The US President also plans to block development in Arctic refuge; Alaska leaders irate ◄◄click here

Fairbanks, Jan.27.─ Citing biodiversity and Alaska Native subsistence whaling, the Obama administration moved to block development in 9.8 million acres within the Beaufort and Chukchi seas as part of a new five-year outer continental shelf oil and gas leasing program, the draft of which was released Tuesday morning by the Department of the Interior.
The announcement came two days after President Barack Obama said he planned to ask Congress to declare much of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Northeast Alaska as wilderness, including the possibly oil-and-gas-rich coastal plain -- and a month after the president closed waters in and around Bristol Bay to oil and gas development.
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Tunis, Oct. 5.─ All major opposition parties and two of the three parties in Tunisia's governing coalition today signed a roadmap agreement intended to lead the country out of its nearly ten-week political crisis.