http://www.youtube.com/v/jNL1NSpLkaM?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Jump to original: Pie Sharing: Arctic Council accepts China & India, EU put on ice
Northern exposure: Ice melt inspires race for Arctic riches
Below the ice and cold waters of the Arctic Ocean are hidden vast natural reserves: approximately 20 per cent of oil reserves worldwide, about 30 per cent of the planet’s natural gas, there are also believe to be deposits of platinum, gold and tin – just for starters.Arctic climate change is progressing twice as fast as in the rest of the world. As the Arctic ice cap decreases year by year, the vast Arctic natural resources and sea routes are becoming more accessible.This biennial Arctic Council ministerial session has been hosted in Sweden’s northernmost town of Kiruna. The session has been attended by top diplomats and officials. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the US Secretary of State John Kerry were both present. Arctic Council members: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, the USArctic Council observers (including the new ones): Britain, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain. The main intrigue of this year’s session has been the 14 bidding countries, foremost China, which have been trying to acquire an observer state status in the council to keep a finger on the decision-making pulse of the organization, attend the AC meetings and propose new projects.The session agreed to grant permanent Arctic Council observer status to only six states out of 14 bidders: China, India, Italy, Japan, Singapore and South Korea.AC observer status can only be granted if all permanent members of the council agree to it. That did not happen this time to the EU, for example, the bid of which has been postponed.Also at the session, Canada took over the chairmanship from Sweden, which presided in the AC for the last two years.Tropical icemen: Asian economies ram Arctic accessThe biggest Asian economies – Japan, China and India – have all expressed readiness to join the Arctic race and were introduced to stage one of the Arctic Council.But among them there is a country that invested heavily to give legs to its bid – China.“Joining the council is more a political statement from countries like China,” Malte Humpert, an executive director at the Washington-based nonpartisan think tank Arctic Institute, told The Wall Street Journal. “The idea of having a seat at the table in a region that is likely to become another realm of geopolitics.”Beijing has been heavily investing into the northern states in recent years, particularly Iceland, which this April signed a free-trade deal with Beijing – the first in Europe – and Denmark, visited by now former Chinese President Hu Jintao in June 2012. Chinese businessmen are particularly interested in investing in Denmark’s self-governing Greenland.Chinese Arctic activities seem to bear fruit as the Nordic countries finally supported China’s membership of the AC.”Our opinion is that the countries which have a legitimate interest in discussing Arctic issues must be accepted as observers in the Arctic Council,” Danish Foreign Minister Villy Sovndal said recently in an interview.China’s main economic rival in Asia, India, also has got on the Arctic train and is actively attaining commitment of the AC member states, first and foremost Russia’s – having been Moscow’s most devoted arms buyer for years now.It must be mentioned that so far Canada, which will preside in the council till 2015, has been rather cautious about granting AC observer status to newcomer nations. Ottawa anticipates that further expansion of the observer nations might shift the agenda of the body away from the needs of Arctic indigenous peoples or even replace the AC gatherings to other places from the actual Arctic region.Leona Aglukkaq, the minister of Canada’s Northern Economic Development Agency, said that admission of new observers is a “serious issue.”Aglukkaq, raised in the Arctic himself, shared concern that the voices of the indigenous participants “are not diminished.”The Russian Foreign Ministry has specified its stance, pointing out that a new observer must “respect the Arctic countries’ sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the Arctic.”When the Arctic Council was formed in 1996, it was for years regarded as a coordination body for environmental issues and scientific research.But the more the Arctic ice melts, the more persistent prominent financial capitals are to become regional players in the extreme north. They realize that the Arctic region’s emergence as a new geopolitical center is on the horizon.As of now the Arctic is dominated by the eight member countries of the Arctic Council, which have de jure divided the region into zones of national interest and are eager to keep the status quo. … Read More
Greek govt threatens to arrest teachers over strike
The announcement marks the third time this year that the Greek government has invoked emergency laws to force strikers to return to work. Greece is due to receive €7.5 billion in loans soon, the latest tranche of a €240-billion rescue package signed in 2010; Athens currently has no money to pay pensions and wages. To cope with the personnel gaps, Athens plans to require two additional hours of work each week from high school teachers, and plans to transfer 4,000 of them to remote regions of the country. The government broke a longstanding taboo last month by agreeing to dismiss some 15,000 public-sector workers by the end of 2014, a key demand by the EU and International Monetary Fund for Greece to qualify for further rescue loans, Reuters reported. According to OLME, the union representing the teachers, about 10,000 part-time teachers could be dismissed once their temporary contracts expire. The union has called for a 24-hour strike when university exams start on May 17. However, under Greek law the government has the right to forcibly mobilize workers in the event of a civil disorder, natural disaster or public health risk.“This is a very authoritarian move from the government because it has issued civil mobilization orders for secondary education teachers in the public school system even before they decided to stage a strike during the university entry exams. Geek law is very explicit that civil mobilization refers to wars and natural disasters, not forms of civil protest,” Panagiotis Sotiris, sociology lecturer at the University of the Aegean, told RT.