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Monday, March 25, 2013

One killed in landslide the snowy Norway: police

An avalanche in an off-piste ski area killed one person in Tromsoe in Norway's far north on Sunday while a second person escaped unharmed, police said.
"One person was found and underwent medical treatment at the site," but was later "confirmed dead", police spokesman Gunnar Baardsen said.
The second person caught in the avalanche was not injured.
Baardsen gave no information about the identity of the dead person, but Norwegian media reported it was a man in his 30s.
Avalanche warnings have been issued in the area on an almost daily basis lately, Baardsen said.
AFP

Egypt Bedouin 'Norwegian kidnapped tourist "

Armed Bedouin tribesmen in Egypt's Sinai peninsula on Friday kidnapped two tourists, a Norwegian woman and an Israeli man, as they travelled between two beach resorts, police said.
Six gunmen intercepted the tourists' car and forced them into their truck, the officials said. The pair had been travelling between the southern resort of Taba, on the border with Israel, and Dahab.
Norway's foreign ministry confirmed one of its citizens was abducted but gave no details, while an Egyptian police official said the woman was a 31-year-old Norwegian, after having earlier identified her as Belgian.
A spate of such hostage takings, which usually last for no longer than 48 hours, broke out in the restive Sinai after an uprising in early 2011 forced out president Hosni Mubarak and battered his security services.
The kidnappers are normally Bedouin who want to trade the hostages for jailed tribesmen.
In Israel, police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP: "We received unconfirmed information that a Norwegian tourist and an Arab-Israeli man resident of Eilat, originally from the Nazareth region, were kidnapped" in the Sinai.
Israel has repeatedly warned its tourists of threats of attacks in the Sinai, where Islamist militants have waged a low-level insurgency against the military and police as well as attacks on Israel.
But Friday's kidnapping did not appear politically motivated, with Bedouin sources in the area saying the kidnappers wanted to exchange the hostages for jailed relatives.
Bedouin kidnapped a British couple on March 7, only to release them within hours after talks with security officials. The Britons had been abducted from a bank in a town as they headed towards the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
AFP

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Statoil was fined platform neglect

State oil company Statoil was hit with a relatively heavy fine of NOK 30 million (USD 5.5 million) on Wednesday, for breaking petroleum laws when it lost control of an oil well on the Gullfaks C platform in May 2010. Prosecutors hope the size of the fine will drive home the serious nature of the incident that some believe could have led to disaster.

“Statoil has such a strong economy that it’s hard to ram it no matter how big a fine we impose,” prosecutor Harald Grønlien told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). “The reason we nonetheless landed on NOK 30 million is that we hope it will command attention.”
Frederic Hauge of the environmental organization Bellona, who had reported Statoil to the police after the incident because of risks Statoil took in terms of environmental and personnel safety, was satisfied. “It’s a very large fine in Norwegian context,” Hauge told NRK.
The incident on the Gullfaks C platform stemmed from a hole in a pipe that allowed liquids from a well being drilled to leak into the formation it was being pumped from. Hydrocarbons streamed into the well, forming gas that reached the platform. Regulators said the incident could have led to a blowout.
Petroleum authorities and the prosecutor ruled that Statoil violated the law by failing to have an adequate basis from which to make decisions during the planning and drilling at Gullfaks C, that there was a lack of competence during the planning and risk analysis of the drilling operation, and that plans for the drilling were inadequate.
Prosecutors admitted their investigation of the Gullfaks incident, which led to the fine, took “too long,” but they claimed it was highly complex.
Statoil officials have claimed they have learned from the trouble on Gullfaks and have been striving to make improvements in operations and safety. The company has four weeks to decide whether to accept the fine, or contest it in court.

Anger rises on bank interest rate hike

Several Norwegian banks, including the country’s major lenders, have been raising interest rates on home mortgages at a time when interest rates otherwise are at record lows. The banks are blaming the rate hikes on pending legislation, and that’s angering both borrowers and politicians alike.

