Two interesting bits from this AFP story (via Drudge) on Putin’s submarine tour of the world’s deepest lake. First there’s this word, in the lede, which I’ve never seen before:

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Saturday dived to the bottom of the world’s deepest lake aboard a mini-submarine, in a highly mediatized stunt unusual even by the standards of the Russian hardman.

Mediatized? Really? I get the meaning. But is this a Francophone innovation? Because it sounds like the kind of thing Americans would come up with and then the French would spit at it.

The second interesting tidbit is this little factoid about Lake Baikal:

However he expressed some surprise about how murky the water was in the lake, which contains around a fifth of the world’s freshwater reserves.

That’s a lot of water.

Update: A reader offers some context:

Jonah,
That statistic about Baikal containing 1/5 of the world’s freshwater supply is at most a half-truth. Baikal and our Great Lakes each contain about 20% of the world’s surface freshwater. But most of the fresh water on earth isn’t in lakes and rivers, but rather in ice or groundwater. Lakes and rivers together are only about 0.3% of the earth’s supply of freshwater. See for example http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html .
Where’s Debbie when you need her?
yours very truly,