Underwater Arctic Territory claimed by Russian explorers
by Kevin O'Flynn and Svetlana Osadchuk
Global Research, August 6, 2007
The Moscow Times - 2007-08-03
A Russian flag was planted on the North Pole seabed Thursday as man reached the bottom of the top of the world for the first time in an expedition likely to accelerate the scramble for rich underwater deposits.
Two mini-submarines, Mir-1 and Mir-2, carried three-man crews more than four kilometers below the Arctic surface and back up again in a nine-hour operation. A mechanical arm dropped the rust proof flag on the seabed from Mir-1 as part of Russia's attempts to bolster its claim for a vast part of the Arctic floor.
"It was a soft landing," Alexander Begak, the expedition's press attache, said by telephone from on board the research vessel Akademik Fyodorov, which along with the nuclear icebreaker Rossia made up the expedition.
On board the submarines were polar explorer Artur Chilingarov, who is deputy speaker in the State Duma and President Vladimir Putin's envoy to the Arctic, Duma Deputy Vladimir Gruzdev and Anatoly Sagalevich, chief of the Oceanology Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
"The landing was smooth, the yellowish ground is around us and no sea dwellers are visible," Chilingarov was quoted as saying from the bottom by Itar-Tass.
The second submarine was manned by Swedish businessman Frederik Paulsen and Australian adventurer Mike McDowell. NTV television reported Wednesday that McDowell paid $3 million to go on the privately funded expedition.
The crew took samples from the seabed as part of an attempt to claim a large chunk of the Arctic. Russia maintains that the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater shelf that runs through the Arctic, is part of Russia's offshore territory.
"The aim of the expedition is to prove that our shelf extends to the North Pole," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by Interfax. Lavrov added that Russia's claims would be pursued through international legal channels.
Other countries with Arctic territory were quick to dismiss the act.
"This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming this territory,'" Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay was quoted as saying in televised remarks by Reuters. "There is no threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic ... we're not at all concerned about this mission -- basically it's just a show by Russia."
"I think in a few days U.S. explorers will be in the area," said Hali Ullen, of the Institute of Oceanology, which provided the two submarines.
Chilingarov said the United States was keeping a careful eye on events and that UN and NATO planes were also spotted watching the expedition.
The two submarines descended from a 25-meter-by-10-meter opening in the ice early Thursday morning. The first vessel was piloted by Sagalevich, who manned the submarine that took the footage of the wreck of the Titanic used in the Hollywood film by the same name.
"The most difficult part of the operation was surfacing," said Begak.
The submarines, which are only 8 meters long, had to make sure they found the opening, and not the 1 1/2-meter-thick ice. Begak said it was "like hitting a hole the size of the eye of a needle."
Mir-1 appeared above the water eight hours and 40 minutes after submerging, spending 40 minutes below the ice before it found open sea, Begak said. Mir-2 surfaced an hour later.
Currently no country has exclusive jurisdiction over the Arctic. Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States each control a 320-kilometer economic zone beyond their shores.
Moscow first tried to claim the Arctic territory in 2001, but that claim was rejected. It has been gathering evidence since then in preparation for its next opportunity to submit the claim to a UN commission in 2009. To claim the area, Russia must prove that the area in question is linked to its territory as part of the same continental shelf.
The economic interests involved are immense, as the Arctic region could hold up to one-quarter of the planet's remaining untapped oil and gas reserves, according to some estimates.
"This expedition is symbolic of a new era in the exploration and extraction of oil in the Arctic Ocean," said Vladimir Chuprov, the head of the energy unit for Greenpeace Russia. "Its a scientific and a geopolitical expedition."
Chuprov said drilling for oil in the Arctic would only mean increased greenhouse gas emissions and the destruction of one of the cleanest areas left on the planet.
"It goes against the activities and aims of mankind to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050," he said, referring to the target agreed upon at the Group of Eight summit in Germany in June.
The Institute of Oceanology's Ullen insisted that it was too early to be concerned about the threat to the Arctic's environment.
"It is a question for 30 to 40 years from now," Ullen said. "Scientific research should be done.
