White House: Performance Chief to Serve as Acting Head of OMB. Deputy Director for Management and Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients will serve as Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the White House announced Tuesday. The news comes after OMB Director Jack Lew was named White House chief of staff last week. Zients was confirmed by the Senate as Deputy Director for Management of OMB in June 2009 and was the first person to hold the position of federal chief performance officer. Government Executive

Cracking Open the Scientific Process. The New England Journal of Medicine marks its 200th anniversary this year with a timeline celebrating the scientific advances first described in its pages: the stethoscope (1816), the use of ether for anesthesia (1846), and disinfecting hands and instruments before surgery (1867), among others. For centuries, this is how science has operated - through research done in private, then submitted to science and medical journals to be reviewed by peers and published for the benefit of other researchers and the public at large. But to many scientists, the longevity of that process is nothing to celebrate. New York Times

Espionage May Be Linked to Arctic Dispute: Expert: Navy Intelligence Officer is Accused of Spying on Behalf of Unnamed Nation. A still-unfolding espionage case, involving a Royal Canadian Navy intelligence officer, could be connected to an ongoing territorial dispute in the Arctic, an intelligence expert said Tuesday. Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former intelligence officer with Canada's spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said his sources told him the duties of Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle in Halifax included monitoring the North Atlantic seas. Delisle had access to sensitive information, including the locations of sensors embedded in the bottom of the ocean that help authorities to monitor ship's movements. Montreal Gazette

Warming Climate Attracts Non-Arctic Countries to Arctic Council. Drawn by rapid climate changes in the resource-rich Arctic, China, India and Brazil, which have no Arctic territories, are knocking on the door of the increasingly influential Arctic Council looking for admission as permanent observers. The issue has divided existing members, with Russia and Canada most strongly opposed. It is among the major questions with which Canada will have to grapple as it prepares to chair the Arctic Council next year. The issue is on the agenda of a two-day meeting on the future of the Arctic Council, which opened today in Toronto. The second annual Munk-Gordon Arctic Security Conference has attracted more than 100 participants from 15 nations, including experts, national ambassadors and indigenous leaders. Environment News Service

Russian Rivers Freshening the Water of Alaska's Beaufort Sea. Fresh water sloshing into the polar sea from the great rivers of Russia has been collecting on the Alaskan and Canadian side of the Arctic, adding the equivalent of 10 feet of freshwater to the central Beaufort Sea between 2003 and 2008, according to a new study published this month in Nature. The ocean northeast of Alaska is now the freshest it's been in 50 years, the scientists said, but only a tiny proportion of that can be blamed on ice melt. Most of it can be traced to Eurasian river runoff, following a previously undetected pathway from one side of the world to the other. "A hemisphere-wide phenomenon - and not just regional forces - has caused record-breaking amounts of freshwater to accumulate in the Arctic's Beaufort Sea," wrote Sandra Hines of the University of Washington. Alaska Dispatch

The Next "Arctic Five" Will be Oil Companies, not Nations. [Commentary] It's the time of year when bloggers indulge themselves by offering predictions, and I shall be no different. The Arctic's past belonged to peoples, and the present goes to states, but I will predict that the future will see big oil companies as the primary actor in Arctic affairs. One of the big stories in Arctic geopolitics in the past four years is the development of the 'Arctic Five', or A5 (the five states that have coastlines bordering the Arctic Ocean including Canada, Denmark/Greenland, Norway, Russia and USA) beginning with the May 2008 meeting in Ilulissat, Greenland. Alaska Dispatch 

Northerners Must Guide Military to Protect Arctic Sovereignty. As polar nations beef up military resources in the race to defend the Arctic, they must be guided by the native northern dwellers who best know how to protect the region, says Defence Minister Peter MacKay. In a speech prepared for an international conference on Arctic governance and security at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for Global Affairs, MacKay said the historical significance of the North is part of Canada's cultural make-up, but changes are occurring at a "rapid rate." Weather prevented MacKay from travelling to the conference, but he delivered the address to conference members by video. iPolitics 

DOD's Strategy for Arctic Lacking, Agency Reports. The Defense Department lacks a clear strategy for ensuring it will have the resources to operate in the Arctic, which is gaining strategic importance as melting ice opens new shipping possibilities and potential access to untapped natural resources, according to a Government Accountability Office report. While the DOD has begun to assess the capabilities needed to better operate in the Arctic's harsh environment, the report said, it needs to better prepare to meet the challenges of navigating in the Arctic, where the U.S., Russia and other nations are competing for control of potentially valuable resources. Military.com 

Inuit Hunters Buttress Theory Arctic Ocean is Approaching 'Tipping Point.' The Arctic Ocean might look like an isolated body at the top of the world, but several multi-year investigations have found deep interconnections with the Pacific and Atlantic oceans -- and new evidence that the polar sea may be poised to undergo a dramatic change in structure and life, senior climate oceanographer Eddy Carmack told the opening session of an annual marine science conference in Anchorage. "Are we approaching a tipping point -- a new state?" Carmack said to several hundred scientists gathered at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in the Hotel Captain Cook ballroom. "In the Arctic, the non-linear future is here." Alaska Dispatch

An Arctic Council Security Agreement: Preventing Militarization and Ensuring Stability and Security of the Arctic (Part I). Imagine in 2040 the Arctic Ocean is navigable for an extended period each summer. Then imagine Arctic states' navies going to war, head-to-head, in the Arctic Ocean over natural resources. A computer game set to be released in the second quarter of 2012 called Naval War: Arctic Circle, imagines just such an environment. According to CPU Gamer, "In the future, civilization is still reliant on petroleum, but the easily accessible land-based oil reserves are dwindling rapidly. The nations of the far north struggle to harness the rich untapped wells of the Arctic Circle and will go to war to guarantee control of the black gold."[2] The irony of the scenario Naval War: Arctic Circle projects is exactly why an international mechanism is needed to preclude such a scenario. So it isn't to hard to imagine an Arctic where every Arctic nation has its own fleet of armed Arctic patrol ships. What would that kind of Arctic be like? Would it constitute a militarization of the Arctic? Would such a development encourage conflict? The more important question is how can Arctic states undertake Arctic Patrol Ship construction programs without jeopardizing the stability of the Arctic? The answer is to commit to an Arctic Council Security Agreement centered around the creation of a multi-national Arctic Response Force that recognizes and respects states, and their indigenous populations' sovereignty. The Arctic Institute