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Briefs from Svalbardposten for the week of May 24, 2016

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400 kr. for a 750ml bottle of ‘luxury’ local water ‘not a lot’
Anyone in Svalbard can drink locally sourced water merely by turning on a tap – or melting ice or snow – but Jamal Qureshi says he believes plenty of people will be willing to pay 400 kroner for a 750-milliliter bottle of his water from the archipelago. He started selling his Svalbarði (a word Vikings used to refer to Svalbard) water in local stores last week, which is made from 16 tons of ice collected from Larsbreen last fall. “The taste is unlike any other water,” he said. “Softer.” The ice, after an advanced melting and filtration process, was poured into 6,000 custom bottles  designed in London and manufactured in the Czech Republic. “Four hundred kroner is not a lot for such a luxurious gift,” Qureshi said. “This is a souvenir of the Arctic that everyone will remember.” The price isn’t just about the water’s “luxury” status – there were enormous costs associated with collecting, storing and processing the ice, as well as for the bottles.

Dogs attack, kill reindeer in Bolterdalen; penalty likely
Several dogs got loose and fatally attacked a reindeer in Bolterdalen on Tuesday evening, according to The Governor of Svalbard. People in the valley notified the governor’s office about the attack at about 7 p.m. and police are now investing the matter. “The normal reaction is to give a penalty to the dog owner in such cases,” said Police Chief Lt. Ståle Nylund. It’s the second dog attack on a reindeer within a month, after a dog got loose from its owner and inflicted injuries of unknown severity on a reindeer in Adventdalen.

DUI man without license jailed for stealing, wrecking car
A Norwegian man visiting Longyearbyen was jailed overnight after stealing a car while intoxicated and driving it off the road, according to The Governor of Svalbard. Police were altered about the incident shortly before midnight May 15 and arrested the man, who does not have a driver’s license, near the scene of the accident. The man was not injured but “he has ruined a lot for himself,” said Police Chief Lt. Ståle Nylund. “This will also be a factor for him in the workplace.”

About Post Author

Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.
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