"This expedition shows the ability of Russian technology and Russian science," he said, adding that the Arctic's future had to be decided through multilateral negotiations. "A united effort to explore the area is the best approach."
At home, the expedition has been spun to appeal to patriotic Russians who remember Soviet displays of derring-do. Russia has a long history of polar exploration, having created the first floating polar research station in 1937.
"Our aim is to remind the whole world that Russia is a great polar- and scientific-research power," Chilingarov was quoted as saying by Interfax.
Chilingarov previously compared the feat to space exploration. "To stand on one's feet at such a depth -- it is like the first step on the moon," he said.
To underline the comparison, the submarine crew spoke with the Russian crew of the international space station via a telephone linkup, Begak said. "They asked each other a few questions," he said, and then the connection was broken.
Channel One television noted that the crew did not wear shoes before they got into the submarine, just like cosmonauts.
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Putin Says Recent North Pole Mission To Back Russian Claim To Arctic
Russia's claims prompted George W. Bush's administration to step up pressure on Congress to sign the UN Convention to be able to have its say on the body.
by Staff Writers
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Aug 08, 2007
The results of the Russian North Pole mission last week should be central to the country's case for ownership of a vast section of the Arctic, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday. Russian researchers made the first-ever dive below the North Pole in two mini-submarines last Thursday, taking rock samples from the seabed to gather proof that Russia's continental shelf stretches out into the Arctic across the Pole.
Meeting with members of the expedition - veteran explorer Artur Chilingarov and Anatoly Sagalevich, a researcher who piloted one of the submersibles - Putin said: "This has yet to be discussed with our partners, or defended in international organizations. The results of your expedition must be central to Russia's case on the issue."
In 2001, Russia said it was entitled to an extra 1.2 million square kilometers (460,000 square miles) of the Arctic, claiming the underwater Lomonosov Ridge is a continuation of its shelf. The UN demanded more evidence.
As well as collecting geological samples, the explorers planted a titanium Russian flag on the seabed, 4,200 meters (14,000 feet) below the surface, in a symbolic gesture to claim the territory believed to contain natural gas, oil, tin, gold and other riches, likely to become accessible in future decades due to man-made global warming.
Although the gesture has no legal force, it irritated Canada, which has claimed part of the Arctic shelf since 1925. A Canadian diplomat mockingly said Russia was setting up shelf borders using 15th century flag-planting methods, an allegation echoed by the United States. The countries, along with Denmark and Norway, have a 322-km (200-mile) economic zone in the Arctic under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Russia's claims prompted George W. Bush's administration to step up pressure on Congress to sign the UN Convention to be able to have its say on the body.
Source: RIA Novosti
Retuters use "Titanic" film footage in Russian North Pole story
By Paul Walter(Paul Walter)
Reuters have admitted illustrating a story about the Russian North Pole undersea flag-placing with footage from the 1997 film "Titanic". A 13 year-old Finnish schoolboy spotted the similarity of the pictures. Whatever next?
Liberal Burblings - http://paulwalter.blogspot.com/
US rushes icebreaker to counter Ruskie threat to North Pole
By Actual News Geezer
News that the US government is rushing a Coast Guard icebreaker to the north to coutner Russia's claim to the North Pole will surely annoy Canadians. read more.
The News is NowPublic.com - NowPublic... - http://www.nowpublic.com
Reuters Sinking at the North Pole
By Ariel
News agency Reuters has been forced to admit that footage it released last week purportedly showing Russian submersibles on the seabed of the North Pole actually came from the movie Titanic. The images were reproduced around the world ...
Simply Dumb - http://www.simplydumb.com
Russian North Pole submarine images are actually from the movie ...
Images presented by the Reuters news agency last Thursday, purporting to show the Finnish-built MIR-1 and MIR-2 submersibles during a recent Russian scientific expedition to the sea bed 4.3 kilometres below the Geographic North Pole, ...
Digg / World News / digg - http://digg.com/world_news
Will China Have Rights to the North Pole?
By yuri(yuri)
At the moment, the legal picture surrounding claims to the North Pole is unclear. Countries control 12 miles of their coastal seas; everything beyond that is considered open sea, available to everyone on an equal basis. ...
