With so many hotspots and tense border stand-offs across the world, the dispute over an obscure island in the Arctic region by two peaceful modern western democracies definitely flies under the international radar. The unlikely spot is Hans Island, a 1.3 square kilometre slab of rock situated in the middle of the Nares Strait separating Greenland from Canada’s Northeast periphery. Barren and uninhabited, devoid of natural resources, the island has been the object of claims on it by both Denmark (of which Greenland is a sovereign part) and Canada since the 1930s¹.
Initially, the League of Nations adjudged the dispute in Denmark’s favour in 1933². But given the ineffectiveness and eventually dissolution of the inaugural world body, the LoN’s ruling carried little weight.
Over the decades Denmark and Canada continued to disagree on who owns Hans Island – without either doing anything about it. Bilateral negotiations in 1973 completely sidestepped the issue of the island’s sovereignty – a maritime border with the vertical line drawn through Nares Strait conveniently left the island itself untouched, and thus still unresolved.
An assertion of sovereignty done with humourand good nature
The 1980s saw an escalation of the competing claims in a tit-for-tat exchange of flag-planting on the island. First there was the hoisting of the Canadian maple leaf (accompanied by an additional item, a trademark bottle of Canadian whisky). The Danes duly responded with their own flag and a bottle of Danish schnapps.
The issue threatened to flare-up again in 2005 when Canadian defense minister Bill Graham earned Copenhagen‘s ire with his unilateral visit of Hans Island. However common senseprevailed and both sides committed to enter into a process to resolve the matter…since then though little headway has been made towards this goal.
A proposal for Inuit authority on the ground
In 2002 academics proposed that Canada and Denmark share control of Tartupaluk (the Greenlandic nameforHans Island), with hands-on management devolving to Inuit control. So far nothing has come of this.
Postscript: A straw prize on the surface but potentially a promisinglong-term prospect?
Though never getting remotely close to a militaryconfrontation, the periodic posturing and grandstanding by Canada and Denmark reflects the desire of both governments to secure possession of Hans Island. Two material considerations seem to inform the disputants‘ commitment to the cause – the possibility of oil and gasreserves in the seabed around Hans Island and the potential of the (Nares) strait as a future international shipping route.
End-note: A third claimant to Hans Island has emerged in recent years, Russia, filing its claim throughtheorthodox UN channels
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¹ “a bizarre sliver of territory for two countries to fight over” as one observer depicted it (Bender)
² a tricky matter to adjudicate on as the island technically lies in both countries’ waters, falling within the 12 mile-territorial limit under international law
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Referenced websites and sources:
‘Analysis: Hans Island – and the endless dispute over its sovereignty’, (Martin Breum), High North News, 24-Oct-2018, www.highnorthnews.com
‘2 countries have been fightingover an uninhabitedisland by leavingeach other bottles of alcohol for over 3 decades’, (Jeremy Bender), Business Insider, 10-Jan-2016, www.businessinsider.com
‘Canada and Denmark Fight Over Island With Whisky and Schnapps’, (Dan Levin), New York Times, 07-Nov-2016, www.nytimes.com
‘Hans Island Case – A territorial dispute in the Arctic’, (Master Thesis), (Nikoleta Maria Hornackova), Aalborg University, May 2018, www.projekter.aau.dk
During the Cold War not many people outside of the USSR knew of the Russian penchant for it’s ideological rival’s second most popular cola drink. The Soviet Union’s love affair with Pepsi-Cola started with a meeting between Premier Khrushchev and US Vice-President Nixon in 1959. As part of what was a rare cultural exchange for the time, Khrushchev was introduced to the sugary, carbonated beverage, the taste apparently meeting with the Soviet premier’s approval.
⏏️ Pepsi’s role in the Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen Debate
So began a novel bilateral trade. With Russian rubles not valued outside of the USSR, a barter system was forged. The Russian and other Soviet people got to drink Pepsi, in return vodka (in the form of the state-owned brand Stolichnaya) was made available in the US market.
Things went smoothly enough until 1980…the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan threatened the Pepsi deal. Americans boycotted Soviet goods including Stolichnaya…the popular vodka’s sales plummeted in the US. In the late 1980s the Pepsi company—mindful that seven billion Russians were drinking Pepsi each year—hit upon a new and more unorthodox US/Soviet exchange deal.
To keep the Pepsi flowing to Russian consumers, Pepsi accepted a flotilla of ageing Soviet warships in lieu. Taking possession of 17 rusty Soviet warships plus a few other auxiliary naval vessels. The fleet was far from being in A1 shipshape condition, but it enabled the soft drink giant to boast that it possessed the world 6th most powerful navy at the time – on paper if not on water!
