Thomas Nilsen

Climate change hits back, Svalbard coal mine flooded by melting glacier

After days with record heat at Svalbard, the penetration of water from the above melting glacier is now flooding Norway’s only operating coal mine that supplies the country’s only coal-power plant.
July 30, 2020

A photo report from inside the coronavirus hospital in Murmansk

Nikolay Palchenko was sitting next to a coughing fellow passenger on the plane from Moscow to Murmansk. A few days later, also Nikolay got sick and ended up at the infectious diseases department at the regional hospital from where he made this photo-report.
July 29, 2020

Murmansk region counts more Covid-19 cases than neighboring Norway or Finland

164 new coronavirus cases detected in the last 24 hours as the tally rises to 9,791 in an oblast with less than 750,000 inhabitants.
July 28, 2020

Deutsche Banks won’t finance any new Arctic oil and gas projects

Germany’s largest finance institution says the move is part of a commitment to protect the climate and help the EU to achieve its goal of being climate neutral by 2050.
July 28, 2020

More pollution from Nornickel, Kola peninsula covered by smog

Kilometers and kilometers of fragile taiga nature west of the smelters for nickel and copper in Monchegorsk was Friday covered by smog containing sulfur dioxide and heavy metals.
July 27, 2020

28 combat ships participated in Northern Fleet Navy Day parade

The Russian north was proudly honoring its sailors on the annual Navy Day, flexing power in the Kola Bay outside the fleet’s headquarters in Severomorsk.
July 26, 2020

Record heat hits Longyearbyen

Temperature of 21,7°C on Saturday is the warmest ever measured so far north in European Arctic.
July 25, 2020

Norway maintains travel restrictions to northern Sweden

While seven regions in southern Sweden from Saturday are open for travel, the Norwegian government still considers the COVID-19 situation in northernmost regions to be too bad.
July 25, 2020

Nuclear icebreaker gets six years prolonged lifetime

The two reactors onboard the Soviet-built "Yamal" are reviewed by experts and approved for another 50,000 hours of operation, meaning the icebreaker can sail until 2028.
July 13, 2020

Murmansk Mayor Yevgeny Nikora tests positive as coronavirus continues to spike on the Kola Peninsula

Nikora is hospitalized and undergoing treatment for Covid-19 and pneumonia.
July 10, 2020

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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