A polar bear which killed a British teenager in Norway earlier this month was probably excessively aggressive because he had toothache, a veterinarian has claimed. Read the full story

A British schoolboy has been killed and four other people injured after a viscous polar bear attack in Norway. Read the full story

Methane was found bubbling on the sea bed in the Svalbard Islands, according to the Barents Observer. More than 250 plumes of methane bubbles were discovered by a research team led by the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton. Temperature records show that the area of the ocean warmed by 1C during the last 30 years.

Svalbard is located in the extreme northern part of the world close to the Arctic Circle. The islands are under Norwegian administration with a small Russian mining town.

See the full article at SikuNews.

(Photo/Svalbard from SikuNews)

The Svalbard archipelago off northern Norway is far above the Arctic Circle and famous for its new international seed vault and for Longyearbyen, the northernmost town in the world with over 1,000 inhabitants. Read the full story

The revolutionary Global Seed Vault, a depository of millions of seed samples from around the world, has just celebrated its first anniversary. The unique seed bank is located on the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard near the town of Longyearbyen. Its purpose is to replenish the world’s crops in the event of a global catastrophe. Read the full story

In a move that surprised just about everyone in Norway’s government, the Justice Ministry announced suddenly that it wants all travellers to and from Svalbard to pass through passport control. The unpopularity of this move by the Justice Ministry could be felt as far south as Oslo, where officials in the Foreign Ministry as well as police from Tromso responded that it’s unnecessary to require passport checks on people entering the Arctic archipelago.

Karsten Klepsvik of the Foreign Ministry told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK): “Our main point is the simple fact that Svalbard is part of the Kingdom of Norway. It’s not desirable that people should have to show their passport when they travel within the country.” Read the full story

The Russian navy has resumed its patrols of the Arctic sea around the Svalbard archipelago, an area claimed by both Russia and Norway. There has been no activity by Russia’s military in this region since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But now the Russian navy has stated it plans to increase military activity in the waters.

The Russian Northern Fleet’s Severomorsk submarine destroyer has been moved into the waters around Spitzbergen Island, with a Marshal Ustinov missile cruiser to follow shortly after.

The Russian government insists the moves are mainly to protect Russian fishermen who have been blocked access from the waters around Spitzbergen. Norway claims exclusive rights to the waters, but Russia has refused to recognise a 200-mile economic zone established by a UN treaty in 1982.

Analysts suggest that Russia’s greater purpose is to get its foot into the door of the potentially lucrative resource exploitation of the Arctic region’s seabed. Russia is racing with Canada, Norway, Denmark and the US to secure rights to these valuable resources which include natural gas and precious metals.

Russia recently planted its flag on the seabed at the North Pole, making claims that the region is connected to Russia’s continental shelf. As Arctic ice continues to melt due to global warming, the race to secure its resources is certain to heat up.

A diverse delegation of VIPs from the US will travel to Norway’s Arctic archipelago of Svalbard this week in an attempt to learn more about global warming and climate change.

The group of Americans comes as a high profile nod from politics and business at a time when climate change is being taken increasingly seriously in the USA. CNN founder Ted Turner, Google founder Larry Page, billionaire philanthropist George Soros, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and ex-US President Jimmy Carter are just some of the well-known faces in the delegation.

The focus of the trip, which was organised by the National Geographic Society, is to examine the revolutionary Global Seed Bank that opened this February. The monumental facility houses seed samples from across the globe.

When it was opened, the seed bank on the remote island of Spitsbergen contained 268,000 different seed samples, each one from a separate farm to ensure diversity. The Svalbard Global Seed Bank is the first step in a novel attempt to preserve the earth’s biodiversity, which is vanishing at an alarming rate.

Crop diversity is essential for future food production. This will protect mankind’s food from disease and pests which could eradicate an entire species of crop. The seeds are housed in a ‘fail-safe’ vault which has been dug deep into a frozen Arctic mountain. Scientists expect the vault to be secure for centuries.

For security reasons, the delegation from America will not be allowed to enter the actual rooms where the seeds are kept.