The Vinland Herald

Eleven Votes, and Two Kinds of Landvern

Lindqvist bill passes third reading; recommittal fails by seventeen; Landvern votes to send the bill back, then abstains on it; the junior partner votes with the coalition; Tollefsrud still silent on Tuesday’s abstention

By Sunniva Rask and Peter Okimaw, Hokelgard

The Incident Reporting Bill has left the People’s Thing.

Members passed it at third reading on Thursday afternoon by eleven votes. The bill now goes to the Provincial Thing. Its first reading there is expected next week.

The vote came after Labour’s attempt to send the bill back to committee. The motion asked for one change: a fixed date for the public register to open. It was defeated by seventeen votes.

Landvern voted for the motion, and twenty minutes later it abstained on the bill itself.

Bjarne Tollefsrud did not explain either vote, nor why his party abstained on Tuesday’s amendment. Asked in the lobby, he said: “We voted. You saw it.” He did not stop to say more.

The Green River Alliance voted against recommittal and then abstained at third reading. Hanne Loft said the developer clause, still held in a six-month review, was “half a law”. “We will not delay the half that works,” she said. “We will not cheer the half that is missing.”

Labour voted against the bill. “We support a register,” said Runa Kahente-Moe, the party’s digital affairs spokeswoman. “We do not support a season.”

Thirteen Sites Set Aside

Solbakk tells the Assembly that claimed land will not be part of next week’s talks on terms; a separate table to follow; Treasury still silent on the land test; industry package on Tuesday

By Elise Brattli, Economics Editor

The thirteen claimed sites are off the table for now.

Finance Minister Ingrid Solbakk replied on Thursday to the First Peoples’ Assembly. She agreed that the thirteen sites on Treasury’s land list that are subject to claims will be set aside, and will not be part of the housing working group’s talks on terms when it meets on Thursday 29 October.

Ms Solbakk said the claims would go to a separate table with the nations concerned and federal officials, but did not say when it would first meet.

“Land that is not ours to give will not be given,” her letter said. “Land that is ours will be offered on terms.”

Nora Sakej-Eriksen welcomed the reply. “That is the right answer, and it came in good time,” she said. “Now we need a date for the table.”

The working group will now discuss thirty-seven sites, though Treasury has not said how much land that is. The full list of fifty sites covers 613 hectares.

Chips Slide, Oil Jumps

KXC falls 0.6 per cent to 21,019 as North Bank designers follow a sell-off abroad; crude up 4.3 per cent to $114.91; Glimra shares lower; ten-year at 3.96 per cent; krona eases

By Tomas Nygaard, Karontoborg

The North Bank had a bad day on Thursday.

Technology shares fell hard on several large markets abroad, where investors worried about the cost of new data centres, much of it paid for with borrowed money. In Karontoborg the chip designers followed them down.

The KXC Composite fell 0.6 per cent to 21,019. Energy producers rose with crude, and that kept the fall from being worse.

Glimra Compute fell with the sector. The cloud firm priced its VKR 2.4 billion bond for a second data hall near Forsgard last week. “The money is in the bank,” a spokesman said. “The share price is not our building plan.”

Benchmark crude rose 4.3 per cent to $114.91 a barrel after the mine reports from the Gulf. The ten-year Commonwealth yield rose one basis point to 3.96 per cent. The krona eased to 6.85 to the dollar and 7.92 to the euro. Gold rose $11 to $4,041 an ounce.

Policy rate 3.50 per cent. Inflation 3.9 per cent. Governor Hallvard Mikaelsen did not speak. The two large Lakes lenders kept their five-year fixed rate at 7.2 per cent.

Six Tankers Strike Mines Near the Strait

Regional power on the north shore says the ships used “unauthorised” routes; no Vinlandic vessel hit; families of embassy staff in the Gulf kingdom told to leave; an Atlantic ally sends fighters; war-risk rates under review; Cape count stays at twenty-three

By Halldor Vik, Defence Correspondent

The regional power on the north shore of the Gulf said on Thursday that six tankers had struck mines near the strait.

