The Cold Rush

The first Arctic sunset came last Sunday at 11.45pm. Tonight it will set at 10.30pm but it will still be light throughout the night 24 hours a day.

We are in the land of the midnight sun and suddenly the eyes of the world are on this Arctic region.

For despite the coming and going of the summers and winters global warming is spoiling the climate here so fast that the polar ice cap is visibly retreating.

In its wake, the 25 per cent of the world's untapped deposits of oil and gas that lie beneath these wastes are becoming ever-more retrievable. Hence the unseemly Cold Rush.

Russia dives beneath the Arctic Ocean and claims a titanium upon its bed. Canada's prime minister struts across the North Pole above and now this week two of western Europe's foreign ministers venture further into the high Arctic than two such politicians have ever been.

We travelled with the Norwegian and German foreign ministers on a trip they said they had planned before the Russian and Canadian antics.

Tonight, we'll be reporting from Ny Olasund, home to some 70 international scientists, the farthest north that human life sustains.

A spell-bindingly beautiful place of glaciers and mountains but the glaciers are visibly in retreat and the ministers talk of settling who owns what beneath through the Laws of the Sea.

Our science correspondent, Tom Clarke, has been to Hammerfest, where the first major gas field ever to come on stream in the Arctic Circle is already belching fire into the Arctic skies as the gasmen burn off its first produce, paying millions of pounds per day in carbon emission taxes.

Tonight, we are at the cutting edge of the new Cold War and as if that is not enough, stay tuned for Julian Rush's report on the new dash for ice diamonds.

I'll admit to having believed in global warming and the evidence up here is very compelling . Also find out about Britain's mysterious role behind the scenes.

All will be revealed at seven tonight.

Live from the high Arctic.

Jon.

And from London

We will be examining the devastating report about the Virginia Tech massacre. All the things that could have been done to reduce the carnage, or perhaps even stop it altogether.

Measles cases increase

A spike in the number of measles cases in the last eleven weeks has got the Health Protection Agency worried. A virulent strain of the potential killer is about, and those children who haven't had the MMR or single jabs are at risk.

As children go back to school it could spread quickly - so parents are being urgently advised to get their children protected. The scare is over, they are being told, so stop putting your own and other people's children at risk.

Christine Ohuruogu

Plus should Britain celebrate its gold medal winning athlete when she's fighting to overturn a ban for failing to show up for drugs tests? Christine Ohuruogu claims she's innocent of drug abuse and many of her supporters say the system is at fault. But haven't all these athletes been warned time and time again to make sure they show up?

Plus much more - see you at seven

Krish

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