http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/08/02/arctic.sub.reut/index.htmlMOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- Russian explorers have dived deep below the North Pole in a submersible and planted their national flag on the seabed to stake a symbolic claim to the energy riches of the Arctic.
A mechanical arm on Thursday dropped a specially made, rust-proof titanium flag painted with the Russian tricolor on to the Arctic seabed at a depth of 4,261 meters (13,980 feet).
"It was so lovely down there," Itar-Tass news agency quoted expedition leader Artur Chilingarov as saying as he emerged from one of two submersibles that made the dive.
"If a hundred or a thousand years from now someone goes down to where we were, they will see the Russian flag," said Chilingarov, 67, a top pro-Kremlin member of parliament.
This is a big screw you to the world in the latest move by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his very aggressive energy agenda.
A little background on Arctic energy resources and geopolitics:
http://www.tve.org/earthreport/archive/doc.cfm?aid=1850">Arctic Blues
Arvid Jensen: In the north there are especially strict requirements because the authorities don’t want any pollution to the sea and today the oil companies fulfil these requirements. Without a comprehensive Arctic treaty can all the oil companies be trusted to follow suit? Or will the rush for Arctic oil mirror the tragedy of the early whalers? The Arctic is surrounded by five countries, Norway, Greenland – linked to Denmark, Canada, Russia and the US - all of whom have, over the past few hundred years, made agreements and harboured unresolved disputes over rights to the Arctic. With no general Arctic treaty to arbitrate competing claims most countries referred to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Under the treaty a country’s waters reach 12 miles off the coast. But countries are allowed a 200-mile exclusive economic zone, or EEZ. It gives them fishing and exploitation rights. However some countries are looking to claim even larger areas.
Louise de Lafayette, International Lawyer: some states had continental shelves extending from their land area way beyond 200 miles. They wanted to have access to the resources because they argued that as long as they could get their technology to explore these resources they should have the right to exploit them beyond the 200 miles.
In 2001 Russia submitted a claim to an extension of its continental shelf outside the 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone to include the Lomonosov Ridge. Canada and Denmark, through its union with Greenland, are submitting a counter claim. If either party is successful, the resulting Exclusive Economic Zone will extend for 1,800 km across the entire Arctic from Canada and Greenland in the south west to Siberia in the north east, right past the North Pole. It will give the controlling country rights to a huge area of potential oil, gas and fish resources. Determining the validity of the claims will rely on an unholy mix of science and politics.
Copenhagen, capital city of Denmark, and home to the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. Trine Dahl-Jensen is one of the lead scientists from the Lomonosov Ridge mapping project. Her team, working in conjunction with the Canadians, is charged with finding out whether the Lomonosov Ridge is joined to the Canadian/Greenland continental shelf. This is the basis of the their claim to an extension of their Exclusive Economic Zones.
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