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Greenland strike called off

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

The Greenland home rule government and the SIK workers’ union came to a compromise this past weekend on wages for the next two years, narrowly averting a strike.

On June 17, Greenland would have been hit by a general strike in the public sector, just as its tourist season was about to start.

All flights in and out of the country would have been affected and some 6,500 secretaries, medical secretaries, child care workers, interpreters and food industry staff would have gone on strike, crippling business and services.

SIK had demanded a wage increase of approximately 10 per cent over the next three years. The government offered 6.5 per cent, which SIK maintained was too little compared to the rapidly increasing cost of living.

SIK members will receive eight per cent more in wages and pension over the next three years.

The deal will cost the home rule government nine million Danish krøners more than its original offer.

SIK’s president, Jess. G. Berthelsen, said he was satisfied with the result.

“The government members gave us a hard time, but we met on the middle, if you can’t get the best, you have to choose the next best,” Berthelsen told Greenland Radio News on Saturday.
Wage increases for SIK members in the past have averaged around 2.5 per cent, although members of Greenland’s parliament recently supported a bill that, if approved next autumn, will offer MLAs a substantial pay hike.

Greenland university seeks support

Greenland wants its own full-fledged university, but the project’s price tag of around $8.5 million has sent fundraisers to Europe and North America in search of money.

The future University of Greenland would also include a School of Journalism, School of Social Work, a Language Secretariat, the National Archive and Statistics Greenland.

Marianne Stenbaek, a McGill University instructor, has trawled the U.S. and Canada, asking 150 foundations for assistance in realizing this ambitious project.

Two foundations in North America have already shown interest in helping out — the U.S.-based Kresgee Foundation and Canada’s Bombardier Foundation.

Stenbaek admitted there still is long way to go before an Ilimmarfik University in Nuuk becomes a reality, but she said a new focus on Greenland in Washington D.C. may help raise more money for the project.

“The interest for Arctic studies about the environment, pollution, global warming, culture, society and communications is increasing,” Stenbaek told KNR radio in Greenland.

The Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. may mount a special exhibition on Greenland, highlighting Greenland’s national clothing and featuring Greenlandic theatre, dancers and musicians.

Oil spills increase in Siberia

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

The number of accidents at oil fields in Siberia is up, with numerous oil spills causing serious environmental damage. Many wetlands in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area that were home to spring flowers and migratory water fowl are reportedly now covered by a thick layer of oily scum.

About 2,000 small and medium-sized accidents occur in the region’s oilfields every year. Old, rotting and rusting pipes are responsible for some spills, but one recently laid pipe near the Ob River has apparently already broken twice.

Clean-up efforts are meager and ineffective. One fraudulent enterprise had 14 contracts to carry out remediation projects. However, the money was divvied up between the partners — and no work was done.

North Pole: Watch it on the Web

A North Pole Web cam started up in April 2002 — and it’s online again. The North Pole Web Cam project is part of the North Pole Environmental Observatory, a joint effort sponsored by the National Science Foundation that involves an international team of researchers. The images from the cameras track the North Pole snow cover and weather conditions.

The North Pole web cameras are at: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov

Mass relocation planned in Russia

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Up to 600,000 Russians are to be moved from Siberia and the Arctic to urban centres, officials in Moscow announced last week. The areas to be “assisted” by the government’s program, which is being partly financed by the World Bank, include Yakutia, Kamchatka and Chukotka.

Inhabitants are to be resettled near cities where they could find work and cheap accommodation. Russia’s department of economic development and trade announced that between 200,000 and 600,000 people would be moved.

Roughly 800,000 people, out of a total population of 11 million, have already left the areas.

June 6, 2003

Canada: Talks about missile defence to start

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Last week, John McCallum, Canada’s defence minister, said negotiations on Canada’s involvement in the U.S. national missile defence program could lead to a decision to join the NMD within months.

McCallum told the House of Commons in Ottawa that cabinet will have the final say on whether Canada joins in.

Several conditions will dictate Canada’s involvement, he said. Canada wants the NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, whose leadership is shared between the U.S. and Canadian military, to be in charge of the system.

