most of the devices he describes in use, but does not specify which ones. The list includes two wooden aircraft, referred to as "vimanas": a "light" one shaped like a huge bird and a "heavy" one shaped like a temple. Both types contain a fire chamber which heats a container of mercury, somehow causing the aircraft to rise from the ground. However, the description is purposely left incomplete for ethical reasons:
 * "The construction of the machines has not been explained
 * For the sake of secrecy, and not due to lack of knowledge.
 * In that respect, that should be known as the reason -
 * They are not fruitful when disclosed".

Vaimānika Shāstra
The Vaimānika Shāstra is an early 20th-century Sanskrit text on aeronautics, obtained allegedly by mental channeling, about the construction of vimānas, the "chariots of the Gods". The existence of the text was revealed in 1952 by G. R. Josyer, according to whom it was written by one Pandit Subbaraya Shastry, who dictated it in 1918–1923. A Hindi translation was published in 1959, the Sanskrit text with an English translation in 1973. It has 3000 shlokas in 8 chapters. Subbaraya Shastry allegedly stated that the content was dictated to him by Maharishi Bharadvaja. A study by aeronautical and mechanical engineering at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1974 concluded that the aircraft described in the text were "poor concoctions" and that the author showed a complete lack of understanding of aeronautics.

Ayyavazhi
Pushpak Vimana, meaning "an aeroplane with flowers", is a mythical aeroplane found in Ayyavazhi mythology. Akilattirattu Ammanai, the religious book of Ayyavazhi, says that the Pushpak Vimana was sent to carry Ayya Vaikundar to Vaikundam.

A similar reference is found in regards of Saint Tukaram, Maharashtra, India. Lord Vishnu was so impressed by the devotion and singing of Saint Tukaram that when his time came, a Pushpak Viman (a heavenly aircraft shaped as an eagle) came to take him to heaven. Though it is believed that every other human being can go to Heaven without body, Saint Tukaram went to heaven with body (Sadeha Swarga Prapti).

In popular culture
Vimanas have appeared in books, films, internet, games, etc., including:
 * Vimana is an arcade game from Toaplan wherein the player's ship earns the name.
 * Vimana also appears in the Nintendo DS version of the first-person action role-playing game Deep Labyrinth, as the first area the main protagonist Shawn visits upon entering the titular realm in the game's first of two campaigns. He is then approached by a mysterious elephantine being named Lord Elephas, apparently inspired by the Hindu god Ganesh.
 * Biman is the name of national airline of Bangladesh, its name derived from Sanskrit Vimāna.
 * Vimanas appear on the 2005 Vimanarama comic mini-series.

title: Vimana