SOVIET/NORWEGIAN SEA TALKS Russian and Norwegian negotiators completed their first round of talks early in December on dividing rights to the strategic and potentially lucrative Barents Sea between northern Norway and Spitzbergen in the Arctic. The official Soviet news agency “Tass” said the talks were held in a businesslike and friendly atmosphere. The negotiations will probably be resumed in Oslo early this year (1975), Norwegian sources said. The discussions are highly delicate with different interpretations on either side of how the dividing line should be drawn across the area, which is believed to hold large deposits of oil, gas and minerals. Observers said the meeting, the first of many which could last for years, was probably concerned with specialised technical and legal positions. Apart from the economic interest both sides have — the Barents Sea also holds some of the world’s best stocks of fish — the area is of key strategic importance to the Russians. The Kremlin is believed to be particularly concerned at the prospect of Norwegian oil rigs possibly conducting military surveillance, hindering the Soviet Atlantic fleet’s access to the sea from the ice-free port of Murmansk.

LAW ON RESERVED CARGO SOUGHT The Japanese Shipowners’ Association will ask the Japanese Government for legislative measures to counteract, in the words of a spokesman, “the proliferation of the cargo reservation practice among developing shipping nations”. The Shipowners’ Association’s position is that since the governments of most advanced shipping countries now have such laws and regulations, aimed specifically at dealing with those developing nations that resort to cargo reservations for their flag lines, Japan should follow suit as quickly as possible. The spokesman pointed out that the British authorities had enacted a Merchant Shipping Act 1974 specifically for this purpose last July. In Japan, however, whatever means are available for the Government to counter the cargo reservation practice exist now only in the limited “indirect” form of some Customs regulations, so that Japanese shipowners now suffer from such outright protectionist foreign legislations as that which the Bogota Government recently introduced for Colombian national shipping.

LLOYD’S APPOINT NEW ATTORNEY-IN-FACT The Committee of Lloyd’s have appointed a new attorney-in-fact for Illinois. Mr. John G. Smith has succeeded Mr. Herbert C. Brook, who had held the post since 1961. Both gentlemen are partners in the distinguished Chicago law firm of Messrs. Lord, Bissell and Brook. The appointment carries broad authoritative powers and comes at a time when the United States insurance market, in which Lloyd’s is a substantial participant, faces serious