Newsletter: Victories and Losses in the High North

The war in Ukraine rages on, while Christmas preparations are taking up people’s time in more peaceful corners of the world. 

High North News’ Editor-in-Chief, Arne O. Holm, is reclaiming the old classic Moment of Freedom to put the misery of the war into perspective; 

“I was young when I read this confrontation with brutality and I thought, or hoped, in a kind of rebellious euphoria that this was something mankind had put behind it. That was not the case.“ 

An eye-opener I recommend you take with you into the first Advent weekend. 

Investments 

Northern Norway is of interest to foreign investors.

 This week, it became known that the Australian company Arkon Energy has acquired the crypto factory Hydrokraft in Glomfjord. The facility will use large amounts of local energy to produce bitcoin. 

Russian friendship cities have been a concern for North Norwegian municipalities after the Ukraine war. 

However, Rana and Sortland municipalities in Northern Norway have chosen to keep their friendship city agreements with Russia in a frozen state in the hope of a warmer climate for cooperation after the war. 

But the cooperation climate is only becoming colder. 

Now, the Norwegian Barents Secretariat is closing its offices in Russia. Barents Press does the same with its Russian divisions. 

In terms of security policy, on the other hand, Norway, Finland and Sweden recently agreed on increased military cooperation in the Cap of the North, also known as the High North.

Political victories 

Mary Peltola, a Democrat who became the first Alaska Native in Congress after beating Republican Party Rep Sarah Palin in a special election upset this summer, repeated that victory and secured a full term.  

In Northern Norway, Tromsø Municipality will get a long-awaited Sàmi House. 

Read about this and more at High North News. Feel free to share the newsletter with other interested parties.

 On behalf of the High North News editorial staff, I wish you a good weekend. 

Trine Jonassen, News Editor 

This newsletter has been translated by Birgitte Annie Molid Martinussen.