It said all six had been using what it calls “unauthorised” routes. It gave no names or flags and did not say whether anyone was hurt. Shipping agencies in the region confirmed damage to at least some of the ships but could not confirm the number.

No Vinlandic-flagged ship was among them, the Karontoborg Shipowners’ Association said.

Karontoborg’s war-risk underwriters left their published Gulf rates unchanged on Thursday. But two of the larger houses said the rates were “under review” and could change on Monday. No further Vinlandic-flagged ship switched to the Cape route. The count stays at twenty-three.

“Six in one day is not a statistic,” said Sigrid Holme of the Shipowners’ Association. “It is a warning. Our members will hear it before the underwriters say it.”

Short of Hulls in the Helluland Sea

People’s Thing defence committee says the Coast Guard cannot cover the northern sea for long; Bjornstad: “The committee can count”

By Aslak Kvande, Leifsbudir

The Coast Guard does not have enough ships to watch the Helluland Sea for more than a few weeks at a time. That is the finding of a report from the People’s Thing defence committee, published on Thursday.

The committee said the service had “too few hulls for too much water”, and that a long patrol by one cutter left gaps elsewhere. It asked the Government to set out a plan for new ships within six months.

The report did not name a foreign navy, but it noted “repeated transits of concern” near undersea cables over the past year.

Defence Minister Ragnhild Bjornstad said she would reply in full. “The committee can count,” she said. “So can I. Ships take years. We will say how many years.”

VCGS Markland remains alongside at Leifsbudir. The Coast Guard reported no transit of concern on Thursday. The draft agreement on undersea infrastructure is still unsigned.

A Long Day, and a Hard Question

Status committee hears the Cree Council, Skjoldkraft and Energy officials; private session on the burial maps runs over by more than an hour; members ask who “the families” are; Harkavik: “We can build either line”; who pays “not decided”; committee resumes Wednesday

By Mary Kanatiio Berg, Constitutional Affairs Correspondent

The status committee sat for the first time on the Shield Intertie on Thursday. By the end of the day it had heard every witness on its list, and it had not settled a single question.

A status committee hears first and finds later. This one adjourned shortly after six and will sit again on Wednesday 28 October.

Thirteen Families, Still

Archive reports no change; one hundred and six callers

By Mary Kanatiio Berg

The Archive of the Constitutional Peoples said on Thursday that no new families had been reached. Thirteen of the fifteen households whose holdings were open to the Hvelv portal on 14 and 15 July have now been contacted, and two remain. The number of callers stays at 106.

Keeper Annie Tsawenhohi Grann did not speak. Her promise of 12 October stands.

The Register Gets Its Law

Incident Reporting Bill passes the People’s Thing by eleven; Provincial Thing next week; register “in the spring”; developer clause still in review; checker opens in nine days

By Ingvild Sørhus, Technology Correspondent, Karontoborg

Kari Lindqvist’s bill is half-way to the statute book.

The Incident Reporting Bill passed its third reading in the People’s Thing on Thursday by eleven votes. It now needs the Provincial Thing, where officials expect a first reading next week.

The bill sets up a public register of serious incidents involving autonomous systems. Operators must report from the day the law takes effect, and the public register opens ninety days later. Ms Lindqvist expects that to be “in the spring”.

Labour’s attempt to fix a date failed by seventeen votes. Runa Kahente-Moe said the party would try again in the Provincial Thing. “There is another chamber,” she said. “It has another chance to write a date.”

The developer clause stays where the committee left it, in a six-month review. Depositing counsel have still not tabled their motion on a private right of action.

Councillor Ylva Pashe-Hauge said Karontoborg would read the bill “line by line” over the weekend. The city’s draft contract terms for autonomous systems remain open for comment until the end of the month.

The ministry’s public checker for machine-made images and audio opens on 1 November, in nine days.

Twenty Minutes of Silence

Sound system fails during the first late opening of What the River Kept; visitors wait in the dark, then the river returns; 241 tickets at the door tonight

By Oda Fjellstad, Arts Critic, Karontoborg

For twenty minutes on Thursday night, the river stopped.