“It’s really interesting to see that one of the legal experts, who has insisted for many years on the unconstitutionality of these emergency laws, is no other than the current Minister of Justice in the Greek government, Mr Antonis Roupakiotis,” he said. Education Minister Constantine Arvanitopoulos justified the ban by arguing that students had a right to take exams without disruption; teachers will be served a civil mobilization order to go to work on that day, or risk arrest.“These threats by the prime minister and his government are directly against the overwhelming majority of workers and society,” Greece’s Syriza party, which opposes the bailout, said in a statement. The Greek government has in recent months intervened frequently to shut down mounting anti-austerity strikes. Earlier this year, it interrupted week-long walkouts by local sailors that led to food shortages on Greece’s islands, and strikes by metro workers that disrupted transport in Athens.“The Greek government tries to meet the nominal terms of the bailout agreements in terms of budget cuts, reducing public investment of preparing lay off of thousands of public servants and public-sector workers of making extremely dangerous decisions, for example, there is no money currently for HIV tests for blood samples. The Greek government puts all the cost on Greek society in order to remain within the terms of the bailout agreements,” professor Sotiris told RT. The Greek economy has been struggling to gain traction amid the austerity measures mandated in country’s bailout terms. Deep spending cuts and tax hikes have reduced Greece’s budget deficit, but have also left the country stuck in recession, now in its sixth year. Last year, the financial crisis reached boiling point: It was feared that Greece would be forced to abandon the Euro currency used by 17 European Union nations, sparking a chain reaction in financial markets and further aggravating the eurozone debt crisis. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), over the last three years Greece has nonetheless made progress in bringing down its budget deficit, austerity has nearly tripled Greece’s jobless rate since its debt crisis began in 2009. Greek unemployment is said to be more than twice the Eurozone average, with overall joblessness at a record high of 27 percent. Athens cut the minimum monthly wage for those under 25 years old by 32 percent to about 500 euros in a bid to boost hiring, but joblessness in the 15-to-24 age bracket recently soared from 59.3 percent in January to 64.2 percent in February.Medical patients at risk in crisis-stricken Greece Morale has been particularly hard-hit in the crisis: The number of Greeks who attempted suicide has been on the rise in recent years. There were 677 suicide attempts in 2009, 830 in 2010 and 927 in 2011, according to official figures. A number of Greek pharmacists have also faced serious medicine shortages due to price controls and tight cash flows. “We are in a critical situation and we don’t know what’s going to happen even the next day,” pharmacist Dionysis Evgenidis told RT. Greeks in need often visit the Doctors of the World charity in Thessaloniki. RT’s Tom Barton spoke to patients who said they fear for their future. “I went to the pharmacy to buy injections for my baby but couldn’t find any so now that I’m unemployed I came here,” one desperate mother said. The highest risks are for those with serious health conditions like diabetes or cardiologic problems, who must receive treatment every day. “It’s very serious for them not to have their medicine. If they do not they could die,” Sofia Gorane, from Doctors of the World told RT. … Read More
Scientists slam Canada’s tar sands production: Doesn’t address climate change in ‘meaningful way’
Letter urges natural resources minister Joe Oliver to consider consequences of his support for controversial policy The Canadian government’s promotion of the tar sands industry is setting the world on a course of catastrophic climate change, a group of climate scientists and economists have…
Israeli minister against Dead Sea potash sale
http://www.youtube.com/v/w0ROI0vv1bo?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Source: Israeli minister against Dead Sea potash sale
California’s Marin wetlands in critical condition
Marin County Parks is spearheading a project that has volunteers donating their weekends to reviving 110 acres of Kent Island and Bolinas Lagoon. The next phase is to strip nonnative plants — which have largely displaced native vegetation — and restore the natural habitat that has been…
FBI claims to have thwarted terror attack in Minnesota
Buford Rogers of Montevideo, Minnesota was arrested on Friday and charged him with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. More charges could be on the way, however, following a Monday morning statement made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.In a press release issued Monday, the FBI wrote they believe “that a terror attack was disrupted by law enforcement personnel” by arresting Rogers and that “the lives of several local residents were potentially saved” thanks to the investigation.Special Agent in Charge of the Minneapolis Division of the FBI, J. Christopher Warrener, said in the statement that “cooperation between the FBI and its federal, state and local partners enabled law enforcement to prevent a potential tragedy in Montevideo” last week.Authorities believed there “would have been a localized terror attack, and that’s why law enforcement moved quickly,” FBI spokesman Kyle Loven told the Associated Press on Monday.Police say that they executed a search warrant at Rogers’ home on Friday and uncovered Molotov cocktails, suspected pipe bombs and at least one gun. Because he was previously convicted of a felony burglary, Rogers cannot lawfully own a firearm and was subsequently charged with illegal possession for owning what the AP has identified as a Romanian AKM assault rifle. The AP has also uncovered another 2009 misdemeanor conviction for Rogers involving the dangerous handling of a weapon.The FBI thought Rogers was in the “planning stages” of a terror attack, the AP continued, and he is believed to have targeted an area in western Minnesota.Montevideo is roughly 130 miles west of Minneapolis, MN and only a few minutes’ drive from the state’s border with South Dakota.A local Fox affiliate wrote Monday that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Minnesota State Patrol, Bloomington police bomb squad and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources were all involved in executing the search warrant. … Read More
