The ministers will sign an agreement on ‘Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response’. This is the second legally binding agreement among the Arctic States and will enhance response measures and cooperation in the Arctic.

The ministers will also welcome the release of several important scientific reports and approve policy recommendations from:

•    the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment, the best available science informed by traditional ecological knowledge on the status and trends of Arctic biodiversity and accompanying policy recommendations for biodiversity conservation,

•    the Arctic Ocean Review and

•    the Arctic Ocean Acidification assessment.

These reports provide new benchmarks and knowledge about the state of the Arctic environment.

Beginning on 14 May, the six working groups of the Arctic Council will make presentations and provide information on accomplishments during the Swedish Chairmanship and their ongoing activities at the ‘Folkets hus’ (the Community Center) in Kiruna. This event is open to the public and media.

The Ministerial Meeting will take place on the morning of 15 May at Kiruna City Hall. A press event will be held directly after the meeting. Delegates and media will then visit the LKAB iron ore mine, where the working groups will provide further information on their assessments and policy relevant recommendations.

The Kiruna Ministerial Meeting can be followed via web stream from the Arctic Council website.Ministers in attendance:

•             Carl Bildt, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sweden

•             Lena Ek, Minister for the Environment, Sweden

•             Leona Aglukkaq, Minister for the Arctic Council, Canada

•             John F. Kerry, Secretary of State, USA

•             The Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade, Iceland

•             Espen Barth Eide, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway

•             Villy Søvndal, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Denmark

•             Erkki Tuomioja, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Finland

•             Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Russia

NATO’s Airborne Surveillance and Interception capabilities are being put to test for the benefit of to Iceland’s Peacetime Preparedness mission. This deployment has been conducted annually since May 2008 for mutual benefit of both countries.

“As a leading member of NATO and a close partner with Iceland, Canada is committed to doing its part to help protect the integrity of NATO’s airspace,” said Canada’s Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

The task force personnel and hardware is part of the 425 Tactical Fighter Squadron at 3 Wing, based in Quebec. A total of 160 people are involved. According to a statement, the Canadian military personnel will conduct the operations in Iceland, with surveillance and interception capability that could be launched immediately to intercept and identify unknown airborne objects within or approaching NATO airspace

Copenhagen Police inspector Jan Bjørn said in an official statement, “We apologise that we carried out an action against a church. A church is a special place and it is not a place for carrying out routine controls,” the Kristeligt Dagblad news agency reports.

The apology comes in response to criticism of a police visit to the Redeemed Christian Church of God in Amager on 30 December, when churchgoers reported that officers “aggressively” checked documents and even blocked the doorways to the building.

The police have since drawn fire from immigrant advocacy organisations.

Hans Henrik Lund said on behalf of the pro-integration campaign group, Kirkernes Integrations Tjeneste, “If it is a routine check where you are looking for illegal individuals, it is completely out of proportion to interrupt a church service. When you consider that many of the churchgoers are refugees, it could have been a very traumatic experience for them. It signifies a lack of respect for our new Danish residents,” the Copenhagen post reports.

However, police officials defended the move to some extent by saying that investigations had frequently led to the church and that the raid did not take place during a religious ceremony per-se.

Police commissioner Kjeld Farcinsen noted in an interview with BT reporters, “There wasn’t a prayer service going on when our people entered the location. Clearly, if there had been a service going on we would have never carried out the action. We would have waited patiently. We don’t carry out actions during church activities.”

The submission, which was made to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) on Thursday (June 14), is the latest effort by Denmark and Greenland to claim parts of the seabed that extend towards the North Pole. However, other countries, including Russia, China and Iceland, have also become increasingly interested in the area, which is thought to be rich in natural resources.

“The submission concerns the third of five areas which the Kingdom of Denmark claims,” the document read.

The first claim for an area to the north of the Faroe Islands was launched by the two joined nations in 2009, while a submission for an area to the south of the Finnish archipelago was delivered the year after.  The document said that submission for all five areas will be complete by 2014.

The Maud, which was used in two attempts to cross the North Pole, sank in shallow water near Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, in 1930 after it was eventually sold to the Hudson’s Bay company.

The ‘Maud Returns Home’ group was last year denied the right to bring the wreck back to Norway. The decision was however reversed on Friday 16th March by the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board. In a letter to the Norwegian ambassador, the board said the group would be given an export permit for the wreck as, although the Maud is valuable to Canada, the loss of it would not hugely diminish national heritage.

Amundsen became famous in 1903 when he navigated the Northwest Passage in a fishing boat. He subsequently led the first South Pole expedition in 1911 and various other adventures before dying in a plane crash in 1928.