In an example of a letter sent to some loan customers, large Nordic bank Nordea wrote that it was raising its lending rate on a home mortgage from 3.5 percent to 3.8 percent. The rate hike will take effect from April 25 and yield an effective annual rate of 3.97 percent. That’s because even though most Norwegian banks refuse to compound interest on savings accounts, they do so on loans.
Norway’s largest bank, DNB, is also raising rates even though Norway’s central bank, Norges Bank, announced just last week that it was keeping its key lending rate unchanged at 1.5 percent, and that it expected rates to remain at record lows for at least another year. DNB is citing the same reason that Nordea wrote in its unwelcome letter to borrowers: “A warning of new requirements from the authorities.” Nordea declined to specify in its letter, but the “new requirements” are tied to the amount of capital Norwegian banks are expected to maintain.
“It remains unclear what the final regulations will be and when they will be imposed,” the leader of Nordea’s consumer market, Tom M Nilsen, wrote in the letter. “But the banks’ costs tied to making home loans will increase.” He wrote that the higher interest rates, which he described merely as an “interest rate change,” is “part of the necessary adjustments to a higher cost level.”

Not only will borrowers face higher monthly payments, several politicians have begun harshly criticizing the banks. The complaints are loudest from politicians tied to the Labour Party, which has government control of the Finance Ministry. They feel strongly that the banks, most of which already have been reporting strong profits, are prematurely raising rates to collect even more money from customers, and blaming it on the government.
“The banks are asking customers to pay a bill the banks haven’t even received yet,” Torgeir Micaelsen, a Member of Parliament for the Labour Party who heads the parliament’s finance committee, fumed to newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) on Wednesday. “I don’t know of other branches that allow themselves to do that. Think what would happen if a gasoline station raised prices for fuel because it thought a new tax might be imposed later. It’s not just upsetting, but proof that the banks have fingers that are much too long.”
Micaelsen is among the DNB customers who also has received an unwelcome letter from the bank, warning of the same interest rate hike that Nordea is imposing.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Finance Minister Sigbjørn Johnsen, both from the Labour Party, have criticized the banks as well, with Johnsen saying he didn’t think it was necessary for DNB to be raising rates already, and Stoltenberg telling reporters that it shouldn’t be possible for banks to raise rates now on the basis of a demand from the government that hasn’t been put forward yet.
Stoltenberg’s criticism is especially noteworthy since he’s a personal friend of Rune Bjerke, chief executive of DNB, and Bjerke’s wife, Libe Rieber-Mohn, is a Labour Party politician on the Oslo City Council. Bjerke was even Stoltenberg’s best man when Stoltenberg married, but now there’s reportedly chilly relations between the government and the banks.
‘Just campaigning’
The banks, meanwhile, are accusing the Labour officials of political campaigning in advance of the fall elections. Bank officials claim they’re acting prudently and proactively on the basis of a new proposal from the finance ministry that will place tough new requirements on the banks to ensure liquidity and a strong capital base.
The banks thus claim they need to start building up more reserves now, to meet the requirements when they come, hence the need for higher payments from loan customers. The actual rules, though, aren’t yet in place and Stoltenberg stresses they will be imposed “over time” and be “reasonable” in comparison to the stricter rules facing banks in other countries.
Thomas Midteide, spokesman for DNB, refuted Micaelsen’s claim that the banks’ fingers are too long. “That’s not correct and Micaelsen knows that very well,” Midteide told DN. He said the finance ministry ordered DNB to increase core capital in 2013 “and that’s what we’re doing now, by among other things restricting dividends, cutting costs and raising interest rates.”

Internet Security "is good enough"

Norway’s National Security Authority NSM (Nasjonal sikkerhetsmyndighet) released a report on Tuesday warning that neither government agencies nor companies are well enough secured against cyber attacks and industrial espionage via the Internet. NSM stressed that individuals working within both public and private sector entities are now the biggest targets of online crime.
The report, which was being presented at an NSM security conference on Tuesday, comes just days after Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor reported a serious case of industrial espionage to the police. The attack targeted the personal computers of top Telenor executives and reportedly was carried out through attachments sent to them via e-mail from seemingly trusted contacts.
Individual employees at risk
NSM’s report confirms that individual employees targeted by data criminals and spies are at risk for unwittingly spreading viruses or having their machines infected by programs that take control of the machines and empty them of sensitive information that’s then sent to external addresses.
“Norway and Norwegian interests are the targets of unwanted and illegal espionage on a daily basis,” NSM’s report warns. The threats are increasing in terms of their amounts and scope, “especially in regard to industrial espionage,” according to the report.
Security efforts within both the private and public sector haven’t been developed to a degree enabling them to fend off the “steadily more complex” threats, NSM wrote.
State and commercial websites also at risk
The state authorities noted that several processes are underway to reduce online vulnerability in Norway, but more efforts are needed. NSM believes it is “important to strengthen competence regarding preventive security measures,” and called for more resources “to strengthen national ability to handle serious incidents involving information technology” and increase reports of incidents that threaten national security.
Newspaper Aftenposten reported on Tuesday, meanwhile, that 619 Norwegian websites spread data viruses last year that spy on, steal from or monitor unwitting Internet users. The number of cases identified by NSM quadrupled during the past year.
Websites belonging to banks and media outlets were among the most common targets but NSM wouldn’t identify them. The companies themselves generally don’t report data crime either, for fear of losing confidence among their customers. It was considered unusual for Telenor to go public with its case of industrial espionage over the weekend.

