Why Is Britain Grabbing Antarctica?

Why Is Britain Grabbing Antarctica?

After the Queen’s visit to the Foreign Office this week, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that the southern part of the British Antarctic Territory will now be known, at least on British maps, as “Queen Elizabeth Land”. Within hours of this announcement, made in acknowledgement of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee and her service to the country, the story was top of the tweeting trends in the UK. Why all this interest? This has been a momentous year for all things polar and Falklands-related. We have had the 100th anniversary of the ill-fated Scott expedition, and the 30th anniversary of the Falklands conflict. In March, the posting to the Falkland Islands of the Duke of Cambridge as a RAF search and rescue pilot stirred Argentine political opinion.

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