The MIKON flagship program in the Fram Centre is using both social and environmental sciences to examine how High North industrial development will affect the natural world, regional societies like the Sami and economic activity.
The recession in Finland might be worse than feared, the country’s finance ministry informed today. The country’s GDP might in the course of the year shrink by five percent.
The Murmansk Tax Service confirms that tax revenues in the region dropped 21,7 percent in the first quarter of the year. That has serious consequences for the regional budget.
Overfishing in the Barents Sea has been reduced with 84 percent in the period from 2005 to 2008, Norwegian Minister of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs Helga Pedersen says.
The Sami Parliament demands that all companies engaging in mining activities in northern Norway pay a special fee compensating regional Sami communities. The Norwegian government wants it otherwise.
Furniture giant IKEA confirms that it considers the construction of a new warehouse in northern Norway. The city of Tromsø says it is negotiating several site locations with the company.
The Swedish state-owned mining company LKAB in the second quarter of 2009 had a loss of 558 million SEK (54.7 mill EUR). That is one of the worst results ever for the mining major in northern Sweden.
Industrial production, investments and international trade is still considerably below 2008 levels, but the economy in Murmansk Oblast is in the process of recovery, the latest Barents Monitoring report reads.
The Norwegian Government Pension Fund’s council of ethics that says the Russian mining and metallurgical combine Norilsk-Nickel factories are afflicting environmental damages which clashes with the fund’s guidelines.
-In addition to the global warming challenges, we need to address “global cooling” effects and to do so promptly, Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the regional development minister.