Fined crew Svalbard

A film team working for the BBC on Norway’s Arctic archipelago of Svalbard is being fined NOK 50,000 (nearly USD 10,000) for allegedly disturbing a polar bear mother and her two cubs. Local officials are concerned about the increasing number of film crews, both Norwegian and from abroad, that are perhaps too keen to film the protected polar bears in action.



Newpaper Svalbardposten has reported that filming interest on Svalbard is especially high at this time of year, when the polar bears emerge from hibernation, often with two or three cubs. Several crews and television production firms from the UK, Germany, Italy and Japan are among those applying for permission to film in Svalbard’s national park and nature preserve areas where the bears are a highly protected species.
The team behind the program filmed for the BBC and about to be aired in the US, entitled “The Polar Bear Family and Me,” used a specially built plexiglass cage of sorts that attracted the interest of a mother bear and her cubs, and, reports newspaper Aftenposten, allegedly broke laws against harassing the bears, according to local authorities on Svalbard.
“The cage was used to lure the bears and therefore disturb them, while they film the incident at the same time,” wrote Lars Erik Alfheim, sysselmann (district governor) on Svalbard, wrote in the citation papers, as reported by newspaper Aftenposten.
The film crew was assisted by  researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute and reported on the environmental challenges facing the polar bears, but some local commentators had pointed to laws against close contact with the bears, and filming methods that some equate to harassment. Birger Amundsen, editor of Svalbardposten, recently wrote that many who have seen the films “felt strong discomfort” watching how the mother bear reacted to the plexiglass cage, and, in another film sequence, when a mother bear and her cubs appear to be chased by a helicopter filming as they emerged from their den.
Alfheim decided it was time to crack down on filming methods that the authorities claim provoked the bears and thus added to their stress. He noted that if the bear had managed to break into the plexiglass cage used by the BBC crew, it would have been in danger of being shot before it injured the crew members. Alfheim also claimed the violation of environmental laws protecting the bears involved commercial interests.
Crew objects
The film crew is refusing to pay the fine. “I love (the polar bears) and have never plagued, disturbed or injured polar bears,” producer Jason Roberts told Aftenposten. He claimed the law demands use of protective devices that wouldn’t injure the bears, and that’s why they used the cage. The fact that the polar bear mother and her cubs were “curious and roamed 50 meters” towards the cage can’t be construed as plaguing them, Roberts argued.
Jon Aars of the Norwegian Polar Institute worked with Roberts, supports the film crew’s work and clearly thinks the institute benefits from the publicity that TV programs and documentaries can bring. “We know, the BBC knows and everyone else knows that all activity around polar bears can add to their stress,” Aars told Svalbardposten. “For the Norwegian Polar Institute, it’s positive to show the work we’re doing. I know that some people don’t like what we’re doing, but others think it’s fine.”
Roberts was given 14 days to respond to the authorities’ warning of the citation and fine, but made it clear to Aftenposten.no that the fine would not be accepted.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Norway Messages growth 3.5% in 2012

Norway's economy grew by 3.5 percent last year despite a notable slowdown in the fourth quarter, Statistics Norway (SSB) said on Wednesday.









Norway's "mainland" growth figures strip out the volatile oil and shipping sectors. The Scandinavian country is one of the world's biggest oil and gas exporters.
Including the oil and shipping sectors, 2012 growth ticked in somewhatlower, at 3.2 percent.
Although that figure remains high compared to other European countries, itis significantly below the levels registered in the years prior to the global economic and financial crisis that has raged since 2008.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Norway saw mainland growth of just 0.3percent, in line with forecasts by economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires but considerably lower than in previous quarters.
In the third quarter, gross domestic product grew by 0.8 percent, SSB saidas it revised the figure upward by 0.1 point. The economy grew by 0.7 percent in the second quarter and 1.0 percent in the first.
A 0.1-percent decline in exports on weaker foreign demand and shrinkinghousehold consumption were responsible for the slowdown, SSB said.
Overall GDP, including oil and shipping, grew by 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter.
Norway has been largely spared from the crisis, owing primarily to the high level of oil investments in the country which have increased on high oil prices

New funding Monkt Norway Museum

Norway's government said on Wednesday it would help finance a new Munch Museum in Oslo in a bid to put an end to a long political squabble that has paralyzed the project.

