A number of polar meteorological stations in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug have recently got new equipment and new buildings. This will contribute to a mayor improvement on water pollution monitoring in the Barents Sea, White Sea and Kara Sea.

BERGEN: Once more, politics and development in the High North are issues for discussion at a larger conference. In the Western Norwegian town of Bergen more than 200 students and others gathered to listen about resources and security politics in the Arctic.

During this week’s 19th International Seapower Symposium, 101 countries came together to discuss such issues as international piracy and the various challenges that are occurring due to the melting Arctic ice and the new shipping route that has been created.

Development of natural gas fields on Yamal Peninsula threatens the Nenets population.

The construction of LNG plants in the Shtokman project and in the Yamal Peninsula could make Russia world-leading on LNG production, Gazprom deputy Aleksandr Medvedev believes.

In a press release NASA announced yesterday that the Arctic sea ice extent in 2009 was the third lowest since 1979, when U.S. satellite first started taking measurements of the floating ice in the Arctic Ocean. While the ice area minimum increased from the past two years, it is still below the average amount of ice coverage in the past 30 years.

In the midst of talk of a vote of non confidence and growing dissatisfaction among the other parties with the current Canadian government, all four parties were able to set aside their differences and support a Conservative MP’s idea of renaming the Northwest Passage the “Canadian Northwest Passage”.

Finland’s border to Russia is increasingly being guarded with surveillance equipment, with personnel watching computer screens instead of patrolling the bush.

Drilling company Northern Offshore finally got paid for last year’s drilling in the Pechora Sea.

Competition for resources in the Arctic Circle could provoke conflict between Russia and Nato, a newly appointed commander at the alliance warned yesterday.