Santa Opens Arctic Ocean for Business

Reindeer have new competition. Between now and next March, ice thickens in the Arctic Ocean, but, because of climate change, gradual melting after March opens a shipping channel in August. Ships with stronger hulls and expensive icebreaker escorts even can use the route for up to three months.

     Up until about five years ago, the dark cold South Pole was home to penguins, and the far north only housed Eskimos and Russian prisoners in Siberia. Oleg Sentson, the Ukrainian film director on a hunger strike, is still there in a penal colony serving a 20-year sentence for protesting Russia's annexation of Crimea. But Russia's President Putin also now hikes on vacations in Siberia, and Russian ships travel from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg on a Northern Sea Route Putin calls "a matter of national pride."

     Why are countries scrambling for claims to sea routes through the Arctic Ocean and not around Antarctica? Examine the North and South Poles on a globe or map. How many degrees latitude does it take from both poles before you find at least five countries? What potential problems do you see when passing between Russia and Alaska?

     Arctic shipping routes, according to a paper prepared by the engineering faculty at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, are most dangerous in the East Siberian Sea. In the shallowest area of the Arctic Ocean, ice builds up earlier and faster after summer, and uncharted waters are more likely to cause ships to run aground. Even during summer, half of the East Siberian Sea can remain ice covered.

Go North, Young Men

     Despite the harsh environment and high insurance rates, activity is expected to increase in the far north due to a variety of factors. Arctic routes shorten navigation time, and they are free of pirates. Oil and gas reserves in the area already have attracted exploration. (See the earlier posts: "Troubled Northwest Passage Found" and "North Pole Flag.")

     Accidents, seldom now, can be expected to increase as shipping traffic increases, however. Ship captains who ply the Arctic Ocean cannot help but feel a little like captains of potential Titanics. Ice can trap ships, and they still can hit icebergs, as well as icebreaker escorts and other ships. Captains need constant weather station updates about the changing wave heights, wind speeds, and temperatures that affect icing in each section along their routes, information they also need in order to know how long crew members should stay out on deck. They want protocols about plans for emergency assistance and oil spill clean ups from members of the Arctic Council (Russia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark-Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Canada, and the United States).

Tourists Who Have Been Everywhere

     Possible perils failed to deter 900 passengers from paying anywhere from $20,000 to one million dollars per person to book passage on the Crystal Serenity's first cruise through the Arctic Ocean in 2016. The ship sailed from Seward to Nome, Alaska, where it docked to unload solar panels ordered by the city's population of 3800. In groups, cruise passengers took turns sailing to shore in transport boats to photograph wild musk oxen; eat $5 slices of blueberry pie; watch Eskimo dancers; and purchase locally made seal gloves and wallets. From Nome, a month long voyage passed by Greenland and ended in New York.

     The trip required a crew of 600, a special navigation satellite system, and chartering cargo planes to deliver perishable food for pickups at communities along northern Canada. The Crystal Serenity made another, and its final, passenger voyage in 2017.

Faster Cargo Shipments

     After the Crystal Serenity tested the Arctic route for passenger cruises, the Danish-based Maersk line, the world's largest shipping company, launched the Russian Venta Maersk's container ship north from Vladivostok, west across the Arctic Ocean, and south around Norway and Sweden to St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea. Carrying 3600 containers of Russian frozen fish and electronics from South Korea, the ship cut off about two weeks from the usual time it takes to use the southern route from Asia and enter Europe using the Suez Canal. While time was saved, profit was lost, because container ships are used to dropping off and picking up a thousand containers at a dozen or more ports along the way. No such transshipment points exist on the Arctic route. Following the test trip, Maersk announced no immediate plans to substitute the Northern Sea Route for its usual schedule.

     Russian cargo ships already do service domestic ports on an irregular basis. Now Moscow is building roads, a railroad, and facilities to establish regular ports of call along its Northern Sea Route. China also has made overtures to Iceland and Greenland to establish outposts on what Beijing calls its "Polar Silk Road." (See the earlier posts, "Iceland Gives China the Cold Shoulder" and "China Stakes New Claim to Arctic.")

      After China's President Xi Jinping determined to reduce pollution by switching from coal to natural gas, a serious shortage left Chinese homes without heat and shut down factories. To prevent future natural gas shortages, China's state-owned COSCO shipping company and Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. Lines formed a 50-50 partnership to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) east on the Arctic Ocean and south to Asia from Russia's Novartek producer on the Yamal Peninsula. While a tanker can make this trip in 15 days in summer, compared to 35 days by going west and south through the Suez Canal, ice is too thick in the winter. Yet, there is pressure to increase China's shipments through the most dangerous East Siberian Sea.



 
           

Freedom: Love It, Don't Leave It

A big balloon provided an unwelcoming greeting to President Trump in the UK, and comics mocked the politically-ambitions wife of a former Zimbabwe President. Such actions are reminders of the civil liberties others all over the world do not enjoy.

     North Korea and China deprive religious and free-thinking citizens in re-education camps. Beijing released Liu Xia, the widow of deceased Nobel peace poetry laureate, Liu Xiaobo, from house arrest on July 10, 2018. She was allowed to leave for exile in Germany, possibly to court good relations with a U.S. ally President Trump recently offended at a NATO summit.  But back in Beijing, Chinese authorities stand ready to arrest Liu's younger brother, Liu Hui, if Liu Xia makes any statements China considers objectionable.

     Beijing was concerned when Edward Leung, a Hong Kong proponent of independence from China, received 15% of the vote for a seat in the former British island's Legislative Council. Shortly after Leung received this minor vote of confidence, he was involved in what turned into a riot in 2016. Two years later, on June 11, 2018, he received a six-year sentence for his involvement in the uprising.

     Charged with subversion, China sentenced Qin Yongmin, to a 13-year prison term on July 11, 2018. He also had been jailed earlier for his pro-democracy demands. Along with political prisoners, China continues to detain lawyers and other activists who dare to use Chinese laws to prevent abuses of power by government officials.

     In Russia, Oleg Navalny still languishes in a penal colony for his association with the anti-corruption rallies of his brother, Alexei, who himself was re-arrested in September, 2018 two minutes after serving a 30-day jail sentence. Ukrainian film director, Oleg Sentsov, is starving on a hunger strike while serving a 20-year sentence in Siberia. His crime, objecting to Vladimir Putin's 2014 annexation of Crimea, an action for which Russia is being sanctioned.