Re: [FT] Size of "Countries" in FT

At 17:19 04/12/98 +0000, you wrote:
>one, what do you mean 'controls vast tracts of oceans'? international
law
>once recognised 3 miles as the limit of territorial waters, and i think
it
>is now 5 miles. the soviets used to claim it was 12 miles. the
exclusive
>economic zone extends 200 miles, but it is not truly territorial
waters.
>
>two, antarctica does not really count - treaties and international
opinion
>prevent any major exploitation of that land, and it is not aussie 
>territory anyway - it is (iirc) un territory mandated to australia.
nobody
>owns antartica.
>
>anyway, land area isn't so important. it's population and material
>resources that matter, as well as how well you can control your
territory
>- the indonsians may nominally have huge areas of ocean, but do they
>really control them?
>
>Tom

	But thats just the point! Australia technically has a huge
portion of the
globe that it is allowed to exploit (and I cant see restrictions on
Antartica lasting too long) but cant because we lack the resoures to do
so.
There are supposed to be problems in the Antartic fisheries in
Australian
territory because of overfishing.....by Russians! We dont have a fishing
fleet that can operate in those waters and it will takes us years to
build
one. Within the Australian EEZ there are a number of oil fields, decent
size ones IIRC, that we can't use because of the depth of the sea floor.
I
don't know the exact status of Antartica but the Argentinians regard
their
slice as sovereign territory but they don't have the resources, and
after
Operation Coperate the nerve, to do any thing with it. 
	Which brings me back to the point I was originally trying to
make. The OU,
in keeping with the character of the Australia/Pacific region today,
will
be very spread out with some planets being potentially very valuable if
they can  be exploited at some time in the future.
	I do not mean to sound bitter and apologise if I do and for not
making
myself clearer at the start.

	Tony.
	twilko@ozemail.com.au