[Canadian] Federal Budget Offers Mixed Bag for North: Money pledged for a harbor in Pangnirtung and for Health Canada posts while CanNor and Aboriginal Affairs face cuts. The federal budget, released Thursday in Ottawa, contains some of the biggest cross-country cuts since the 1990s. Old age security eligibility will be raised to the age of 67, the penny will be phased out, and about 19,000 public sector jobs will be cut over the next three years. The budget also includes several plans for the North. Among the most notable plans is $225 million to repair harbors across the country. Included in that money is a plan to "accelerate" the construction of the harbor in Pangnirtung, Nunavut, which was originally announced in 2009. Also included in the budget is the continuation of an assessment of diamonds in the North - with a price tag of $12.3 million over two years. The plan will renew the Diamond Valuation and Royalty Assessment program, which is run by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. CBC News 

Seismic vessel Polarcus Amani delivered by ULSTEIN

3-D Look at the Newest Bad Weather Seismic Shootin' Survey Ship. Video of the features of the Polarcus Amani. gCaptain

Statoil May Join Russian Arctic Shelf Projects- Putin. Norwegian energy firm Statoil may participate in new hydrocarbon development projects in Russian Arctic shelf, President-elect Vladimir Putin said on Friday. "I think we can come to agreement about joint work in [the country's] north ... I hope projects and decisions that will allow us to move forward will be found at corporate and state levels," Putin told Statoil President & CEO Helge Lund during a meeting. "Decisions made at the political level must be correspondingly implemented at the commercial level," Putin said. RIANovosti

Norway to focus on Arctic Oil Licensing Rounds. Norway today has gone ahead with its offshore oil and gas exploration licensing rounds. According to the oil ministry this focuses on its increasingly vital Arctic region and sharply cutting offerings in the North and Norwegian Seas. Norway said Arctic region blocks dominated its licensing for both mature and frontier areas while the number of North Sea areas would be sharply reduced. "The proposal I am submitting for consultation is based on the companies' nominations and indicate very clearly that the petroleum industry is moving north," Oil Minister Ola Borten Moe said in a statement. Oil Voice

[Alaska] House Acts to Create Alaska Arctic Policy Commission. The Alaska House yesterday acted to help the state better prepare and position itself for growing Arctic activity and policy, passing a resolution forwarded by the House Finance Committee to create the Alaska Arctic Policy Commission. The idea comes from a recommendation by the Alaska Northern Waters Task Force, which met over the past two years to examine how the state can work with stakeholders, other governments and interested parties to protect the state's Arctic interests. Alaska Native News

Sea Ice Project Will Help Bring Inuit Knowledge Into Arctic Council: ICC. 'Inuit from Chukotka to Greenland' will participate in study. The Inuit Circumpolar Council received some good news this past week in Stockholm, Sweden, during a meeting of top officials from the Arctic Council's eight member nations and its indigenous Arctic participants. The ICC learned that its "Sea ice is our highway" project will move ahead as an official Arctic Council project. This project, funded by Canada, the United States and Denmark, will look at how changes in the Arctic have affected Inuit and how Inuit are adapting to these changes. And it will include interviews "with as many Inuit from Chukotka to Greenland as we can within the budget," said ICC-Canada's president Duane Smith in an interview from Stockholm. Nunatsiaq Online

H.R. 3568, Native Culture, Language, and Access for Success in Schools Act (Kildee, referred to House subcommittee)

H.R. 3569, Native Culture, Language, and Access for Success in Schools Act (Baca, referred to House subcommittee)

H.R. 4304, To clarify the definition of navigable waters, and for other purposes (Rooney, introduced and referred to committee)

H.R. 4314, To amend the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 to require the Secretary of Commerce to establish a coastal climate change adaptation planning and response program, and for other purposes (Capps, introduced and referred to committee)

Arctic Science Summit Week 2012, April 20-22, 2012. The summit will provide opportunities for international coordination, collaboration, and cooperation in all areas of arctic science. Side meetings organized by stakeholders in arctic science and policy are also expected. More information here. 

From Knowledge to Action, April 22-27, 2012. The conference will bring together over 2,000 arctic and antarctic researchers, policy and decision-makers, and a broad range of interested parties from academia, industry, non-government, education and circumpolar communities including indigenous peoples. The conference is hosted by the Canadian IPY Program Office, in partnership with the National Research Council of Canada, among other groups. Each day of the conference will feature a program of keynote speakers, plenary panel discussions, parallel science sessions, as well as dedicated poster sessions. The conference-wide plenaries will explore themes related to topics of polar change, global linkages, communities and health, ecosystem services, infrastructure, resources and security. Other sessions will provide the opportunity to present and discuss the application of research findings, policy implications and how to take polar knowledge to action. Click here. 

USARC Commission Meeting, April 27-28, 2012. The 97th meeting of the USARC will be held in Montreal, Canada, in conjunction with the "From Knowledge to  

Action" IPY meeting referred to above. The Commission will meet on April 27-28, and will meet jointly with the Canadian Polar Commission on the afternoon of the 27th, to discuss common interests in Arctic Research. Details to follow. 

Arctic Forum 2012, April 30-May 1, 2012. The Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S. will host the forum in conjunction with their 24th annual meeting. Both events will be in Washington, D.C. The Arctic Forum is part of the American Geophysical Union's Science Policy Conference, which will be held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. The Conference will focus on the science that helps inform policymakers' decisions. Within the Science Policy Conference, the Arctic Forum will assess gaps and priority needs for arctic scientific information to inform decision makers in policy

formation for three key themes:

                - Governance and Security in the Arctic;

                - Transportation and Energy Development; and

                - Changing Arctic Ecosystems.

The Forum will examine the current state of policymaker and public understanding of the issues. An important goal will be to foster an increased capacity for dialogue and action on arctic science-policy issues.

[Postponed]American Polar Society 75th Anniversary Meeting and Symposium, "The Polar Regions in the 21st Century: Globalization, Climate Change and Geopolitics", to occur in 2013, The Explorers Club, NYC. For 75 years, the American Polar Society has both documented and communicated polar activities to the interested world. This meeting will bring together the current leaders in science, government, commerce, and diplomacy for a state-of-the-art forecast of the next seventy-five years in a world influenced more than ever before by the destiny of the Arctic and Antarctic. Click here.  

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. Click here.  

15th International Congress on Circumpolar Health, 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. Click here. 

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, click here.