TOKYO, Feb. 7--Japanese leaders demanded on Monday that Russia return four rocky islands at the centre of 60- year-old dispute that has kept the two nations from signing a peace treaty formally ending World War Two, Reuters reported.
Far from improving with time, the dispute over the islands, seized by the Soviet Union in 1945, has become so stalemated that the two sides have not even been able to agree on when Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Japan later this year.
Tokyo has refused to sign a treaty, or provide substantial aid to Russia, unless the windswept islands just 15 km off the northernmost main island of Hokkaido are returned.
"I am nearly 80 years old, and I am growing so tired of waiting to go home," Toshio Koizumi, a former resident of Shikotan island, said at an emotional rally in Tokyo.
Participants in the annual event said this year offered a chance to take dialogue to a new level because it was on Feb. 7 1855 that Japan and Russia signed their first trade treaty.
"This year marks 150 years of friendship between Japan and Russia, and I would like to make it the year in which we lay foundations for rapid progress towards a peace treaty," Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told the gathering of hundreds of former islanders, officials and supporters.
With both sides refusing to budge from long-held positions, however, analysts said significant progress was unlikely soon.
Russia has said it would be willing, as a compromise, to return two islands of what it calls the Southern Kuriles chain and Japan refers to as the Northern Territories.
"The big problem is that Russia doesn't really want to return any of the islands, while Japan will only accept the return of all four," said Tetsuya Ozeki, a diplomatic commentator.
"But they need to solve this issue so they can better deal with topics such as North Korea," he added. "Also, Japan needs close ties with Russia to counter China's growing influence."

Thaksin Shinawatra

PATTANI, Thailand, Feb. 7--Thailand's Muslim far south, where more than 500 people were killed in militant violence last year, voted solidly against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in weekend general elections, Reuters reported.
A stunned Thaksin, who had expected victories for several of his 11 candidates in the three violence-racked provinces in the vote, said on Monday the still unofficial results were a "wake-up call" for his government.
But he insisted he would not alter his approach to what he calls a "law and order" problem.
"This is a disappointing result. We should have won some," Thaksin told reporters in Bangkok after indications that none of the 11 would make it to parliament.
"This is a wake up call for the government that people are not happy," he said.
"The government has already altered its policies on the south, but that has not had a positive impact on people's sentiment yet."
Thaksin had put up strong candidates well known in the region and expected a belief widespread in Thailand that only a ruling party member of parliament has the power to change policy would see several of them elected.
But many voters said they had lost faith in Thaksin, who has refused to apologize for incidents such as the death in military custody of 78 Muslims arrested after protests in October in the village of Takbai bordering Malaysia.
The turnout at many polling stations in the region was 80 percent, up from an average of 60 percent at the 2001 poll, election officials said.
"It is all about the Takbai incident," a provincial election commission chief in one of the three provinces told Reuters.
Exit polls had lent support to Thaksin's hopes, forecasting his Thai Rak Thai would win most of the 11 seats in the region, but candidates of the leading opposition Democrat Party were leading in all constituencies, election officials said.
It was very unlikely any Thai Rak Thai candidate could win, provincial election commissioners said with vote counting in the region about 60 percent completed at 0700 GMT.

NEW YORK, Feb. 7--American scientists have started designing a new generation of nuclear arms that are meant to be sturdier, more reliable and have longer lives, Reuters quoted the New York Times as reporting on Monday, citing federal officials and private experts.
The officials told the newspaper that the effort marks a "fundamental shift" in design philosophy.
The newspaper said that bomb makers in the past had sought to use the latest technologies and innovative methods to make warheads that were lightweight, powerful and sometimes so small that a dozen could fit atop a missile.
Now, the newspaper said American designers are looking at how to make arms that are more robust, in part to avoid the uncertainties and deteriorations of nuclear old age.
The article said that so far, the effort involved only $9 million for warhead designers at the nation's three nuclear weapon laboratories. Bomb experts are looking at secret arms data for clues about how to achieve the new reliability goals, the newspaper said.
The small initial program, which involves fewer than 100 people, is expected to grow, according to the article. The program could produce finished designs in the next five to 10 years and possibly culminate in prototype warheads, the article said.

LONDON, Feb. 7--Unskilled foreigners will find it harder to migrate to Britain under new proposals due to be announced on Monday that will also call for stricter screening of asylum seekers and tighter border controls, AFP reported.
On the eve of a much-trailed announcement of the new, tougher immigration and asylum proposals, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told BBC radio that what Britain needs is "a set of rules that allow people to come in who the country needs, but have strict controls that actually work".
"Whether we should cut the number or increase it (the annual net inflow of people into Britain) depends on the country's need," he added.
The government has drawn up the five-year blueprint just three months before an expected general election in which immigration will be a major theme.
Britain currently lets in 140,000 to 150,000 new immigrants per year.
"I do not think we should have an arbitrary figure. I do not agree with the (opposition) Conservative proposal for a quota," Blair said.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke was to announce details of the immigration system reforms on Monday. Under the new system, unskilled foreigners will find it harder to migrate to Britain and there will be stricter screening of asylum seekers and tighter border controls.
"We will establish a system... which looks at the skills, talents, abilities of people seeking to come and work in this country, and ensures that when they come here they have a job and can contribute to the economy of the country," Clarke told the BBC on Sunday.

