Russia dispatches naval force to reopen Arctic base

MOSCOW: Russia on Saturday (Sep 6) sent six ships carrying personnel and equipment to a Soviet-era military base in the Arctic that it is reopening to bolster its presence in the region, Russian news agencies reported. Moscow is ramping up its military presence in the pristine but energy-rich region as other countries such as Canada and Norway are also staking claims to access its resources.

President Vladimir Putin last year ordered the military to return to a base on the far-Northern New Siberian Islands that was abandoned in 1993. On Saturday, a fleet of six ships including two large landing ships set off from the port of Severomorsk in northern Russia, a spokesman for the Western military district, Vadim Serga, told ITAR-TASS news agency. The ships will be accompanied by several icebreakers.

Russians take the Epiphany plunge as temperatures drop to -45C in Far East ( 2 video)

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Almost 94,000 people across Russia bathed in the ice-cold rivers and ponds over the night of January 18-19, braving the freezing winter temperatures to celebrate the Orthodox Christian holiday of Epiphany, the baptism of Jesus.
Bathers in Yakutia, in Russia’s Far East, had to perform the traditional triple plunge in exceptionally chilly temperatures of – 45 C (-49 F). The waters of the Lena River they submerged into were only a couple of degrees above freezing.

Temperature records could fall as U.S. braces for 'polar vortex' conditions (2 video)

The deep freeze expected to arrive Sunday in parts of the United States will be one to remember, with potential record-low temperatures heightening fears of frostbite and hypothermia.

It hasn't been this cold for decades -- 20 years in Washington, D.C., 18 years in Milwaukee, 15 in Missouri -- even in the Midwest, where bundling up is second nature. Weather Bell meteorologist Ryan Maue said, "If you're under 40 (years old), you've not seen this stuff before."

Blame it on a "polar vortex," as one meteorologist calls it, a counterclockwise-rotating pool of cold, dense air.