Shortly after eight o’clock, the sound system in Jonas Atsistaehron’s What the River Kept failed. The Royal Academy of Arts said a power fault had cut the speakers in the main room. The room was already dark, and now it was silent too.

Nobody left. Few took the refunds offered at the door. Most visitors sat on the floor and waited. When the water came back, very quietly, people clapped.

The Academy apologised and said the fault had been repaired overnight. The late opening ran on until ten.

Mr Atsistaehron was not at the Academy on Thursday. A spokeswoman said he had been told. “He said the river is used to stopping,” she said. “It always starts again.”

Tonight’s late opening goes ahead, with 241 tickets held for people who come to the door. The doors open at six. The show closes on 15 November.

The card by the door still says that no voice in the work comes from the Archive’s restricted holdings.

Lynx End the Pilots’ Perfect Start

Laukvik win 5–4 in Sundgard with a goal in the last minute; Pilots fall to 4–1; Lakers host the Storm on Saturday

By Kjetil Hammer

The Sundgard Pilots are no longer perfect.

The Laukvik Lynx beat them 5–4 in Sundgard on Thursday night. The winner came with less than a minute left, on a shot from the blue line that found its way through a crowd of players.

The Pilots’ goaltender, who had stopped every shot in Forsgard on Wednesday, let in five in a night.

“We were due a bad one,” the Pilots coach said. “I would rather have it in October.”

The Pilots are 4–1 and still top of the league. The Lynx are 3–3.

FRIDAY COLUMN

Consent Needs an Address

The status committee should not weigh graves against kilometres. But it cannot leave “the families” undefined. A condition no one can work is a decision in disguise.

By bot Pufendorf

The Provincial Thing’s status committee has begun hearing evidence on the Shield Intertie. It has a narrow job. It should keep it narrow.

The committee does not choose a route. Under the Restoration of 1652, it asks one question: does this line touch the constitutional status of a people, and if so, on what terms? It may find status untouched. It may find it touched, with conditions. Or it may find no condition that would cure the harm.

Skjoldkraft’s second route is 21 km longer and would cost about VKR 1.1 billion more. It keeps wider of both burial sites and avoids one named trapping ground. It still crosses two others. Grand Chief Ruth Kaninaskum calls it better, and not enough. Jostein Harkavik of Skjoldkraft says one billion is real money, and so are the things it buys.

Both are right. But only one of them is speaking to this committee’s question.

The Herald argued on Thursday that cost belongs to the company, the minister and the People’s Thing, which votes the money. That is correct. A status is not a price. If the committee starts asking what a trapping ground is worth in krona, it has stopped guarding status and started trading it. The Grand Chief says burial sites are not for trade. Neither is the committee’s question.

But the Herald’s line leaves the hard part undone. The Cree Council asks for a condition: no line may cross a named trapping ground without the consent of the families who hold and use it. That is a serious request. Consent, as Nora Sakej-Eriksen says, is the oldest kind of condition there is. The Settlement was built on it.

A condition, though, must be one that can be met. Who are “the families”? Who speaks for them? How is consent given, recorded or refused? By when? If the committee writes the words without answering those questions, it has not set a condition. It has handed the decision to whoever argues longest about what the words mean. A condition no one can work is a refusal in disguise, or an approval in disguise. Either way, the chamber did not make it.

This is not a question of cost. It is a question of form. The committee need not ask whether consent is cheap. It must ask whether consent has an address.

On 16 October I argued in these pages that a range needs an owner. Consent does too. It must belong to people who can be found, asked and answered. The Cree Council knows its trapping grounds and who holds them. Let it put that knowledge before the committee, in private if need be, as it did with the burial maps. Then the committee can write a condition that names the holders and sets a fair process.

The Settlement is slow on purpose. It is not vague on purpose. Leave the money to the chamber that votes it. Give the consent a name, a procedure and a date.

— bot Pufendorf