(Source: www.naval-encylopedia.com)
Pepsi’s move earned the displeasure of the US military but the company CEO’s slightly disingenuous rejoinder to the Pentagon was that it was dismantling the Soviet fleet faster than they were!*
Pepsi didn’t hang on to the decidedly decrepit Russian fleet for long, selling the warships to a Swedish scrap-recycling business in the early 1990s. A few years later Coca-Cola usurped it’s place in the Russian market.
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* undoubtedly Pepsi’s billion-dollar stake in the USSR remained it’s primary motive
Sites/works consulted: 👁🗨👁🗨👁🗨
’When the Soviet Union Paid Pepsi in Warships’, (Anne Ewbank), Atlas Obscura, 12-Jan-2018, www.atlasobscura.com)
‘ How Pepsi became the 6th largest military in the world‘, (Tom Kirkpatrick, We Are The Mighty, 28-Jan-2019, www.wearethemighty.com
‘Pepsi Navy: When the Soviets Traded Warships for Soft Drinks’, Sandboxx, 06-Nov-2020, www.sandboxx.com
From the start of this month Russia began a gradual re-opening of services after a ten-week pandemic lockdown. This is happening despite new cases of COVID-19 continuing to materialise – the tally of confirmed case of the virus has now ticked over the 500,000 mark (as at 12-Jun-2020). There are several reasons contributing to the decision to re-open, some political and some economic.
Concern for the damage sustained by the Russian economy by the pandemic was foremost to the Kremlin but President Putin also wanted things functioning as close to normal in time for two upcoming events important to him. The 75th end of WWII anniversary military parade in Red Square—a PR showcase of Russian power—postponed from May is rescheduled for 24th of June. Even more personally important for the Russian leader is the July 1 vote✱, Putin has put up far-reaching constitutional amendments for approval, the main outcome of which could see Putin’s iron-grip on the federation extend till 2036.
(Photo: Reuthers / SPUTNIK)
Discontent with Russia’s approach to the crisis An underlying reason for the hasty end to the national lockdown might be that it hasn’t been as successful as hoped. The tracing app utilised in Moscow (the epicentre of the country’s COVID-19 outbreak) has had issues with its effectiveness. Putin’s personal popularity was at risk with public resentment voiced at the prolonged restrictions (murmurings of Orwellian and Soviet-like echoes). The medical response by the Kremlin has been called out by many front-line responders for its shortcomings⊘. One doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva (leader of a Russian doctors’ union), frustrated at the president’s insistence that the public health crisis was under control, has been at great risk to herself distributing PPE to medical workers on the front-line, provoking retribution from the Kremlin [‘The doctor who defied a President’, ABC News, (Foreign Correspondent, Eric Campbell), 06-Jun-2020, www.abcnews.com.au]. This is symptomatic of Moscow’s neglect of the regions who are expected to handle both the outbreaks without the medical infrastructure to deal with a large volume of cases✩ and the economic fallout from the crisis without adequate financial assistance [‘Russia’s coronavirus cases top 300,000 but deaths suspiciously low: ‘We conceal nothing’ Kremlin says’, (Holly Ellyatt), CNBC, Upd 21-May-2020, www.cnbc.com].
Counting the virus’ toll: a small exercise in data massaging?
Some Russia watchers have cast doubts about the reported COVID-19 figures released by Moscow. This includes WHO has questioned Russia’s low death toll, describing it as ‘unusual’ [‘WHO asks Russia to review its Covid-19 death toll in rare rebuke’, (Natalia Vasilyeva), The Telegraph, 11-Jun-2020, www.telegraph.co.uk]. While the number of Russian virus cases is comparatively high, the official record of fatalities is disproportionately low compared to the rest of Europe…Russia’s fatality rate is 0.9% cf. UK’s, 14.4% (roughly 10% of the mean figure for Western Europe) [‘How Russia’s Coronavirus Outbreak Became One of the World’s Worst’, (Madeline Roache), Time, 15-May-2020, www.time.com]. The Kremlin has rejected the criticism that it is withholding the full impact of the pandemic, but outside observers pinpoint an anomaly in the methodology it uses to count cases. Unlike say Belgium (which is strictly inclusive), Russia has not counted deaths as caused by the coronavirus where other co-morbidities are present, ie, if a patient tested positive for the virus and then had a subsequent critical episode, the cause of death is not recorded as COVID-19 [‘Russia Is Boasting About Low Coronavirus Deaths. The Numbers Are Deceiving’, (Piotr Sauer & Evan Gershkovich), The Moscow Times, 14-May-2020, www.themoscowtimes.com].
