RUSSIA:It is already the world's biggest country, spanning 11 time zones. But yesterday, Russia signalled its intention to get even bigger by announcing an audacious plan to annex a vast 1,191,395sq km (460,000sq miles) chunk of the frozen Arctic.
According to Russian scientists, Russia's northern Arctic region is linked to the North Pole via an underwater shelf. Under international law, no country owns the North Pole. Instead, the five surrounding Arctic states - Russia, the US, Canada, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland) - are limited to a 200-mile economic zone around their coasts.
On Monday, however, a group of Russian geologists returned from a six-week voyage on a nuclear icebreaker. They had travelled to the Lomonosov ridge, an underwater shelf in Russia's remote and inhospitable eastern Arctic Ocean.
According to Russia's media, the geologists returned with the "sensational news" that the Lomonosov ridge was linked to Russian Federation territory, boosting Russia's claim over the oil- and gas-rich triangle.
Yesterday, some scientists doubted whether Russia's Arctic grab stood up to scrutiny. To extend a zone, a state has to prove the continental shelf is similar to the geological structure within its territory. - (Guardian service)