Atle Staalesen

Military companies bankrupt, Murmansk is left with the debts

A critical situation is in the making as military towns fail to pay for heating, water and electricity, the regional government in Murmansk says.
August 08, 2016

Norilsk Nickel bribed eco watchdog, Murmansk prosecutors say

The company reportedly paid leader of the regional Nature Protection Control Authority almost five million rubles to cover up eco crimes.
August 05, 2016

High flying in Tiksi

Regular flights to Moscow with aircrafts 737-700 are on the table as the airport runway in the remote Arctic settlement gets an extension.
August 05, 2016

$60 million for Kharyaga stake

Statoil becomes biggest foreign owner of tundra oil field as Russian state company Zarubezhneft buys 20 percent stake from Total.
August 05, 2016

Upswing for Murmansk Port

Russia’s biggest Arctic sea port boosts goods volumes by more than 30 percent in first half of 2016.
August 05, 2016

26 years on, Russian death clouds still descend on Norwegian borderlands

A new book tells the story about how a popular movement gathered the whole community of Kirkenes in a joint protest against heavy pollution from neighboring Nikel. More than two decades later, the winds still bring poisonous sulphur across the border.
August 04, 2016

FSB detains Arkhangelsk editor

Aleksandr Sukhanov runs the site Kompromat29, which reports on regional corruption and economic crimes.
August 03, 2016

Putin greets Murmansk apatite miners

The president visits Russian fertilizers producer Acron as the company reaches peak production at its new open pit in Kola Peninsula.
August 02, 2016

First kids from Murmansk enroll in Russia’s new Youth Army

In a ceremony headed by Northern Fleet Commander Nikolay Yevmenov, a group of 37 youngsters from Severomorsk formally establishes the first Yunarmiya unit in the Russian North.
August 01, 2016

Watch this: 750 tons of dead salmon being dumped in Murmansk fjord

Video footage from last year’s aquaculture scandal in Murmansk shows fish farmers cutting loose the bottom of a cage net littering the Arctic sea bottom with dead and half-dead fish.
August 01, 2016

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Atle is journalist and Publisher of the Independent Barents Observer.

In 2002, he founded the Barents Observer. He was editor until 2009 and later worked as journalist and project coordinator for several European cross-border cooperation projects. In late 2015, following a conflict over editorial rights, he re-established the Barents Observer as an independent and non-profit stock company along with the rest of the newspaper crew.  

Atle has a degree in Russian studies from the University of Oslo and studied journalism at the Moscow State University.

atle@thebarentsobserver.com
@atlestaalesen