FT.com / World - Russia plants its flag on North Pole seabed

quite interesting move actually. Reminds me of how the antartica treaty came about. The main itnerested countries came around and hammered out a treaty to share the ice continent equally. Mind you, the convention on the regulation of antartica's mineral resource activity has never come into force even thought it has been signed. Perhaps this is an opportunity for the United Nations to get involved and hammer out a good treaty to look after both the poles. Otherwise this has all the signs of a festering sore which will erupt the next time a country decides to go drill into some icy wastes for oil and gas.