"The state will help establish a new Munch Museum, both in terms of finances and organization," Culture Minister Hadia Tajik told Norwegian television news channel TV2 Nyhetskanalen.
But she said Oslo's city council would have to make a formal request for the support. The city has been struggling for several years to reach agreement on a new museum to replace the current one.
Edvard Munch bequeathed a large part of his collection to the city on his death in 1944, including two versions of 'The Scream', perhaps the most famous expression of existential angst.
The current Munch Museum, constructed cheaply after World War II in a rather rundown Oslo neighbourhood, is not seen as doing justice to the priceless trove.
The city council agreed in 2008 to erect a new museum near the new, futuristic opera house on the shores of the Oslo fjord, but those plans were scrapped three years later over disputes about the cost, location and architecture.
The issue has been at a standstill ever since, and is considered an embarrassment in Norway as it celebrates the 150th anniversary of Munch's birth.
"It's a real shame that it has taken so many years," Tajik said, adding that the state funding should be seen as "a clear signal to help resolve the local discussions."
Tajik did not say how much money the state was ready to inject in the project, the cost of which is estimated at around 1.6 billion kroner (215 million euros, $278 million).
The main opponent of a new museum on the city council, Carl Ivar Hagen of a right wing populist party, said meanwhile he didn't expect the matter to be resolved anytime soon, stressing that the state funding would not resolve the thorny issue of where to place the new building.
The current museum is in dire financial straits due to the delays, low visitor numbers, and according to media reports, erratic management. 
In February, management announced it was cutting 16 of 71 jobs, a decision the city council asked it to postpone pending further study of the situation.
AFP

Statoil announced a large gas find in Tanzania

Norwegian oil group Statoil on Monday announced a large natural gas find with US partner ExxonMobil off Tanzania's coast, the third major discovery in a year by the two companies in the country.

The Tangawizi-1 well contained between 712 million and 1.07 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), bringing the total reserves of the block in question to between 2.67 and 3.03 billion boe, the Oslo-based company said in a statement.
It was located at a depth of 2,300 metres, 10 kilometres from the previous Zafarani and Lavani discoveries, which the company believes could hold recoverable reserves of up to 2.32 billion boe.
Statoil is the operator of the block on behalf of the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation and has a 65 percent stake in the license, with the remaining 35 percent held by ExxonMobil.
AFP

Norwegian Agency report finding pork halal food

The Norwegian Food Safety Authority said Friday it would file a police complaint against a food company after finding large quantities of pork in its halal-labeled products.

Kebab meat sold by Norwegian group Kuraas to restaurants contained between five and 30 percent pork even though it was marked as halal, the agency found.
"We will file a complaint against the producer," Catherine Signe Svinland, an adviser at the food safety watchdog, told AFP.
"In a halal product, there should be no pork at all and when we find such quantities ... we don't believe it's an accident but it is in fact fraud," she said.
The group denied it had intended to mislead customers.
"We buy huge quantities of halal meat and we can show invoices corresponding to what we bought and sold," marketing manager Kenneth Kuraas told news agency NTB.
"Pork ending up in these products is simply due to routines not being followed," he added.
Kuraas later explained that a labeling error may have been to blame.
"Our theory is that it happened when the meat was labeled," he said.
Since pork consumption is prohibited under Islam, the Kuraas company sent a letter of apology to the Islamic Council, an umbrella organisation representing Muslims in Norway.
The Islamic halal method of killing an animal requires its throat to be slit and the blood to be drained.
On Thursday halal chicken sausages served to pupils in central London schools and nurseries were revealed to contain traces of pork.
European countries have stepped up food controls in response to the recent scandal which saw millions of frozen ready meals pulled off supermarket shelves after tests showed meat labelled as beef contained large quantities of horsemeat.
AFP

