Thomas Nilsen

Svalbard gets cash to restructure businesses

Norwegian Government hopes for new innovation. Coal mining in Svea and Lunckefjell will be halted temporarily.
December 18, 2015

Krone and ruble tumble together with oil price

Oil currencies tumble to a record low. For the first time since 1992, the Swedish krone is now stronger than the Norwegian. One US dollar is sold for 71 rubles.
December 18, 2015

Church on the move

Kiruna’s landmark wooden church will be demolished and relocated so it doesn’t fall into the underground iron-ore mine.
December 17, 2015

Green light for Arctic drilling without daylight

Austrian oil driller OMV starts New Year with drilling north in the Barents Sea.
December 17, 2015

Cruise missile accidentally hit apartment block

Malfunctioned during a test shooting and fell into the three-store house in the village of Nyonoska in Arkhangelsk Region.
December 16, 2015

Norway seeks “spy” in public advertisement

The Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS) has vacant post as analyst on Russian security policy.
December 15, 2015

Norway returns children on bicycles in freezing cold

It is snow. It is dark. It is cold. And it is 40 kilometres to the nearest town on Russia’s Kola Peninsula. A family with children was told to leave Norway on bicycles at Storskog this weekend, the coldest so far this winter.
December 14, 2015

Putin beefs up Barents Sea nuclear arsenal

Russian submarine launched Sineva ballistic missile close to Norwegian waters Saturday morning.
December 12, 2015

Orlov slashes own salary

The Arkhangelsk Governor’s gesture is part of the region’s belt-tightening in times of difficult economical situation.
December 11, 2015

NATO and Finland discuss military cooperation in Lapland

Helsinki beefs up defence budget by 9 percent next year, even though Finland is facing hard economic times.
December 05, 2015

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Thomas Nilsen is editor of the Independent Barents Observer with its news desk located in Kirkenes, northern Norway. He has a long experience in media cooperation across the borders in the high north of Europe, both as radio- and newspaper reporter all the way back to the days before the breakup of the Soviet Union. 

Nilsen has been editor of Barents Observer since 2009.

He was Deputy Head of the Norwegian Barents Secretariat from 2004-2009. Until 2003, he worked 12 years for the Bellona Foundation’s Russian study group, focusing on nuclear safety issues and general environmental challenges in northern areas and the Arctic. 

Thomas has been traveling extensively across northern Scandinavia and Arctic Russia since the late 80’s working for different media and organizations. He is also a guide at sea and in remote locations in the Russian north for various groups and regularly lectures on security issues, environmental and socio-economic development.

Thomas Nilsen studied at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Mobile: +47-90573143

thomas@thebarentsobserver.com
@nilsen.thomas