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 five most powerful people in Murmansk Oblast all work in the regional administration of Governor Dmitry Dmitriyenko, a rating of the 50 most powerful in the region shows.
The agreement on delimitation of the Barents Sea and the Artic Ocean opens up for establishment of joint ventures for development of oil and gas fields in the border areas, President Medvedev says.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will visit Finland on 27 May. Border issues and regional cooperation will be high on the meeting agenda with Finland’s Matti Vanhanen.
President Dmitry Medvedev is dissatisfied with the Russian Foreign Ministry and has decided to establish an International Affairs Council, which is to become an alternative platform for policy discussions.
Norway has together EFTA partners Iceland, Lichtenstein and Switzerland started negotiations with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus on the establishment of a free trade agreement.
Independent candidate Aleksei Yefinov got most of the votes in the recent mayoral elections at Solovki, the famous islands in the White Sea, with narrow margin to the United Russia’s candidate. However, the local election commission quickly disputed the results.
Research professor of the Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law (Arctic Centre/University of Lapland) Timo Koivurova cautions’ those who think that the ILO-Convention No. 169 will never be ratified in Finland.
Rights groups and opposition party Yabloko claim that election officials fabricated 20 to 25 percent of United Russia’s votes in the parliamentary election. Many violations are reported throughout Barents Russia.
