The Arctic Century

Ninety-three years ago today, on 11 March 1933, the steamer Lena was launched at the Burmeister & Wain shipyard in Copenhagen. Later renamed steamer Chelyuskin was afloat only for a year, yet became one of the most prominent Soviet legends.

For Norway, an important player in the European and global oil and gas markets, the Israeli and US attack on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz means a colossal increase in revenues from the sale of these strategic raw materials.

The Finnish Peace League condemned the government's decision to lift the legal ban on the import of nuclear weapons into Finland, which poses a direct nuclear threat to Russia, which possesses the world's most powerful nuclear arsenal and the most advanced delivery systems.

On the eve of the Danish parliamentary elections on March 24, Siumut, one of Greenland's three leading political parties, called for greater powers for the autonomous territory of the Danish Kingdom in foreign policy and defense, a prerequisite for political cooperation between them.

With a 20 percent approval rating, French President Macron, a political lame duck reviled by most French citizens for his failed economic policies, delivered a presentation of France's new nuclear doctrine at a naval base on March 2.

On January 27, residents of Toulon, accustomed to the sight of the elegant but technically unreliable nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, the bane of the French budget and the flagship of the French Navy, moored in port, saw the warship off on a four-month voyage from which, with luck, it would return without urgent repairs.

On February 21, an American nuclear submarine unexpectedly surfaced a few kilometers off the harbor of Greenland's capital, Nuuk, followed by an air evacuation of a crew member in need of qualified medical care, which was provided to him at a local hospital.