Arctic fever: Russia races to stake claim
source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/10/2299647.htm
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- jefftego
- added this
Russia is on the hunt for a lucrative slice of the Arctic. Moscow plans to use international law to ask that a huge section of the Arctic Continental Shelf be recognised as Russian territory.
It's the latest move in a new rush to claim the enormous natural resources believed to be under the ocean, now accessible due to the melting ice cap.
But Russia's not confining its ambitions to the courts. On Wednesday it sent four of its strategic bombers on a patrolling mission over the Arctic Ocean and it's also planning army training exercises in the north.
From its surface, it may look like a beautiful expanse of ocean and ice, but it's what can't be seen that has companies and countries clamouring for a piece of the Arctic.
"Here is oil, gas, gold, diamonds, whatever you want," Arthur Chilingarov, parliamentarian and Arctic explorer said.
No-one is exactly sure of the size of the natural sources reserves in the Arctic seabed, but experts estimate that it's huge, with perhaps a quarter of the globe's undiscovered oil and gas deposits there.
It's the hint of that richness that is focusing attention on the region.
It's the latest move in a new rush to claim the enormous natural resources believed to be under the ocean, now accessible due to the melting ice cap.
But Russia's not confining its ambitions to the courts. On Wednesday it sent four of its strategic bombers on a patrolling mission over the Arctic Ocean and it's also planning army training exercises in the north.
From its surface, it may look like a beautiful expanse of ocean and ice, but it's what can't be seen that has companies and countries clamouring for a piece of the Arctic.
"Here is oil, gas, gold, diamonds, whatever you want," Arthur Chilingarov, parliamentarian and Arctic explorer said.
No-one is exactly sure of the size of the natural sources reserves in the Arctic seabed, but experts estimate that it's huge, with perhaps a quarter of the globe's undiscovered oil and gas deposits there.
It's the hint of that richness that is focusing attention on the region.
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- groups:
- Green, Earth and Science
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- tags:
- Green, Earth and Science, Environment, Climate Change, 2 more
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Yoshi1
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Its sad that the governments are more concerned with the oil that "might" be there instead of the fact that the Arctic is melting.
- 3 years ago
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Yoshi1
