NATO’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, has been on our screens throughout the Ukraine crisis, ashen-faced and compelling, but never sabre-rattling. This week’s podcast looks at the place of the Stoltenberg family in Norway and on the international stage. But first we have to consider Norway’s recent history as a peace broker. The country has often worked in the shadows, trying to create ‘a framework and an atmosphere conducive to negotiation’ – as one veteran put it, from 1993 and the Oslo Accords right up to this year’s low-key Libyan talks on Utøya. Yes, Utøya, the site of the terrible massacre, during which Jens Stoltenberg was Prime Minister. His father, Thorvald, was the leading diplomat of his generation, and his sister Camilla was Norway’s ‘Anthony Fauci’ during the Covid pandemic. 

CONTACT : Twitter – @northbynorway

E-mail at northbynorway@gmail.com.

EPISODE PHOTO

Jens Stoltenberg speaks at a service commemorating the one year anniversary of the 2011 attacks.

Fornyingsdepartementet, 22 juli 2012, CC BY 2.0

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36080239

THANKS

to actor Solveig M. Boyle for vocal contribution

LINKS & SOURCES

Speeches by Jens Stoltenberg retrieved from: 

https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumentarkiv/stoltenberg-ii/smk/taler-og-artikler/2011/statsminister-jens-stoltenbergs-tale-pa-/id651840

https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/foreign-affairs/peace-and-reconciliation-efforts/innsiktsmappe/norway-peace-work/id446704/

https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/foreign-affairs/peace-and-reconciliation-efforts/innsiktsmappe/peace_efforts/id732943/

https://www.f-b.no/nyheter/krig/sor-amerika/petter-skauen-fra-fredrikstad-sentral-bakmann-bak-fredsavtalen-i-colombia/s/5-59-530284

https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/petter-skauen-70-ar-1.11929162

https://www.dagsavisen.no/kultur/2014/09/01/hyllest-til-en-levende-helt/

https://forskning.no/historie-krig-og-fred-norges-forskningsrad/slik-ble-norge-en-fredsnasjon/190736

MUSIC

00:00 North by Norway 

Andrew J. Boyle, using the Norwegian folksong ‘I Ola-dalom, i Ola-tjønn’

00:53 Stand Together

Andrew J. Boyle

03:20 I Ola-dalom, i Ola-tjønn

Edvard Grieg, op. 66, no. 14

15:33 Sonata 

Edvard Grieg, Op. 7, second movement

All music performed on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle

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