Impressive - if only it were true. The Northeast Passage has been opened for commerce since 1934 - and never 'closed'.
Over the years hundreds of thousands of freighters have passed through, and after Russia put Soviet-era politics aside it was extended to foreign commerce in the 1990s. As we reported two weeks ago, it took bloggers a few seconds to find this out, and unearth a wealth of maritime history. But when German shipping company Beluga issued a press release claiming to be the first foreign pioneer, many newspapers and the broadcast media (the BBC) were in such a rush to report another example of Global Warming, they didn't bother to check the claim - and reported it verbatim.
Among the parrotters was Times hack Tony Halpin, here, who cleaned his Trumpet of Doom and proceeded to shoot himself in both feet with this blast: "It is both a symbol of global warming and a potentially lucrative new trade route between Europe and Asia."
Whoops, watch the Times take these ad's down as fast as possible....
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