Banning weapons in space is also part of the deal — and Canada would like to see a treaty that prohibits the use of weapons in space.

“We want to participate — hopefully through NORAD — to the defence of North America against missiles. We will not participate in a program if it is to be the weaponization of space,” Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said in a press conference last week.

And Canada doesn’t want to see any missiles deployment sites on its soil.

Chrétien said joining the U.S.-led defence program would not be in the Canadian national interest.

“We are starting discussions because it is the defence of our cities,” Chrétien said.

At stake are also billions of dollars in contracts from NMD construction contracts.

June 6, 2003

Alaska: Stranded hunters sail home in makeshift umiaq

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Two Inupiat men from Gambell, Alaska, used garbage bags to return home to their St. Lawrence Island community after the motor on their boat died in rough seas. Their inspiration: the trusty skin umiat that they remembered from the past.

The two men in their 30s, Denis James and Jerry Aningayou, used a raincoat on the top, along with two large garbage bags and two smaller ones to make a sail that they rigged together with four pieces of rope.

Their Global Positioning Unit said they were around 100 km from Gambell. Using their broken motor as a rudder, the men steered home through pelting rain and three metre-high seas. Efforts to search for them had hampered by the bad weather.

But after 50 hours of sailing the two reached home where anxious relatives had been praying for their return.

June 6, 2003

Greenland: Fake Tupilaks flood market

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

The Danish daily newspaper Politiken reported last week that cheaply carved sperm whale teeth from Bali are being smuggled into Denmark and Greenland to be sold as authentic Greenlandic Tupilaks.

Customs officials in Denmark seized 20 fake tupilaks last month in a knapsack — just one of several similar seizures over recent months.

Due to an international ban on trade in whale products, most tupilaks are carved from narwhal teeth or reindeer bones. Genuine sperm whale pieces are selling for more that $1000.

Officials are worried that the cheaper fakes will cut into the market for the genuine article.

“If it takes an expert to tell the difference between a genuine and a fake tupilak figure, the average tourist or consumer at large is going to shy way from buying anything at all,” biologist Thor Hjarsen said in an interview.

The Home Rule Government has already issued a warning about the fake tupilaks.

June 6, 2003

Greenland: Let’s have the truth about Thule

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Kuupik Kleist, one of Greenland’s two members of parliament in Denmark, said he wants an impartial, outside expert to see whether or not there are really two more bombs under the water 10 km from the Thule Air Base in northern Greenland.

Kleist said he doesn’t trust the Americans to judge whether the bombs are still there.

Last week, Greenland’s newspaper Atuagalliutit wrote there were more than four bombs on board when an American B-52 bomber crashed in 1968 near the Thule air base. Only two have been found.

“Impartial experts should collect evidence,” Kleist said. “We should get help from experts who know about such things.”

Kleist said he feels frustrated that Danish officials have been secretive about the crash and what was on board the B-52 that crashed.

These questions — and anger — over the unresolved environmental and social impacts caused by the Thule-U.S. presence in Greenland continue to provoke reaction in Nuuk.

Last week 1,100 Nuummiut came to support a benefit concert for the Inughuit, who were relocated from their community, Uummannaq, near the Thule Air Base in 1953.

The Inughuit are in a legal battle with Denmark for damages related to their relocation as well as compensation for the hunting lands.

The concert, which was arranged by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference in Greenland, was timed to coincide with the 1953 relocation.

“We are going to use the money collected for the ongoing court case at the supreme court of Denmark, said Aqqaluk Lynge, Greenland’s vice-president of the ICC.

June 6, 2003

Norway: We want to destroy Canada goose eggs

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

The Norwegian government wants to start puncturing the unhatched eggs of Canadian and grey geese to control the geese population. When eggs are pierced, no chicks can form — thereby reducing the goose population.

“The Canada Goose is a foreign species which does not fit in naturally with Norwegian fauna. We want a drastic reduction and will reduce the population by at least half,” an official from told Oslo’s Aftenposten newspaper.

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