A deserted, locked-down Red Square
(Source: www.citizen.co.za)
Compartmentalising the fatalities
This persuasively accounts for the recent discordant mortality statistics reported by Russian sources, eg, if you separate fatalities directly attributable to coronavirus from other fatalities for May, the unexplained “excess deaths” recorded for Moscow is up about 5,800 on that occurring during the previous three Mays [‘New data suggests Russia may have a lot more COVID-19 deaths than it says it has’, (Alexandra Odynova), CBS News, 11-Jun-2020, www.cbsnews.com]. A look at Dagestan, a region with one of the largest clusters outside of the capital, is also instructive. As of mid-May it had experienced 35 deaths listed as caused by coronavirus, but in the same timeframe it recorded 650 deaths attributed to “community-acquired pneumonia”. One explanation from Russia watchers is that “local officials want to present Moscow with ‘good’ figures” (Ellyatt). If the Kremlin were to publish both sets of figures in its official data, such transparency would deflect much of the doubt and questioning by outsiders (Sauer & Gershkovich).
✱ that Putin is prepared to push through the referendum at this time and risk aggregating the public health and safety of Russians, confirms for many the president’s prioritising of his own political motives [‘Russian officials, citing COVID-19, balk at working July 1 constitutional referendum’, CBC News, 11–Jun-2020, www.cbc.ca] ⊘ many medical practitioners in Russia have been disaffected by both a critical shortage of equipment to fight the virus and by unpaid wages [‘Exclusive: Did Russia pass the coronavirus test? Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov Responds’, (M Chance, Z Ullah & N Hodge), CNN, 09-Jun-2020, www.amp.cnn.com] ✩ the COVID-19 emergency has exposed the deteriorating state of the Russian health service in the Putin era – the Semashko system infrastructure allowed to run down while the private medical sector has flourished [‘Can the Russian Health Care System Cope with the Coronavirus?’, (Estelle Levresse), The Nation, 09-Jun-2020, www.thenation.com]
Every day we are reminded of the global reach of the novel coronavirus crisis. We know it’s a pandemic because WHO and other health agencies publish data showing that 211 countries and territories have been affected by the disease. The international media coverage tends to focus largely on the unenviable “big five” chart-toppers who have been most affected – the US, Italy, Spain, France and the UK. A number of sites publish constantly updated lists of the growing toll of Covid-19 casualties, a sort of sombre “score card” listing all the countries who have recorded instances of the disease.
Confirmed Coronavirus Cases: Globally tracked, country-by-country – as @ 23-Apr-2020
Country
Total cases
Total deaths
Region
USA
850,000
47,700
Americas
Italy
188,000
25,500
Western Europe
Spain
208,500
21,750
Western Europe
France
160,000
21,500
Western Europe
UK
134,000
18,300
Western Europe
Sources: WHO http://covid19.who.int/;
http://worldometers.info/
When we scroll through the world tables of where the pandemic has landed, it’s instructive to look at the comparative totals by continent – Europe has a bit over 1.28 million confirmed cases recorded, and the Americas, 995,510 (predominantly from the US), compare these to South-East Asia, a bit more than 38,572 and Africa, a mere 18,234 cases✺✺.
(Source: www.vietnamcredit.com.vn)
From a statistical standpoint we might wonder if the published data gives a true impression of the extent of of the pandemic? It needs to be kept in mind that the numbers we have are those that have been reported to the World Health Organisation. Population differences aside, it is clear that the low numbers in South-East Asia and Africa (examples: Cambodia 122 cases, zero fatalities✺✺, Myanmar 139 cases, five fatalities✺✺, Ghana 1,279 cases, 10 fatalities✺✺, Ethiopia 117 cases, three fatalities✺✺) mask the full impact of the catastrophe. They are a product of limited testing by countries in these regions … widespread poverty, surplus populations, lack of resources and infrastructure mitigate against the capacity to take corrective, safety monitoring measures.
(Photo: www.theborneopost.com)
Limited testing capacity and weak surveillance The small numbers of recorded cases and handful of reported deaths in Africa and S.E. Asia (the Caribbean is another such case in point) can engender a false security and justify a lack of action by such already economically and health-challenged countries, thus the risk of infections spreading is magnified. In the early phases of the outbreak some S.E. Asian states were slow to acknowledge the risks…even as late as mid-March, Myanmar’s government was still attributing it’s low number of cases to the superior “lifestyle and diet” of the locals. The fight against Covid-19 by Third World countries is further retarded by a failure to test widely and in the numbers necessitated by the crisis. It shouldn’t be overlooked that some of these countries have quite repressive regimes that don’t rank the goal of a universal healthcare system as their highest priority [‘Experts Doubt Low Coronavirus Counts of Some Southeast Asian Countries’, (Zsombor Peter), VOA, 29-Mar-2020, www.voanews.com].