KATHMANDU, Nepal, Feb. 7--Nepal's new government headed by the king has offered to hold unconditional talks with Maoist rebels to end an insurgency that has claimed more than 11,000 lives since 1996, AFP quoted state media as saying Monday.
The rebels have previously said they will negotiate only with King Gyanendra or his representatives under an international mediator, with an agenda that includes holding a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution.
A government statement said those issues can be discussed if the rebels agree to meet a committee of cabinet ministers which has still to be appointed.
The Maoist agenda of a round-table conference and an interim government and constituent assembly "can be discussed at the negotiating table," state media said.
Gyanendra, who controls the army, last week fired the government led by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba for failing to organize elections and for failing to end the Maoist insurgency.
He named a loyalist cabinet under his chairmanship, declared a state of emergency and pledged to restore multi-party democracy in three years.
In the meantime scores of political leaders, party and union leaders are under arrest, press censorship has been imposed and any criticism of the king's action has been banned.
On Monday human rights groups held a meeting in defiance of a ban on gatherings and called for a protest on February 10 near the federal government's central secretariat.
The meeting urged activists to court arrest and called for the restoration of democracy and press freedom.
"We would like to fill the jails of Nepal for the sake of democracy, human rights and peace. We would like to fill the jails because the government would like to fill Nepal as a bigger jail.
There is no difference between an bigger jail and a smaller jail," said Krishna Pahadi, former president of the Nepal Human Rights and Peace Society.
While Maoist guerrilla leader Prachanda had refused to hold talks with Deuba, he also described the king's takeover as illegal and urged "pro-people forces of the world" to oppose the sacking of Deuba's government.

HONG KONG, Feb. 7--US officials are investigating whether the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb sold nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, Reuters quoted Time magazine as saying in its latest edition.
As the international community focuses on a possible showdown with Iran over its nuclear program, Time also said Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear trafficking network played a larger role in helping Iran and North Korea than had been previously disclosed.
Last year, Khan admitted selling nuclear secrets to Iran as well as to Libya and North Korea, fuelling global fears about nuclear proliferation and technology transfers to terrorist groups.
Iran has denied US charges that it is pursuing nuclear arms and says its programs are only for peaceful power generation. But privately, Tehran has confirmed at least 13 meetings with Khan's network, Time said.
As head of Pakistan's nuclear research laboratory, Khan traveled the world for more than a decade, laundering smuggling profits with gold dealers in Dubai, Time said. At the height of his powers, he was worth as much as $400 million.
Investigators from the United States and the UN International Atomic Energy Agency believe he also visited Saudia Arabia, Egypt and African countries such as Sudan, Ivory Coast and Niger, Time said.
"The purpose of those trips remains unclear, but intelligence officials have hunches: Saudi Arabia and Egypt are believed to be in the market for nuclear technology, and many African countries are rich in raw uranium ore," the magazine said.
At a meeting in December, President George W. Bush told Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that he believed Khan had not confessed all of his nuclear technology transactions, the magazine said, citing knowledgeable sources.
Musharraf agreed but refused to allow non-Pakistanis to interrogate Khan, who is closely guarded at his home in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
Though Khan has been removed from his job and is believed to be in poor health, his network of suppliers and middlemen still exists, Time said, quoting sources close to his laboratories in Islamabad.

CANBERRA, Australia, Feb. 7--Australia Foreign Minister Alexander Downer distanced himself Monday from remarks by Prime Minister John Howard that Europe was plagued by an "irrational level of anti-Americanism", AFP reported.
After talks with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Downer said European countries that opposed the Iraq war had put the differences with Washington behind them and were now highly engaged in efforts for Middle East stability.
"The impression I've had from the Europeans is that they do value the transatlantic relationship very much and they want the differences of the past to be understood to be historic differences," said Downer, who returned Sunday from a European tour.
"I have been impressed by the efforts by countries such as Germany but also let me say France, that they have been making to help with the training task with the Iraqi security forces."
Howard raised a storm last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last month and in later interviews that purported anti-Americanism sparked by the Iraq war was still raging on the continent.
"I found the French and German attitude has lingered longer than I thought it might, and longer that it is in anyone's interests," Howard, who also met Fischer Monday, was quoted by The Australian newspaper as saying.
Australia committed some 2,000 troops to the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein and still maintains a force of about 900 soldiers in and around Iraq.
Downer however pointed to the efforts of France, Germany and Britain to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear program and European diplomacy between the Israelis and the Palestinians as constructive.
"I get the sense that on the question of Israel and Palestine, there is pretty much an identity of views between the Americans and the Europeans now and that's encouraging," he said.