Friday, March 15, 2013

The power cut platform

Norwegian oil company Statoil was moving personnel off its Oseberg platform in the North Sea to land on Friday and taking them to the mainland, following a power failure on board the platform Thursday afternoon. The power failure in turn led to a gas leak, but it has been stopped.
Statoil officials said that problems cropped up when trying to restore power to the Oseberg field center on board the platform. All oil and gas production was halted and remained halted Friday afternoon.
“We’re working to get in place some alternative power sources,” Statoil spokesman Bård Glad Pedersen told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). “Right now it’s too early to say when the field will open up again.”
Nearly 700 people were working at the field center when the power went out during a drilling operation. “We’re sending folks to land who don’t have direct assignments on the field,” Pedersen told NRK.
In accordance with procedure, the field was shut down and emergency preparedness organizations were put on alert.

Central Bank keeps interest rates low

Norges Bank announced on Thursday that its key lending rate, so-called “styringsrenten,” will remain unchanged at 1.5 percent. The bank board decided that unless the Norwegian economy is suddenly subjected to any major new shocks, the interest rate level should lie between 1 and 2 percent at least until the bank’s next report is published in late June, probably much longer.
Interest rates aren’t likely to rise, according to the bank’s announcement, until the spring of 2014.
Øystein Olsen, governor of the Norwegian central bank, said that both inflation and growth in the Norwegian economy have been “slight lower than projected.” Meanwhile, household debt levels and housing prices “are still rising faster than income.”
Those factors prompted the bank’s executive board to keep what the bank calls its “key policy rate” unchanged.
Olsen noted that the rate is low because inflation is low and because interest rates abroad are “very low.”  Growth prospects for Norway’s trading partners have weakened and it may take longer for inflation to move up to the inflation targets set by the bank.
“The analyses suggest that the key policy rate be kept low longer than previously anticipated,” Olsen said. “The first increase in the key policy rate is now projected to take place in spring 2014.”
Borrowers, especially those holding home mortgages, are likely to see a rise in rates despite the bank’s announcement, though. Norwegian banks, led by dominant DNB, are highly profitable at present but face stricter capital requirements and higher costs. That means they intend to get more money out of the lending customers, despite protests from consumer groups.
DNB announced in February that it would raise rates on its home loans. Other Norwegian banks are expected to follow.

Survivors tell of terror stories

Three Statoil employees who survived a terrorist attack on an Algerian gas plant in January finally told their dramatic stories this week, on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) and in other media. Many questions remain, as Statoil’s own investigation into the attack continues.

Bjarne Våge of Sandnes and Thure Ingebrigtsen of Bergen were already on the job at the In Amenas gas plant when it was attacked in the early morning hours of January 16 by a large group of Islamic terrorists. Kolbjørn Kirkebø, also of Bergen, was riding on a bus into the nearby town to get his visa renewed when the bus also was attacked outside the plant. All three men, caught in different portions of what they viewed as a well-planned assault, thought they would surely be killed.
They portrayed a remarkable sense of calm, though, as they recounted their harrowing experiences which were broadcast on both NRK’s nightly national news program Dagsrevy and later in a special program on NRK2. All are still working for Statoil’s Algerian operation, but now from offices in London. They said it was “too early” to say whether they’ll return to the plant in the desert of southeastern Algeria that Statoil has operated along with BP of the UK and Sonatrach of Algeria.
They contended that Statoil had not prevented them from speaking out sooner. Rather, they claimed, they needed time to digest what had happened, deal with the aftermath of the attacks and, not least, attend the funerals of colleagues killed in the attacks. Of the 40 foreign employees killed at the gas plant, five were Statoil workers and three of them had just started their early morning shift with Bjarne Våge when alarms started ringing and four terrorists stormed into their office.

