>The Canadian prime minister has embarked on a three-day trip across the Arctic region to assert his country's sovereignty over the resource-rich territory. Stephen Harper vowed to pump in billions of dollars and increase military activity in the Arctic Circle to defend what he says is Canadian territory.The trip, which had been planned for months, comes one week after a Russian research submarine planted a flag on the ocean floor, about 3km below the surface. Canada and the US have dismissed the Russian flag-planting as legally meaningless. Peter McKay, the Canadian foreign minister, said last week: "Look this isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'we are claiming this territory'."
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