The Arctic This Week May 25 - 31, 2015  courtesy: Karsten Bidstrup Welcome and thanks for joining us this week! We hope that you find TATW interesting and entertaining to read. If you’re not a subscriber yet, you cansign up here. As always, all editorial choices, opinions and any mistakes are the authors’ own. Anything that we missed? Please feel free to share material with us if you think it deserves inclusion in TATW. TAI’s RECENT ACTIVITIES The Greenland Dilemma A new book on Greenland's international role and complex relations with Denmark has just been published, with input from TAI’s Marc Jacobsen, who has done research and analysis for the book. The e-book version in English can be downloaded for free on the Royal Danish Defence website. Read more on the book on the Arctic Journal. Arctic Summer College Ecologic Institute and its partners are pleased to announce the 2015 Arctic Summer College and are seeking applications from emerging leaders working to improve Arctic governance from around the world. The Arctic Summer College creates a network of emerging leaders and experts that will be brought together for 8 weeks in a series of web-based seminars (webinars) from June 25 to August 13. The program aims to build a lasting, policy-oriented network of Arctic professionals to strengthen communication between peoples and nations, scientific disciplines, policy areas, and across the science-policy interface to improve governance and sustainable development in the Arctic. Applicants will be accepted until June 11. Find more information here. THE POLITICAL SCENE Timo Soini, leader of the Finns Party, will be Finland’s next foreign minister. Observers expect that “with Soini as foreign minister Finland is likely to get a foreign policy line which is more open towards NATO. Soini has already announced that the new government will prepare a report to explore the benefits of NATO membership for Finland.” Finland’s previous government was opposed to joining the transatlantic alliance, instead stressing better cooperation with Russia (BO). Facing a “budget impasse,” the Alaska state government is preparing for a potential partial shutdown on 1 July should the legislature remain unable to pass a budget.AD provides the details of what such an event would entail, and which agencies would be affected. ENERGY A report from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) faulted Shell for the 2012 grounding of a rig that caused the company to suspend its Arctic operations soon thereafter. Shell executives and federal regulators have nonetheless defended recent decisions that will likely allow Shell to resume operations in the region in the near future (ABC). As a number of voices continue to protest Shell’s imminent return to the Arctic, the company has stated that oil extracted from potential Arctic reserves may not hit international markets until the 2030s due to the complex nature of the drilling process (CSM). A video that sums up the various aspects of the debate can be found here. Although Russia supplied more natural gas to Western Europe than any other country in 2014, Norway took over the top position in the first quarter of 2015. The shift was influenced by European desires to reduce dependence on Russian energy supplies as well as the flexible pricing options being offered by Norway (Oil & Gas 360). SCIENCE, ENVIRONMENT AND WILDLIFE Recent bear sightings in Anchorage, Alaska, have highlighted the role of social media in human-wildlife interactions. The sightings were shared through the community-specific networking site Nextdoor.com, which is designed for neighborhood interactions. The website is increasingly being used to report wildlife encounters in urban communities, which can be both beneficial and detrimental. On one hand, it is easier to alert neighbors of bears and other potentially harmful wildlife roaming in the neighborhood. On the other hand, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game observes that instead of communicating sightings to their biologists, people tend to post them online, where Fish and Game might not have access to the community-specific information. And where the information leaks to non-community-specific websites, it can attract onlookers wanting to take pictures, which has already led to traffic jams in some areas (AD). MILITARY / SEARCH & RESCUE Some 100 aircraft and 4,000 personnel from the United States, Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland are taking part in the Norwegian-led “Arctic Challenge” training exercises. Meanwhile. Russia is running its own exercises in Siberia with some 250 aircraft and 12,000 personnel (The Telegraph andAD). Russia has announced it will deploy Bastion anti-ship missiles to the Arctic this year, as part of a beefed-up coastal defense system. Speaking to Sputnik News, Admiral Vladimir Korolev, commander Northern Fleet, “also said that the Northern Fleet’s anti-air defense recently received S-400 missile complexes, while some Pantsir-S surface-to-air missiles systems were deployed to other parts of the Arctic” (IBTimes). MINING Alaska’s Supreme Court handed down two key decisions last week regarding the legality of the controversial Pebble mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay. In a detailed article, Alaska Dispatch News breaks down the two decisions, both of which ruled in favor of anti-Pebble mine activists. FISHERIES, SHIPPING AND OTHER BUSINESS NEWS Despite challenging sea ice conditions, Alaska’s spring whale harvest has been relatively successful. The difficulties faced by whalers include winds and currents adverse to whaling, shifting ice, as well as summer temperatures and rain arriving earlier than usual and softening the ice to dangerous levels. These conditions are likely what contributed to the death of Native-rights activist Charles ‘Etok’ Edwardsen Jr., who broke through the ice while whaling (AD). The whalers were supported by unmanned aircraft from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which provided them with topographic maps of the ice conditions (AD). HEALTH, EDUCATION, SOCIETY AND CULTURE The Telegraph recently ran a profile on Rebecca Dinerstein, a 27-year-old American author whose debut novel, which sparked a bidding war between publishers, was released on June 2 to much acclaim. The book, titled “The Sunlit Night”, is set in the Arctic Norwegian archipelago of Lofoten. In fact, Dinerstein’s inspiration for the novel came from a 12-month stint living at an artist’s colony in Lofoten after graduating from university. Writing in Cosmopolitan, Dinerstein discusses how living alone on an island in the Norwegian Arctic inspired her first novel and changed her views on relationships and solitude. Iceland’s movie and television industry reported record-setting revenues in 2014, with the industry earning approximately $117 million (mbl). According to the Association of Iceland Film Producers, revenue generated from the tv and movie production in the country has increased roughly 300% over the past five years. The increase is largely due to recent movies such as Noah and Interstellar as well as television shows like Fortitude and Game of Thrones being filmed in the country.  Abbreviation Key Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) Aftenbladet (AB) Alaska Business Monthly (ABM) Alaska Dispatch (AD) Alaska Journal of Commerce (AJC) Alaska Native News (ANN) Alaska Public Media (APM) Anchorage Daily News (ADN) Arctic Info (Russian) (AIR) Arctic Institute (TAI) Barents Nova (BN) Barents Observer (BO) Bristol Bay Times (BBT) BusinessWeek (BW) Canadian Mining Journal (CMJ) Christian Science Monitor (CSM) Eye on the Arctic (EOTA) Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (FNM) Financial Times (FT) Globe and Mail (G&M) Government of Canada (GOC) Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) Huffington Post (HP) Indian Country Today Media Network (ICTMN) Johnson’s Russia List (JRL) Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa (KNR) Lapin Kansa (LK) Moscow Times (MT) National Geographic (NG) Natural Gas Europe (NGE) Naval Today (NT) New York Times (NYT) Northern Journal (NJ) Northern News Service Online (NNSO) Northern Public Affairs (NPA) Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) Nunatsiaq News (NN) Oil & Gas Journal (OGJ) Ottawa Citizen (OC) Petroleum News (PN) RIA Novosti (RIAN) Russia Beyond the Headlines (RBTH) Russia Today (RT) Voice of Russia (VOR) Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Washington Post (WP) Whitehorse Star (WS) Winnipeg Free Press (WFP) Yukon News (YN) |
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