Alexander Stubb, famous in the Barents Region for branding the north as the world´s most sexy region, is put on track to take over after Jyrki Katainen.
The Arkhangelsk regional administration will have to make dramatic cuts in its budget following plummeting revenues. While the 2009 budget originally included 34 billion RUB of tax revenues, that sum is now reduced to an anticipated 19 billion RUB.
Governor of Murmansk Oblast, Dmitry Dmitriyenko, will replace the long-serving Andrey Gurev – one of Russia’s richest men – as the region’s representative in the Federation Council, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports.
Leader of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug Igor Fyodorov has requested governor of the neighboring Arkhanglsk Oblast Ilya Mikhalchuk to return several of the powers taken over by the region last year.
The Norwegian settlement in Ny-Ålesund on the northwestern part of Spitzbergen will soon have the world’s northernmost fiber-optic data connection. A project which will provide the world with easier access to important data from the observatories in Ny-Ålesund.
