Barents Observer editor and 2021 Camden Conference speaker Thomas Nilsen offered his expanded newsroom — located just “a 15-minute drive from Norway’s border with Russia in the north” — for use by exiled Russian journalists in a strong editorial defense of the importance of journalistic freedom. The Barents Observer publishes in both Russian and English and its expansion is in cooperation with UiT, The Arctic University of Tromsø. Nilson also disclosed in late April that Russia and China have signed a memorandum providing for cooperation in the Barents Sea and Arctic waters. Joint Russian-Chinese efforts will extend to combating “terrorism, illegal migration, fighting smuggling of drugs and weapons, as well as stopping illegal fishing,” Nilsen wrote, and effectively substitutes China for the US, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Sweden and Norway in multilateral maritime exercises Russia holds periodically out of Murmansk.  

“The World Bank must become Archimedes’ lever to help change the world into a more prosperous, inclusive, and sustainable planet in the 21st century,” and the nomination of Indian-born American businessman Ajay Banga to be president of the World Bank “provides that opportunity.” So argues Indian author and visiting scholar at George Washington University Ajay Chhibber, a speaker at this February’s Camden Conference, in an opinion piece that brings together aspects of this year’s conference on “Global Trade and Politics” with next year’s conference on India. 

“By being less preachy about how other countries run their affairs and by treating them as sovereign actors with their own priorities the West can still effect constructive change on specific global issues — and maybe even pick up some new supporters along the way,” suggests Mark Leonard, 2022 Camden Conference speaker and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, in a Project Syndicate commentary picked up by the Japan Times.

Likewise delving into the issue of Western relations with China, 2019 Camden Conference keynoter Martin Jacques, now a visiting professor at Tsinghua and Fudan Universities in China, assesses the potential for Europe to re-establish an independent relationship with Beijing that is less confrontational than that of the US, in an opinion piece written for the Global Times and picked up by The Manila Times.

 Halfway around the world in Europe, Judy Dempsey, the Carnegie Europe senior fellow and editor of Strategic Europe blog who spoke at the 2022 Europe conference, extols Ukrainian resilience and resolve to fight on despite mounting casualties (on both sides), doubts about adequacy of munitions supplies, and “weariness if not a sense of impatience by some Western political and military elites of a war that has the huge potential to create instability in other parts of eastern Europe.”`