(Photo: www.upnews.info.com)
For the bulk of African countries the story is similar. A by-product of their lack of development is that their health systems are fragile before the onset of coronavirus hits them. Awareness of the inability to cope with a full-blown health crisis, had led some leaders to advocate so-called “miracle cures” for the virus (eg, Madagascar’s president’s championing of untested traditional plant remedies). Nigeria (Africa’s largest nation by population) shows only 981 confirmed cases and 31 deaths✺✺ to date but is looking as vulnerable as anyone in Africa. Oil exports are the hub of Nigeria’s economy and the fall of the world’s crude oil price to a record low will hamstrung the country’s efforts to contain any future eruptions of the disease [‘Coronavirus: How drop in oil price affects Nigeria’s economy’, (Michael Eboh), Vanguard, 17-Mar-2020, www.vanguardngr.com]. The outbreak of pandemic hotspots in Nigeria could be devastating, especially in the north, given the country’s population of nearly 200 million people and it’s inadequate healthcare capacity⋉.
(Photo: www.newswirenow.com)
Too good to be … Some countries have reported being lightly or relatively lightly touched by the onslaught of the coronavirus, these results have surprised outside observers. One such country that raises eyebrows in this respect is Russia. The republic has 146 million people and shares long borders with China⤱, yet it fesses up to having had only 68,622 cases✺✺ (well under half of that of the UK) and suffered only a comparatively low 615 deaths✺✺ from the epidemic (most of those since the start of April). If you cast aside the anomalies, on paper it’s an excellent result! But whether Soviet or post-Soviet, there’s always an air of suspicious doubt about Russian information. The Russian Bear has had form in the past with cover-ups…a prime example—the Soviet Union throwing a tarpaulin over the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the 1980s —indicative of a less than honest response to major disasters [‘The Very Low Number of Russia’s Reported COVID-19 Cases Raises Questions of a Cover-Up’, (Rick Moran), PJ Media, 22-Mar-2020, www.pjmedia.com].
Image: www.asianews.it
Russia, if it so erred, is not “Robinson Crusoe” in deliberately underreporting the pandemic’s effect. China for nearly three months from the initial outbreak didn’t include asymptomatic patients in the official stats, and only rectified this oversight on April Fools Day [‘China acknowledges underreporting coronavirus cases in official count’, (Mark Moore), New York Post, 01-Apr-2001, www.nypost.com]. For six weeks after WHO declared a global health emergency Indonesia did not report a single Covid-19 case (unlike most of it’s S.E. Asian neighbours). Considering the republic’s population size (more than 270 million) and it’s close links with China, this aroused widespread suspicion of underreporting and criticism in a Harvard University study which seemed to belatedly jolt Indonesia into disclosure. The first notification by Djakarta of coronavirus cases occurred on 2nd March, and from then on Indonesia’s curve has been on an upward trajectory – currently 8,211 cases, 689 deaths✺✺ [‘Why are there no reported cases of coronavirus in Indonesia?’, (Randy Mulyanto & Febriana Firdaus), Aljazeera, 18-Feb-2020, www.aljazeera.com].
Doubting a hermetically-sealed “Hermit Kingdom” North-East Asia’s renegade, secretive state, North Korea, can be added to the list of countries purporting to be Covid-19–free. Pyongyang‘s official line has been met with disbelief from several external sources such as South Korea and Radio Free Europe which asserts that disclosures from within North Korean military circles confirm the occurrence of coronavirus cases in the border areas [‘What Is the Coronavirus Doing to North Korea’, (Nicholas Eberstadt), New York Times, 22-Apr-2020, www.nytimes.com]
Addendum: (Coronavirus as at 0130 hrs EAT time, 25-April-2020) USA 890,200 cases | 50,403 deaths Italy 189,973 cases | 25,549 deaths Spain 219,764 cases | 22,524 deaths France 158,183 cases | 21,856 deaths UK 143,464 cases | 19,506 deaths
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— ✺✺ figures as at 0130 hrs EAT time, 25-Apr-2020 ⋉ just over the last week the African continent experienced a sudden surge in infections, ‘Africa’s 43% jump in virus cases in 1 week worries experts’, (Gerard Zim Rae), ABC News, 23-Apr-2020, www.abcnews.go.com ⤱ although Russia did close its eastern border with China after the virus breakout
Postscript: A straw prize on the surface but potentially a promising long-term prospect? 
(Source: 