Russia Blog - http://www.russiablog.org/
Gaffney Plus Washington Times Equals Hilarity
russian_claim.jpg
I'm honestly not sure which is more hysterical: Frank Gaffney's most recent Washington Times column, which argues that the Russians laid claim to the North Pole in a cunning gambit to corner the U.S. into ratifying the Law of the Sea convention; or the Times' decision to print his ridiculous column even though it was published - verbatim - on another site the previous day.
I've held my fire since reports first emerged of a Russian submarine symbolically planting a titanium flag at the North Pole. I'm naturally interested in all things related to Russia and ocean law, but I kept quiet. After reading Gaffney's column - twice - I simply can't choke back the laughter.
Under the terms of the Law of the Sea, each State Party enjoys an Exclusive Economic Zone that extends 200 miles off of its coast. If a State Party's continental shelf extends beyond this area, it can claim exclusive rights there too.
Russia is essentially saying that the North Pole (specifically, the Lomonosov Ridge that cuts the Arctic circle in half) is part of its extended continental shelf. Other Arctic countries that have ratified the Law of the Sea can dispute this claim, as surely they will. None of this, by the way, is a surprise: when my colleagues and I were drafting our Law of the Sea fact sheet earlier this year, we suggested in an early draft that by refusing to ratify, the U.S. would miss out on "the great Arctic land grab" (the phrase was imprecise and alarmist, so we removed it from later versions).
As the State Department acknowledges, this is just one of many compelling reasons to ratify the treaty. According to the St. Petersburg Times, Senator Mel Martinez, Chairman of the Republican Party, has come on board, too.
But Frank Gaffney thinks this is just a secret ploy by the Russians:
Two deep-ocean submersibles were dispatched to the Arctic floor ostensibly for the purpose of laying claim to the Lomonosov Ridge - and, more importantly, to the potentially vast oil, gas and mineral resources that may lie within a zone 200 miles wide on either side of that underwater mountain range. This move may have been a grandmaster's feint, however, masking another purpose: blackmailing the United States into ratifying the defective Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).
Yes, according to Gaffney, extensive deposits of oil and gas are just decoys, distracting from the Russians' real and dastardly goal: to force the U.S. to ratify a treaty with which it already complies and that its President supports.
This makes even less sense than Gaffney's America: World Police-like proposal that force (or the threat of force) be used to the protect deep seabed mining activities of U.S. firms as an alternative to the legal framework provided by the Law of the Sea.
Gaffney's column in the Times is entitled "Lost at Seize." He also wrote a column called "Russian L.O.S.T. and Found" that was published yesterday on renewamerica.us, a site that supports "the "Declarationist" ideals of Alan Keyes." Here's what he wrote on that site:
Two deep-ocean submersibles were dispatched to the Arctic floor ostensibly for the purpose of laying claim to the Lomonosov Ridge - and, more importantly, to the potentially vast oil, gas and mineral resources that may lie within a zone 200 miles wide on either side of that underwater mountain range. This move may have been a grandmaster's feint, however, masking another purpose: blackmailing the United States into ratifying the defective Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).
In case you're wondering, that wasn't a typo: the passages are identical. In fact, Gaffney's entire August 7 column in the Washington Times is a re-print of his August 6 column on renewamerica.us (precisely one word was changed).
Apparently, the Washington Times is about as interested in obtaining original, exclusive submissions from its columnists as Gaffney is in...well...the facts.
-- Scott Paul
Note: This is not the first of Frank Gaffney's columns that the Washington Times has reprinted a day after it's gone up on renewamerica.us. STP
Another Note: I almost forgot the most hysterical part of this whole business. Opposite Gaffney's column, the Washington Times published a column on the Russian claim by Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation, who writes:
"To stop the expansion, the U.S. should encourage its friends and allies - Canada, Denmark and Norway - to pursue their claims in the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. While the United Sates has not ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), other Arctic countries, including Norway and Denmark, have filed their own claims with the Commission, opposing Russian demands."
Keeps getting better and better. STP
05:56 PM |http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/
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