Russia lays claim to the North Pole, and all its gas, oil, and diamonds

Russia lays claim to the North Pole, and all its gas, oil, and diamonds

www.dailymail.co.uk

Russian President Vladimir Putin is making an astonishing bid to grab a vast chunk of the Arctic - so he can tap its vast potential oil, gas and mineral wealth.

His scientists claim an underwater ridge near the North Pole is really part of Russia's continental shelf.

One newspaper printed a map of the "new addition", a triangle five times the size of Britain with twice as much oil as Saudi Arabia.

(visit the link for the full news article)

That's a very bold statement from Putin. I wonder how this will play with everything that is going on right now in the world.

www.dailymail.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 29-6-2007 by Muaddib]

It will be bloody interesting to see how this one plays out. It's not like anyone can really step in and say 'No, you can't take that.' The Arctic isn't even a continent, so I didn't even know a country lay claim to a swath of ocean that large.
It is a wonder that the USSR didn't make a move like this, unless they didn't know about the wealth there. More oil than Saudi Arabia? Score one for Russia.

The thing is that Russia is claiming a bit more than half of the North Pole, and there are 3 more countries who are close to the North Pole, and Putin just decided out of the blue, "ok, more than half of the North Pole belongs to us now".... Very arrogant imo.

I think this is ridiculous, but it still needs to be dealt with. Even though this area probably can't be practically be used for anything for a very long time, even if global warming pans out, Russia can't just be allowed to lay claim on international waters like this against all internationally accepted laws and treaties.

This topic is already being covered in another News thread.
It can be found here.

Russia plans to annex 460,000 square miles of the Arctic