Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Coast Guard cutter is headed to the Arctic this week on a mapping mission to determine whether part of this area can be considered U.S. territory, after recent polar forays by Russia and Canada. The four-week cruise of the Coast Guard Cutter Healy starts Friday and aims to map the sea floor on the northern Chukchi Cap, an underwater plateau that extends from Alaska's North Slope some 500 miles northward. This is the third such U.S. Arctic mapping cruise -- others were in 2003 and 2004 -- and is not a response to a Russian...

OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada dismissed Russia's flag-planting at the North Pole on Thursday as a "15th century" stunt that does not bolster its disputed claim to the resource-rich Arctic. "Look, this isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and plant flags and say, 'We're claiming this territory,'" Foreign Minister Peter MacKay told broadcaster CTV. Earlier, a Russian mini-submarine reached the bottom of the Arctic Ocean under the North Pole at a depth of 4,261 meters (13,980 feet), to carry out scientific tests and leave a Russian flag. The dive is believed to be the first of its...