CANADA: Stephen Harper, elected on Monday as Canada's prime minister, has warned the US to back off from its challenge to Canadian sovereignty in Arctic waters fast-thawing from global warming.
In the first news conference since his election, Mr Harper upbraided the US ambassador for asserting the icy polar regions, including the legendary Northwest Passage, are international waters. Canada claims its archipelago of 16,000 islands makes that region Canadian territory.
"The United States defends its sovereignty. The Canadian government will defend our sovereignty," said Mr Harper. "It's the Canadian people we get our mandate from, not the ambassador of the United States."
The two countries - as well as Russia - have had conflicting claims in the Arctic for at least three decades. Mr Harper's Conservative party has proposed expanding Canada's military presence, building new ice-breakers and creating an early-warning system to detect other ships, to enforce its claim of sovereignty.
The Liberal government Mr Harper will replace has made similar claims and proposals. But it was unexpected that the new prime minister would launch a sharp verbal attack against the US on this subject so quickly.
"The changing ice conditions are driving this issue to the top of the political agenda," said Michael Byers, an international law expert at the University of British Columbia.
"We've been able to avoid problems over this in the past because the ice has been too thick and too hard to make it a commercially viable route," Mr Byers said. "But, of course, the ice is melting."
He said that "within the next decade or two, there will be a major international shipping route around the northern side of North America".
That will shorten the route for Europe-Asia shippers by 4,000 miles, Mr Byers said, adding it also presented security concerns as a "backdoor to North America that is wide open".