Arctic Canada European union

The Arctic is melting – drill for oil

September 23, 2008 – 11:41 pm

The Arctic is melting – drill for oil. That is the response from the European Commission at least if we are to believe the EUObserver, that writes: Drilling for oil in the fragile northern environment must go ahead with European financial and political support for the sake of EU energy security, energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs read more »

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Arctic

Conflicting claims

September 22, 2008 – 12:12 am

I have earlier written about the conflicting claims in the polar basin. The University of Durham has published this very interesting map of these claims. You can find a larger version of this map in a pdf-version with notes at http://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/ibru/arctic.pdf This map gives you a good idea of the potential conflicts in the north.

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Arctic Canada Norway Russia USA

The Arctic is heating up

August 24, 2008 – 11:14 pm

No, I’m not talking about climate change. Even though I obviously could have, the North West passage is open again this year. No, I’m talking about the international scramble to grab land (read sea bottom) in the Arctic. The United Nations Law of the Sea gives all the countries around the Arctic bassin until 2014 read more »

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Russia

Protestant ethics in Russia?

July 16, 2008 – 12:32 am

The russiablog.org had a very interesting post by Nikolai N. Petro today. He argues that the young people have a stronger weberian protestant ethic than you find in Western Europe. Wikipedia quotes Max Weber as having written: In order that a manner of life well adapted to the peculiarities of the capitalism… could come to read more »

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Russia

Arkhangelsk, maybe the last time?

July 15, 2008 – 11:45 pm

This is just to give you a short update. The Barents Observer writes that the recount in Arkhangelsk must be a falsification. They report a rusnord.ru saying that News site Rusnord.ru has however approached the leaders of the ballot stations, all people with extensive experiences from former elections. They all underline that the original results read more »

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Russia

Archangelsk election – once more

June 5, 2008 – 2:06 pm

The mayoral election in Archangelsk is over. I must admit I was somewhat surprised that Larisa Bazanova won the election with 37,55% of the vote against the governors candidate 37,41%. Read more about the five candidates here. Put my puzzelment was soon over. The votes are recounted and Viktor Pavlenko was declared winner. No big read more »

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Economy Russia

Russia increases export duties – thats smart

May 24, 2008 – 2:00 pm

The Russian Federation has increased the export duties on timber. This shows that the Russian government has understood a few basic about the economy that most of western and Norwegian economists has allowed to be forgotten.The forgotten  lesson is that no country can get rich by exporting raw materials and importing finished goods. This is read more »

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Russia

Fewer poor Russians

May 21, 2008 – 2:58 pm

The BarentsObserver reports that the number of poor Russians are decreasing. This is very good news. Still more than 13 percent of Russians are living for less than 4005 rubels a month. That equals 170 US dollars or 840 Norwegian kroner. This is not much at a time when foodprices are soaring. Until the first of read more »

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