Yes, they have claimed to have conquered the artic. God, I hate these people.

 

Russian explorers have dived deep below the North Pole in a submersible and planted their national flag on the seabed to stake a symbolic claim to the energy riches of the Arctic.

 

 

The Akademik Fedorov research ship carried about 100 scientists to the region.

 

A mechanical arm on Thursday dropped a specially made, rust-proof titanium flag painted with the Russian tricolor on to the Arctic seabed at a depth of 4,261 meters (13,980 feet).

 

"It was so lovely down there," Itar-Tass news agency quoted expedition leader Artur Chilingarov as saying as he emerged from one of two submersibles that made the dive.

 

"If a hundred or a thousand years from now someone goes down to where we were, they will see the Russian flag," said Chilingarov, 67, a top pro-Kremlin member of parliament.

 

Don't Miss

Russia in Arctic Sea oil and land grab

Russia wants to extend right up to the North Pole the territory it controls in the Arctic, believed to hold vast reserves of untapped oil and natural gas, which is expected to become more accessible as climate change melts the ice.

 

President Vladimir Putin congratulated the expedition by telephone on "the outstanding scientific project," local agencies reported.

 

Boris Gryzlov, who heads the State Duma lower chamber of parliament and the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, hailed the expedition as "a new stage of developing Russia's polar riches."

 

"This is fully in line with Russia's strategic interests," local media quoted him as saying. "I am proud our country remains the leader in conquering the Arctic. I am proud United Russia members took part in this unprecedented mission."

 

Major Russian channels aired a message from the Russian crew manning the International Space Station who said "this achievement must inspire the younger generation".

 

Earlier on Thursday Canada mocked Russia's ambitions and said the expedition was nothing more than a show.

 

"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 told CTV television.

 

Under international law, the five states with territory inside the Arctic Circle -- Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark via its control of Greenland -- have a 320-kilometer (200-mile) economic zone around the north of their coastline.

 

Russia is claiming a larger slice extending as far as the pole because, Moscow says, the Arctic seabed and Siberia are linked by one continental shelf.

 

"Then Russia can give foundation to its claim to more than a million square kilometers of the oceanic shelf," said a news reader for Russia's state news channel Vesti-24, which made the expedition its top news story.

 

Russian media have said the move could raise tension with the United States in a battle for Arctic gas.

 

"I'm not sure of whether they've put a metal flag, a rubber flag or a bed sheet on the ocean floor. Either way, it doesn't have any legal standing or effect on this claim," State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.

 

A Tass reporter on board the mission support ship said crew members cheered as Chilingarov climbed out of the submersible and was handed a pair of slippers.

 

"This may sound grandiloquent but for me this is like placing a flag on the moon, this is really a massive scientific achievement," Sergei Balyasnikov, spokesman for Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Institute, told Reuters.

 

Russia says the mission is intended to show that the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,800-kilometer underwater mountain range that extends under the Arctic to near the pole, is a geological extension of Russian territory.

 

It denied it was a land grab.

 

"The aim of this expedition is not to stake Russia's claim but to show that our shelf reaches to the North Pole," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Manila, where he is attending a regional security conference.

 

The Mir-1 submersible reached the seabed at 1208 Moscow time (0808 GMT) and returned to the surface exactly six hours later.

 

 

A second Russian submersible, manned by Swedish businessman Frederik Paulsen and Australian adventurer Mike McDowell, reached the seabed 27 minutes later. It reached a depth of 4,302 meters.

 

Soviet and U.S. nuclear submarines have often traveled under the polar icecap, but until Thursday none had reached the seabed under the pole. E-mail to a friend

"Hey, do you want to go to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean in a Russian submarine?"

 

 

 

 

I'm shocked anybody even wanted to do this.

"Hey, do you want to go to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean in a Russian submarine?"

 

 

 

 

I'm shocked anybody even wanted to do this.

 

 

 

i'm not.

 

 

there's lots of money there.

 

 

long live imperialism!

I figured Putin just drunkenly took a leak into the sea.

They didn't conquer it, they basically said "mine!", a claim that isn't recognized by Canada.

I had no idea it was that simple!

 

*plants flag on Jessical Biel*

Now they need to conquer poverty, AIDs, unemployed nuclear scientists, unsecured nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, and the mafia...

 

 

....and that's just in their own border.

I had no idea it was that simple!

 

*plants flag on Jessical Biel*

sh*t me either...where is my megan fox flag?

hmmm Wake me up if they find Megatron there

well... since its that simple! *goes off to stick flag in...er i mean on sexiest woman i can find*

Glorious Canada vows to defend the Arctic.