Jan Wanggaard, project leader of The Maud Returns Home, said the wreck will probably be moved next year.

The ambassador, Alan Bones, will give a short speech at tomorrow’s meeting of the Progressive Party which will discuss the unilateral adoption of another currency to replace the Icelandic króna. RÚV reports the ambassador as saying that his government is ready to discuss Iceland’s adoption of the dollar if the Icelandic government requests such talks.

He said that an eventual treaty would try to accommodate the best interests of both governments; adding that if Iceland adopted the Canadian dollar unilaterally its government would obviously have no say on monetary policy – making it in the country’s interest to negotiate a treaty beforehand.

There are many examples of countries unilaterally taking on the currency of other nations – although no country has chosen the Canadian dollar to date.

Alan Bones says it falls to the Icelanders to discuss the matter internally and decide if the benefits of a stable currency outweigh the negatives of losing control over monetary policy and losing the ability to deal with economic shocks, as in autumn 2008, by devaluing their currency.

There has been serious discussion in Iceland about ditching the króna since the crash and one of the key reasons for Iceland’s EU application is the possible eventual adoption of the euro. Others have been calling for the country to take up other currencies, and the Canadian dollar has been a popular choice. Still other voices maintain that the expense and instability of the króna are inconveniences worth enduring for having control over monetary policy and the ability to devalue.

According to RÚV the Presidential couple sailed out of the Argentinian port of Ushuaia yesterday and their trip will take them along the Drake Passage all the way to Antarctica. The party plans to go ashore three times, if weather allows. The trip ends on the 6th February.

The trip includes European and American scientists, the Canadian film director James Cameron, the American journalist Ted Turner and Christiana Figures, the president of the United Nations climate agency.

Al Gore’s climate change organisation, the Climate Reality Project, and National Geographic together organised the expedition.

A press release from Bessastaðir, the Icelandic head of state’s official residence, states that the goal of the expedition is to investigate the fast melting ice and to discuss how the nations of the world can best be encouraged to unite behind realistic and tangible action to fight global warming.

Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson has become known as a strong climate change campaigner among world leaders and regularly gives speeches at environmental conferences.

Jóhann Straumfjord Sigurdson and David Collette, whose ancestral grandmother was Guðríður Þorbjarnardóttir, the mother of Snorri, the first European child born in North America, will sail from Canada to Iceland along a route that was old before Christopher Columbus was born.

“We’ve named the expedition Fara Heim”, said Jóhann Sigurdson. “In Old Norse, “að fara heim” means “to go home”. We are searching for Norse presence in the Arctic between Hudson Bay and west of Greenland to investigate how far West the Vikings explored”. The team will use non-damaging modern techniques to collect data and do no harm to artefacts or locations found. All information and any discoveries will be digitally recorded and shared with government agencies for formal archaeological investigation.

The expedition will work closely with the Inuit people and Nordic countries as Fara Heim is a story of many Arctic cultures. “We have begun reaching out to everyone we can in the North to ask for local knowledge and stories. Incredible things have been found, like the Viking settlement in Newfoundland, by just asking. We plan to make the Fara Heim website the nexus for information on Viking exploration in North America”, said Collette.

The modern Vikings will voyage via the far travelled “Glory of the Sea”, a purpose-built aluminium polar expedition sailing boat. “Glory” has been to both Poles, circumnavigated the globe twice and travelled the Northwest Passage in 2011. “The deck of a small sailing vessel is the perfect platform to see the Arctic as the Vikings saw it. “Glory” will get us to locations that aren’t normally visited”, said Sigurdson.

Fara Heim’s advisory board includes Captain Norm Baker, the First Mate and Navigator for several of Thor Heyerdahl’s expeditions and a current Director of the Explorers Club, Guy Maddin, film Director and Producer, and Charles Hedrich, global explorer and founder of “Respectons La Terre” a European organisation dedicated to exploration with an environmental focus. Key archaeologists and historians are joining the board to develop the field data collection protocols, aid in historical research and ensure all field investigations maintain the integrity of the site for further field work.

The team and sailing boat will be based on Lake Winnipeg for the summer of 2012 for crew training and boat preparation and depart from Churchill in May 2013. To support the non-profit Fara Heim organisation corporate sponsorships are being developed. “Travel with a purpose” opportunities for individuals to participate on the journey are available in both 2012 and 2013.

Join in the adventure by visiting http://www.faraheim.com.
“Like” the project on Facebook at http://www.facebook/faraheim