Newsletter High North Strategy Marked By Gravity
The Norwegian Labor Government launched the High North Strategy in three cities this week. One of them was Bodø in Northern Norway, home of FK Bodø Glimt. (Foto: Trine Jonassen)
Dear reader. Two weeks before the Norwegian general election, the Norwegian Government launched its High North Strategy. Words such as community, supplier industry, and investment areas keep coming back. But is the strategy enough for the voters in the North? Here is the latest news from the High North.
The border city Kirkenes, Norway's Arctic capital Tromsø, and the football city Bodø. These were the Northern Norwegian cities chosen as hosts for a grand launch of the Støre Cabinet's first High North Strategy, titled "Norway in the North."
The background for this strategy is serious:
"We need to think differently about how we cooperate north in the Nordic region, but also circumpolar, in order to be safer," said MFA State Secretary Maria Varteressian (Labor) to Journalist Hilde Bye in Bodø.
Arctic researcher Andreas Østhagen says this is a strategy characterized by a serious security policy backdrop.
From Kirkenes, Commentator Arne O. Holm reports on the gravity by the border with Russia, where the Minister of Foreign Affairs talks about "the most dramatic security policy situation since World War II."
But the minister is also clear on how the serious situation creates new opportunities in the North.
In Tromsø, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre revealed that Norway's largest research project, Arctic Ocean 2050, will receive full funding for ten years. The project gathers the top polar researchers from 18 institutions across the country, reports Journalist Astri Edvardsen, who was present.
Kiruna and football
Last week, Holm visited the Northern Swedish mining town Kiruna to report directly from the historical move of a 115-year-old church, while philosophizing on the exceptional Arctic, including the football club Bodø Glimt, which has written itself into Norwegian sports history.
The Norwegian government is establishing a new office for the Norwegian Communications Authority in Tromsø. No GPS disruptions were discovered in the Barents Sea this round, but the situation will be closely monitored.
Other news
Writer and freelance journalist Maria Philippa Rossi has written a children's book about Arctic research.
Researchers have now quantified the damage the heatwave in Svalbard last year caused.
And construction of America’s first Arctic deepwater port in Nome, Alaska, is set to begin, almost two decades after first proposed.
Read about all this and more at i High North News.
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Arctic greetings from Editor-in-Chief Trine Jonassen