The recent flag planting below the North Pole by the Russians has generated hundreds of copycat claims around the globe by countries and corporations alike.
The island Republic of Cape Verde, for instance, has shocked the world by sinking it's flag in the Atlantic Ocean and claiming it as their sovereign territory. This symbolic act was followed by similar ceremonies off the shores of Iceland, Barbados, and Bar Harbor, Maine.
Not to be outdone, Chicken-of-the-Sea and Bumblebee are vying for tuna rights in both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Flags of many aquarium supply companies hoping to capitalize on fish and coral have appeared on buoys anchored off the Australian coast above the Great Barrier Reef. And competing kelp claims are the order of the day everywhere the prized brown seaweed is harvested.
Even individuals are getting in while the getting's good. Space travel pioneer Burt Rutan has made known his intention to plant a flag at the Martian North Pole for both water and oil rights, should either commodity exist. Marius Douala of Oku, a village in Cameroon, has laid claim to all of the deadly gas at the bottom of Lakes Nyos and Monoun in that west African country. And media magnate Rupert Murdoch has claimed as his own all gems, gold bars, doubloons and pieces of eight lying at the bottom of every ocean on the planet.
So it would appear Vladimir Putin has set in motion an unprecedented rush to lay claim to all that can theoretically be claimed.
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