The Premier of Greenland, Hans Enoksen, and its minister for industry, Johan Lund Olsen, recently spent one week in China.
During the first official visit to China from Greenland, the Greenlandic delegation visited Qingdao and Shanghai.
Olsen wanted to promote Greenland as a travel destination for Chinese travel agencies and travel reporters.
Businesses from Greenland say there are many business possibilities in China
and that closer economic cooperation between China and Greenland would be a
definite advantage.
Greenland's foreign affairs committee is seeking more co-operation between Nunavut and Greenland.
When committee members were in Iqaluit last month, they met with Nunavut politicians and raised the idea of creating an Inuit council, with representatives from both Greenland and Nunavut.
MLA Ellen Christoffersen told Greenland's radio news that Nunavut politicians were very interested in the possibility of establishing an Inuit council.
Greenlandic politicians are planning on contacting Nunavut's legislature about
this council, which would deal with issues such as social development and fisheries
management.
SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS
Police in Greenland received 118 reports of sexual abuse of children in 2003, 16 times more than in Denmark, according to the Danish daily newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad.
A recent information campaign on sexual abuse of children in the northwestern Greenlandic town of Upernavik has caused a flood of reported incidents, said social worker Darius Sobczynski.
"We simply informed (People about) what is allowed and what isn't, when it comes to sex. Afterwards we almost drowned in cases," he said.
Greenland now wants to launch similar programs in other parts of the country.
Psychiatrist Bjarne B. Nielsen, who authored a report on sexual abuse in Greenland, said the subject has remained a taboo in Greenland.
"A young nation does not flaunt its problems," he said. "Sexual abuse is too embarrassing to talk about, on the official level as well. It can easily lead to feelings of being accused of being a primitive society."
Nielsen said the widespread abuse of children had nothing to do with Inuit culture.
"The sexual abuse we see today is an expression for a society in crisis,"
he said. "It stems from the moral shift in a modern society and is often
consistent with abuse of alcohol and hashish."
SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS
The Igaliku Agreement signed last August between the United States, Denmark and Greenland is producing results- for the U.S. The deal means the upgrade of the Thule Air Force Base in northern Greenland into a missile defence radar hub moves ahead.
For Greenland, the deal hasn't meant direct cash compensation - but it is already offering Greenland new connections with the U.S.
The U.S.-Denmark-Greenland Joint Committee, which was formed after the deal was signed to promote cooperation, met May 18 to 20 in Washington.
A State Department Fact Sheet issued after the meeting says cooperation has advanced considerably and is already producing "significant results with programs, projects, and partnerships across many agencies."
Some examples of results include the following:
Justice Minister Odd Einar Dørum and Saami parliament president Sven-Roald Nystø signed the Finnmark Act this week in Karasjok, Norway. The Norwegian Finnmark Law gives up Norway's ownership over an area comparable with the size of Denmark.
The area, which today is 96 per cent owned by the state, will from 2007 be transferred to a new institution, which is governed by the three representatives of the Saami Parliament, the Samidiggi, and three representatives of the northern counties.
The law has been in the works for the last 30 years. The sitting Norwegian government reached a compromise on the law with the opposition Labour Party.
SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS
The worst spring flooding in years affected dozens of homes last week in Finnish Lapland.
In the eastern community of Ivalo, the river Ivalojoki overflowed its banks. Flood barriers erected 20 years ago kept the centre of Ivalo dry, but several roads and four residential areas were cut off by the rising water.
What is unusual about the flooding is that pack ice is not a factor.
Last week, residents in one part of Ivalo were urged to leave their homes and about 20 residents of a facility for the elderly were evacuated as a precaution.
The flood barriers - between two and three metres high - held back the rising waters, but at one point the water level was just ten centimetres below the edge of the barrier.
Meanwhile, in Husila, Alaska, flood waters gobbled up Front Street, threatening power poles and driving families to higher ground.
"It's scary. Each day you wake up and look at the bank to see how much fell away," Tim Pavlick told the Anchorage Daily News.
Winter food caches and smokehouses have been torn down or moved. After Front Street washed away, unused water and sewer pipes were left dangling from the bank.
Like many villages in Alaska, Husila has a history of relocating due to floods. The first settlement lasted less than 30 years before it moved to the present site in 1949.
A new study hints that alcohol consumption may be costing the Norwegian society well over a million lost working days a year.
Researcher Roar Gjelsvik told the Aftenposten newspaper that while most people enjoy a drink without negative side effects, some miss work or perform in impaired fashion.
Gjelsvik estimates the number of lost working days linked to alcohol consumption ranges from 1.2 to 1.3 million a year. This loss of productivity costs the country about $300 million a year.
Hard figures are not easy to come by since absences related to alcohol are often disguised as being due to more acceptable reasons.
"It is however completely clear that absences and costs due to alcohol are high and that there is a notable potential for improvement," Gjelsvik said.
Previous studies showed that alcohol primarily results in short-term absences.
Between 44 to 59 per cent of absences last only one day, but between 14 to 19
per cent last up to three days and two per cent of long-term absences are due
to alcohol abuse.
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