In Lon­gye­ar­by­en, it is an open secret that drugs bey­ond legal ones are being con­su­med by locals. During the last weekend, the Sys­sel­man­nen tog­e­ther with the Nor­we­gi­an main­land poli­ce have caught 9 per­sons in con­nec­tion to drug abu­se, 2 of them also for deal­ing. All 9 are locals.

Source: Sys­sel­man­nen

The Nor­we­gi­an minis­try for fishery and coast has plans to intro­du­ce com­pul­so­ry pilo­ta­ge in Sval­bard for cer­tain ships, such as pas­sen­ger ves­sels with a length of 70 met­res or more and a width of 20 met­res or more, pos­si­bly also smal­ler ones, 24 met­res long or more. Back­ground is a report that sta­tes that crui­se tou­rism invol­ves a „serious envi­ron­men­tal risk“, such as oil leaka­ge in case of groun­dings.

Befo­re rele­vant legis­la­ti­on may come into force, it has to go through a hea­ring pro­cess.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten

Big Spits­ber­gen poli­cy comes from Oslo and part­ly from the Sys­sel­man­nen in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, who is appoin­ted by the govern­ment in Oslo. Lon­gye­ar­by­en Lokals­ty­re has rather the func­tion of com­mu­ni­ty coun­cil. During elec­tions on Octo­ber 9 and 10, 907 out of 1592 voters have elec­ted the new Lokals­ty­re. Arbei­der­par­tiet (Socia­lists) won with by far with 43,7 % of all votes.

The poli­ti­cal dif­fe­ren­ces bet­ween the 5 par­ties in Lon­gye­ar­by­en are rather small. The most colourful pro­gram­me may be that of the „Kon­sek­vens­lis­ta“, which has 2 elec­ted mem­bers in the Lokals­ty­re. Their main goal of clo­sing the Lokals­ty­re is con­side­red chan­ce­l­ess even by them­sel­ves, but they see their main task in being poli­ti­cal watch­dogs.