From May 1st, the Research Division of Siberian and Far Eastern Studies of the SRC welcomed ARAI Nobuo as a new faculty member.  Professor Arai was born in 1947.  After graduating from the Faculty of Letters of Tokyo University in 1972, he studied in the Faculty of History of Moscow State University from 1975-1979.  In 1987 he participated in the plans for establishing the Hokkaido Institute of Regional Studies and served as a Research Fellow and managing-director before becoming director of that Institute in 1997.  From 1999 he was an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Sapporo International University.  Professor Arai has been active as an advisor on Russian policy to the Hokkaido Prefectural Government and Hokkaido Governor and has extensive personal connections in political and financial circles in Sakhalin and the rest of the Russian Far East.  His research is on the economy of the Russian Far East and Japanese-Russian relations.  He has published extensively on the economic development and financial problems of the Russian Far East, fishery problems between Hokkaido and the Far East, relations between Hokkaido and the Far East, and the Northern Territories question.  His research is well-known overseas and foreign scholars interested in Japanese-Russian relations rarely visit Hokkaido without meeting Professor Arai.  The SRC welcomes Professor Arai and the chance to strengthen our work in the areas covered by his research.