Arctic Counter-Claims; Musharraf's Defeat

Exploring the Arctic: William Broad weighs in today with the fascinating back story to Russia’s pioneering dive to the bottom of the Arctic last summer. Russia claimed the right to half the Arctic seabed, which is probably the largest remaining untapped repository of oil and natural gas on the planet. But in Broad’s New York Times piece, the Russians are depicted as not entirely responsible for the feat.

It turns out that the plan for the dive, including how to return safely, originated with a retired American Navy submariner named Alfred McLaren. The result is a bitterly worded tit-for-tat between McLaren and the Russians. One of McLaren’s defenders, a deep sea diver named Don Walsh who worked with the Russians, calls the Russian dive an “example of how to steal your way to fame [that] will become a legend in the history of exploration.”

But Mike McDowell, an Australian who organized polar voyages that inspired the idea, sides with the Russian credited with the dive, Anatoly Sagalevitch, the expedition’s chief scientist. McLaren, he said, is afflicted with a severe case of sour grapes. “He wanted to be first to the pole. Well, it just didn’t work out that way,” McDowell says.

Pakistan's fresh challenge: Pervez Musharraf seems a lot less nefarious today than his detractors have claimed. Previously, this blog has argued that Pakistan’s leader is far more genuine and certainly no worse politically than those who would unseat him, including the since-assassinated Benazir Bhutto and her rival Nawaz Sharif. After the resounding defeat of his political allies in yesterday’s parliamentary elections, Musharraf has accepted the result, and said he's prepared to work with his opponents.

Reporting by my friend Carlotta Gall out of the country’s west – North West Frontier Province and the tribal territories – has seemed to show that many Pakistanis themselves are fed up with the violent militancy in their midst. That – and finally building up a secular education system – may be the main focus of the new government.

Photo: mape_s
Rights: Creative Commons