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August
20, 2004
Mine spreads dust in Alaska
SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE
Lead dust, likely from the Red Dog zinc mine, has contaminated tundra in northwest
Alaska.
A newly released Park Service study has tracked how far dust from mine operations
drifts from the 60-kilometre road between the mine near Kotzebue and the port
where zinc is loaded for shipment.
The Anchorage Daily News says curious Park Service employees on an orientation
trip in 1999 took a few samples of moss near the road. The amount of lead and
other potentially harmful minerals surprised them.
In 2001, they sampled vegetation a few miles out from the road and also found
high levels of the contaminants.
Teck Cominco, the company that operates the mine for owner NANA Regional Corp.,
had been testing air and water since the mine opened in 1989, but not moss.
Residents of Noatak and Kivalina, the nearest communities to the mine, often
gather moss, berries and other foods in the area.
In 2001, Teck Cominco began a study of the risks posed by the mining operations.
That US $4-million study is due out next spring.
Since 2001, Teck Cominco put US $15-million into upgrading its equipment to
minimize dust, with new steel lids on trucks and a revamped barge-loading facility.
August
20, 2004
Tourism up in Iceland
Tourism in Iceland is up 17 per cent, compared to the same time last year,
according to Iceland's tourist board.
A total of 64,275 tourists visited Iceland in July, a record number.
"There are many reasons for the increase," says Magnus Oddsson, managing
director of the tourist board. "Most likely is the ISK 600 million (about
$100 million) the government has spent over the past two years marketing Iceland
as a tourist destination."
In total, there have been 30,000 more tourists visiting Iceland this year than
at the same time last year.
August
20, 2004
Greenland and Canada update defence agreements with U.S.
SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE
The United States signed deals this month with Canada and Greenland that pave
the way for the fall deployment of its ballistic missile shield, the controversial
plan to knock out any hostile missiles headed towards the U.S. over northern
airspace.
On Aug. 6, high-level officials from Greenland, Denmark and the U.S. met in
the sheep-farming village of Igaliku to sign three deals, which will also allow
the U.S. to move ahead with its missile defence program.
Colin Powell, the U.S. Secretary of State, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig
Møller and Josef Motzfeldt, Greenland's vice-premier and minister for
Economic and Foreign Affairs, signed an agreement on the "modernisation"
of the 1951 Defence Agreement, which lets the U.S. set up shop at the Thule
air base in northern Greenland, as well as two additional deals, one on economic
and technical cooperation and another on the environment.
The three agreements were a package deal and, according to the home rule government,
a "precondition for Greenland/Denmark's acceptance of the U.S. request
to upgrade the Thule radar."
"U.S. presence has been restricted to the Thule base, and we have ensured
that in future, environmental management will be based on Danish and Greenlandic
standards," Motzfeldt said.
The deals were called "an active step towards more independence in foreign
affairs."
But they will also allow Thule to feed information to the U.S. missile defence
program.
Canada recently agreed to expand the North American Aerospace Defence Command.
The amended deal means Canadian officials will transmit information and warnings
to the commanders of the missile defence program.
Opponents of missile defence say Ottawa is moving closer to joining in the
missile defence scheme by agreeing to feed information to the U.S. program.
This fall, the first stage of the missile shield will be in place, with missiles
in Alaska and California poised to shoot down any hostile missiles headed to
the U.S.
August
20, 2004
Coca-Cola comes to Greenland
SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE
Coca-Cola has made an exception to its strict bottling rules so Greenlandic
consumers can enjoy Coca-Cola.
The government-run Nuuk Imeq brewery and the Coca-Cola bottling company signed
a deal allowing Coke to be sold in the local glass bottles.
This means Greenland doesn't have to follow the company's rule that normally
requires the fizzy drink to be sold exclusively in Coke's distinctive curved
bottles.
Coca-Cola is also available for sale in Greenland in the classic half-liter
plastic bottle.
But because Coke has a shelf-life of just six months when stored in plastic
bottles, distributors can't send these bottles to the remotest areas of Greenland.
Glass bottles, by comparison, keep the carbonated beverage bubbly for up to
one year.
August
6, 2004
Greenland's glaciers
provide glimpse into past
An International Partnerships
in Ice Core Sciences project is set to start in Greenland during 2007 to 2008,
the International Polar Year.
Greenland's last glacial
drilling project yielded information about the earth's climate 125,000 years
ago. Researchers now hope to find ice cores dating back at least 135,000 years.
Glacial ice-cores function
as a deep frozen record of the earth's climate because air bubbles trapped in
the ice show what gases were present in the atmosphere.
August
6, 2004
Arctic islands to
host "Noah's Ark" of genes
The United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization and the Nordic Genebank are establishing an international
gene bank in a closed down coal mine on Norway's Svalbard Islands.
This cold-storage site
is intended to serve as a kind of genetic "Noah's Ark" in the event
of a nuclear disaster.
More than 6,000 samples
of seeds from grains, grass, vegetables and other agricultural plants from the
Nordic countries are already stored in the mine.
August
6, 2004
One helluva halibut
A Danish fisherman last
week landed a 190-kilogram (419 lb) halibut, the largest ever caught using a
rod. The fish, caught off the coast of northern Norway, took an hour and a half
to reel in and three men to get it into the boat, the Norwegian newspaper Nordlys
reported.
"I thought something
was wrong with the scales when it stopped at 190 kilos," said Thomas Buge
Nilsen who hooked the massive fish.
The halibut, which had
to be moved by forklift, was 2.38 meters (7'9") long, 1.26 meters (4'1")
wide and 35 centimeters (13.7 inches) thick.
Nilsen used pollock as
bait and bottom fished, at a depth of about 40 meters.
Royal Greenland angered
over change in energy policy
Greenland's seafood processing
giant, Royal Greenland, is threatening to shut down several shrimp plants if
the country's uniform pricing system for power ends.
The Home Rule Government
wants to look at ending its longstanding policy that sees remote communities
paying the same price for electricity, water and heating as consumers in Nuuk.
"As we see it, this
proposal represents, in effect, an extra tax of DKK 25-30 million (about $5
million) on the fishing industry," Royal Greenland's director Henrik Leth
told Greenland's KNR radio news.
The company's projected
cost increase is far greater than the government's estimate of about $1 million.
Leth told KNR that Royal
Greenland's competitors in Canada, Iceland and Norway all have access to cheap
water and electricity.
August
6, 2004
Cancer and bureaucracy
plague Alaskan workers
When construction workers
who prepared nuclear test sites on Alaska's Amchitka Island in the 1960s and
early 70s first discovered they shared high rates of cancer, U.S. federal authorities
insisted there was no radiation and therefore no link between the cancer and
their illness.
Amchitka is a narrow, 50-kilometer
island at the end of the Aleutian chain of islands between Alaska and Russia.
It was turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1974, and Amchitka
workers started dying of cancer within a few years.
About 1,500 people who
worked on the island from 1965 to 1974 have been identified; almost 500 of them
have already died.
Doctors now say one of
three Amchitka workers will develop bladder, colon or one of 20 other radiation-caused
cancers, and in 2000 the U.S. Congress approved a compensation package.
But, according to a recent
article in the Anchorage Daily News, many construction veterans say they're
still fighting for compensation.
Those who have contracted
any of 22 specific cancers or silicosis automatically qualify for $150,000 in
compensation, plus medical benefits that could prove invaluable as the workers
age, such as assisted living costs. To date, nearly $25 million has been paid
to Amchitka workers or their survivors.
Workers with other illnesses,
such as skin or prostate cancer, can apply for compensation also, but must go
through a process that many Amchitka workers or survivors say is frustrating.
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