Reid: Saturday Workdays for Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday said the Senate would work weekends until Congress and the White House reach a deal to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. House leaders offered no new announcements on Monday about their own schedules, but sources said congressional leaders were prepared to keep lawmakers in session through the beginning of the August recess if negotiators fail to reach a deal. The Hill  

Chinese Analysts Urge Greater Presence in Arctic Ocean. Chinese researchers say the nation should move quickly to avoid being left behind in an escalating race for natural resources and trade routes in the Arctic Ocean. Zhang Xia, director of strategic studies at the Polar Research Institute of China, is quoted in the Communist Party-controlled Global Times newspaper Tuesday as saying China lags behind other countries in terms of Arctic exploration and scientific research. Quoting a 2008 study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, the Global Times says the Arctic Circle holds an estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered but reachable oil, and more than 45 trillion cubic meters of reachable natural gas. Voice of America  

Harper Gears Up for Another Round of Arctic Chest-Thumping. Next month, as he has every summer since becoming Prime Minister, Stephen Harper will travel to the Arctic, trumpeting his Conservative government's resolve to assert Canadian sovereignty in the Far North against all comers. Little of what he says will accord with reality. But it will all make for splendid political theatre, which is the whole point. Globe and Mail  

Oilsands Activity Blamed for Caribou Decline. Humans, not wolves, are behind declining caribou populations in Alberta's oilsands region, an analysis of animal feces shows. The same research also found there may be many more caribou in the region than previously thought, meaning there may still be time for industry to change how it does business without resorting to wolf culls to protect the herds. CBC News  

The Week Ahead: Senate Energy Panel to Consider Offshore Drilling-Safety Bill. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will vote this week on legislation aimed at overhauling offshore drilling-safety rules more than a year after BP's massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) floated the legislation, which would stiffen penalties, strengthen well blowout-prevention standards and increase offshore inspections, in May. The Hill  

North Slope Pipeline Breaks, Spills during pressure testing. State environmental officials are investigating why a pipeline on Alaska's North Slope operated by BP ruptured early Saturday during a pressure test. Workers in nearby buildings felt the ground shake from the force of the underground line break, Tom DeRuyter, on-scene coordinator for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said Sunday. Anchorage Daily News  

As Arctic Ice Shrinks, Pacific Species Invade Atlantic, Causing Ecological 'Tumult.' The largest species invasion in over 2 million years is now underway as Arctic ice cover melts and shrinks, permitting a freer exchange of species between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.  Dire and dramatic consequences for Atlantic biodiversity are predicted. Planet Save  

Study: More Polar Bear Cubs Drowning Due to Sea Ice Loss. Biologists studying polar bears off the coast of Alaska have found that when cubs are forced to go on marathon swims with their mothers due to loss of sea ice, nearly half of them don't survive the journey. The study, scheduled to be announced at the International Bear Association Conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, confirms the dangers of ice loss to Alaska's polar bear population. It's been widely theorized that adult polar bears have been forced to cross ever-longer stretches of open ocean as the polar regions heat up. On Earth  

UT and MIT Forge Partnership to Study Risky Energy Exploration. To feed its energy demands, the United States is looking for energy in increasingly far-flung environments such as: Ultra-deep offshore oil wells, the Arctic, and shale rock formations 20,000 feet underground. The risks involved are often greater, but the industry lacks a set of "best practices" for these new frontiers of energy exploration. That's a need that researchers at the University of Texas and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hope to fill. Scientists at both colleges are teaming up to create some guidelines for industry. Their focus would range from guiding principles to government policies to the engineering needs required to reduce environmental impact. KUT News  

Northern Research Forum 6th Open Assembly, September 4-6, 2011."Our Ice Dependent World," organized by the Northern Research Forum and its partners as the Northern Research Forum 6th Open Assembly, will be hosted by the University of Akureyri in the town of Hveragerði, Iceland. Addressing the three 'poles' - the Arctic, the Antarctic and the Himalayan region- the sub-themes represent different  perspectives for viewing the subject of natural ice and evaluating its importance.  The event will consider implications of ice melt on humanity, communities, minds, perceptions and knowledge on ice; International law, 'soft law' and governance on ice.

The Arctic in Transition: Regional Issues and Geopolitics, October 3-4, 2011. The conference is organized by the Center for Geopolitical Studies of the Raoul Dandurand Chair, in collaboration with the Centre Jacques Cartier (France), ArcticNet (Universite Laval, Quebec), and the Northern Research Forum (University of the Arctic; University of Lapland, Finland). This high-level international meeting reunites political scientists, lawyers, geographers, historians and practitioners to discuss, first, the socio-economic, political and security issues of Arctic developed or developing regions, and, second, to look at the evolving relationships between these spaces, their peoples, and global affairs. The main focus of the meeting seeks to adress security issue(s) of the various region(s) that make up the circumpolar world. Three Arctic regions will be highlighted: a) the North-American Arctic (United States (Alaska); Canada (Northwest Territories, Yukon, Nunavut, Nunavik) and Greenland; b) the North Pacific Rim (Alaska, Russian Far East, Beaufort Sea/Chukchi); c) the Barents Euro-Arctic Region (Nordic countries - Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland - and Russia).

The Tenth International Conference on Permafrost, June 2012. The conference will be held in Tyumen, Russia, and is organized and hosted by Russia. The last conference was held in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2008. Details to follow.   

15th International Congress on Circumpolar Heath, August 5-10, 2012. This event is sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Society for Circumpolar Health, and the International Union for Circumpolar Health.  The forum will consider community participatory research and indigenous research; women's health, family health, and well-being; food security and nutrition; social determinants of health; environmental and occupational health; infectious and chronic diseases; climate change-health impacts; health service delivery and infrastructure; and, behavioral health.

Arctic/Inuit/Connections: Learning from the Top of the World, October 24-28, 2012.  The 18th Inuit Studies Conference, hosted by the Smithsonian Institution, will be held in Washington, DC. The conference will consider heritage museums and the North; globalization: an Arctic story; power, governance and politics in the North; the '"new" Arctic: social, cultural and climate change; and Inuit education, health, language, and literature. For more information, please email Lauren Marr.