A lot of people really laid into me for calling on people to pressure Google after it labeled part of the Kuril Islands as "no man's land." They said it was ridiculous, that I clearly had nothing better to do, and that, of course, this is not how real politics works. And anyway, what complaints could there be against the Americans? They draw maps however they want. Private companies make them based on the CIA World Factbook, and the CIA can compile its Factbook however it pleases. It’s none of our business. And, most importantly, nothing can be changed. But here is an excellent example. Seoul and Washington have resolved the conflict that flared up after the recent U.S. decision to revise the status of the Dokdo archipelago, which is controlled by South Korea and disputed by Japan. This week, the American side reversed its earlier move to classify the islands as "disputed," leaving in place their designation as South Korean territory. The high-profile diplomatic scandal over the group of two islands and a dozen rocks in the Sea of Japan, known in the Republic of Korea as Dokdo and in Japan as Takeshima, began with a report published last week by the Korea Times. South Korean journalists discovered that the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, a government agency, had changed the status of the islands on its maps from "South Korean territory" to "territory with disputed sovereignty," even though Seoul has controlled them for half a century. The news triggered an explosion of public outrage and personally angered President Lee Myung-bak as well. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=991695&NodesID=5 An official U.S. government body changed the island’s status in its internal documents, **but the Koreans were on it immediately, and the Americans backed down. And nothing happened — U.S.-South Korea relations remain excellent despite that pressure. When it comes to the notorious "Japanese textbooks," Seoul acts tough as well: *At the beginning of July, Japan’s Ministry of Education recommended that a teachers’ guide for schools include a mention that these islands are "inherent Japanese territory." The South Koreans responded by recalling their ambassador from Tokyo and suspending political dialogue with Japan. And to dispel any remaining doubts about Dokdo’s ownership, South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo visited the uninhabited rocky territory this week, becoming the first head of government to visit the archipelago, while military exercises were held near the islands on Wednesday. *Those same textbooks also call our islands "inherent Japanese territory," but the guys at the Russian Foreign Ministry are busy with other things: getting their kids into MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Relations) — hereditary diplomat and all that — growing fatter faces, and scheming over who gets sent on a "little posting to the Central African Republic, and who to France." Really, in terms of pointlessness, uselessness, impotence, and sheer idiocy, our Foreign Ministry is surpassed only by the agency of Comrade Onishchenko (Gennady Onishchenko, former head of Russia’s consumer protection agency, notorious for politicized bans and bombastic statements).