 

TORONTO, Canada (AP) -- Canada's prime minister has begun a three-day trip to the Arctic in an effort to assert sovereignty over the region a week after Russia symbolically staked a claim to the North Pole by sending submarines.

 

Although Stephen Harper's visit has been planned for months, it has taken on new importance since the Russian subs dove 21/2 miles to the Arctic shelf and planted their country's flag in a titanium capsule.

 

"The Russians sent a submarine to drop a small flag at the bottom of the ocean. We're sending our prime minister to reassert Canadian sovereignty," a senior government official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because his language was undiplomatic.

 

Five countries -- Canada, Russia, the United States, Norway and Denmark -- are competing to secure subsurface rights to the Arctic seabed. One study by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic has as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.

 

Harper, who has pledged to spend billions defending Canada's sovereignty over the Arctic, is expected to announce the location of a planned military deep water port later in the week.

 

"Our government has an aggressive Arctic agenda," said Dimitri Soudas, the prime minister's spokesman.

 

"Economic development -- unleashing the resource-based potential of the North, environmental protection -- protecting the unique Northern environment, national sovereignty -- protecting our land, airspace and territorial waters."

 

Last month, Harper announced that six to eight new patrol ships will be built to guard the Northwest Passage sea route in the Arctic, which the U.S. insists does not belong to Canada.

 

U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins has criticized Harper's promise to defend the Arctic, calling the Northwest Passage "neutral waters."

 

Harper said last month the deep water port will serve as an operating base for naval ships and will also be used for commercial purposes. He might also announce a military training center in the Arctic.

 

"Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this government intends to use it," Harper said.

 

The disputed Northwest Passage runs below the North Pole from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Arctic archipelago.

 

As global warming melts the passage -- which is navigable only during a slim window in the summer -- the waters are exposing unexplored resources, and becoming an attractive shipping route. Commercial ships can shave off some 2,480 miles from Europe to Asia compared with the current routes through the Panama Canal.

 

Canada also wants to assert its claim over Hans Island at the entrance to the Northwest Passage.

 

The half-square-mile rock, one-seventh the size of New York's Central Park, is wedged between Canada's Ellesmere Island and Danish-ruled Greenland, and for more than 20 years has been a subject of unusually bitter exchanges between the two NATO allies.

 

In 1984, Denmark's minister for Greenland affairs, Tom Hoeyem, caused a stir when he flew in on a chartered helicopter, raised a Danish flag on the island, buried a bottle of brandy at the base of the flagpole and left a note saying: "Welcome to the Danish island."

 

The dispute erupted again two years ago when former Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham set foot on the rock while Canadian troops hoisted the Maple Leaf flag.

 

Denmark sent a letter of protest to Ottawa, while Canadians and Danes took out competing Google ads, each proclaiming sovereignty over the rock 680 miles south of the North Pole.

 

Some Canadians even called for a boycott of Danish pastries.

 

Canada and the United States dismissed the Russian flag-planting as legally meaningless.

 

But Russian researchers also plan to use the dive to help map the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region. Moscow claims the ridge is an extension of the Eurasian continent, and therefore part of Russia's continental shelf under international law.

 

The U.N. has rejected Moscow's claim, citing a lack of evidence, but Russia is set to resubmit it in 2009. If recognized, the claim would give Russia control of more than 460,000 square miles, representing almost half of the Arctic seabed

NORTH POLE, (AP) - Reports from the North Pole say Santa & the Elves are planning a pre-emptive strike should Russia encroach upon their territory.

NORTH POLE, (AP) - Reports from the North Pole say Santa & the Elves are planning a pre-emptive strike should Russia encroach upon their territory.

 

Israel secretly sends arms and aid to Mr. Claus, after learning his family name was changed from Clausenberg.

NORTH POLE, (AP) - Reports from the North Pole say Santa & the Elves are planning a pre-emptive strike should Russia encroach upon their territory.

 

Israel secretly sends arms and aid to Mr. Claus, after learning his family name was changed from Clausenberg.

:lol :lol

Here's a news bullet from IMDB.com that I found interesting:

 

'News' Footage Was Used in 'Titanic'

 

Footage purportedly showing Russian submarines planting a Russian flag on the seabed under the Arctic's North Pole was actually shot in the Atlantic ten years ago by the Russian TV network RTR and later used in the movie Titanic, the Reuter News Agency admitted Friday. Britain's Guardian newspaper said that the mistake came to light after a 13-year-old Finnish schoolboy recognized the images from the movie and contacted a local newspaper. RTR said that it had used the footage for its own coverage of the flag-planting but identified it as file footage.

 

Link