“We could only see their eyes, otherwise they were completed covered with robes and scarves,” Våge told NRK. “They were carrying Kalashnikovs, they yelled that we were their hostages. We knew this was serious.” What immediately followed were hours of terror, as Våge and his three Norwegian colleagues Tore Bech, Hans Bjone and Thomas Snekkevik were ordered to the floor, bound with plastic strips, kicked in punishment if they moved or spoke, and eventually led to a truck and driven to another location at the plant.
Våge, age 58, had already decided he’d try to escape, claiming he’d rather die trying than die as a hostage. He got lucky when he realized one of the terrorists had made a mistake in binding the strips around his wrists and that they had loosened. When ordered to the floor once again inside the gas plant, he grabbed his chance and ran. One of the terrorists ran after him, yelling (in English) “Stop, you know I’ll kill you!” and Våge expected to be shot in the back. He wasn’t, though, “maybe because the terrorist was afraid of hitting gas plant equipment that could explode.” Våge, his hands free, dodged through the tanks and pipes, made it outside and to the fence around the plant, got over it and maneuvered under the barbed wire atop it, breaking a rib in the process. He ran into the desert where he was eventually rescued by Algerian soldiers. He later found out his three colleagues had been killed.
“It plagues me that I couldn’t do anything to help the others,” Våge said, claiming that any communication among them was “effectively interruped” by the terrorists. His colleagues’ deaths “mean that I can’t manage to feel much joy over surviving myself.” He said he’s spoken with the family of Thomas Snekkevik, though, and that they supported his decision to flee. Våge is convinced that if he hadn’t run, he would have been killed, too.
Barricaded in an office
Ingebrigtsen, age 57, was also caught in the attack along with colleagues and they all barricaded themselves in a small office at the plant, managing to fend off the terrorists who repeatedly tried to shoot their way in or break down the door. It held, though, and Ingebrigtsen and his colleagues had also blockaded it with furniture on their side. When the terrorists finally seemed to give up, after nearly two days, the workers decided to flee themselves with only crackers and water bottles in their backpacks.They ventured outdoors, got over the fence and set off over the sand dunes surrounding the plant, only to find that the going was tough and the route much longer than expected. They also ran low of water and were frustrated when whirling helicopters overhead failed to spot them. They finally made it to a road, were picked up by patrols and taken to a field hospital.
Kirkebø, age 50, also eventually was taken to a field hospital after being wounded in the leg during the attack on his bus that lasted for several hours. He had little if any chance of escape, he said, as the shooting between guards on the bus and terrorists outside in the dark went on for hours. As he and the other 12 passengers on the bus lay on the floor he was sure they’d all be killed. Amidst the chaos, though, he told NRK that he was comforted by realizing that he’d written his will and that insurance would help his wife back home in Norway. “Everyone on the bus was calm, there was no panic,” Kirkebø said.
The shooting subsided, only to fire up again, but finally the attack ended and an Algerian soldier came on board to help them all out and to the hospital. From there, Kirkebø could eventually call his wife in Bergen and let her know he had survived.
Had felt safe
All three men told NRK and other Norwegian media on Thursday that they had always felt safe at the heavily guarded gas plant, and that none could have imagined such an attack could occur. “We were out in the middle of the desert, security around the plant was tight, there were thousands of soldiers stationed all around us,” Våge told NRK. Kirkebø agreed: “An attack like we experienced, I never envisioned anything like it.”
Now they hope that telling their stories will help them move forward. Statoil is conducting its own probe into security at the plant and how the attack could have occurred, even though the Algerians were and are ultimately responsible for the safety of workers there. It remains unclear exactly how the five Statoil workers died, whether they were killed by the terrorists or in the Algerian military’s counter-attack that liberated the seized plant.

Wait racing enthusiasts cold Birkebeiner


Thousands of eager skiers were ready once again to race their way over the mountains of southeastern Norway during the weekend, and they faced an especially cold ordeal. This year’s famed “Birkebeinerrennet” nonetheless was fully booked months ago even though it was being held on the same day as the men’s 50-kilometer World Cup race at Holmenkollen.

“It’s too bad that two such major races should collide like that,” Eldar Rønning, who won last year’s 50-kilometer race at Holmenkollen, told newspaper Dagsavisen. He opted to compete in the 54-kilometer Birkebeiner this year, because of its classic style. At Holmenkollen, racers can choose their technique, and Rønning thought his chances were much better in the classic race that runs over the mountain from Rena in Østerdalen to Lillehammer in Gudbrandsdalen.
An extra, preliminary Birkebeiner race on Friday was also a cold event but helped meet demand among racers. With temperatures at the start predicted to be down around minus-18C, Rønning and the roughly 17,000 others competing in Saturday’s race were in for a chilly day. He’ll be up against the long-distance racing Aukland brothers, who placed first and third in the even longer Vasalöppet race in Sweden earlier this season, and Jørgen Brink. He remained one of the favourites, though, and the fastest so-called “elite” skiers were expected to already have completed the trek before the 50K started at Holmenkollen Saturday afternoon.
Some of the other Birkebeiner participants may use all day to complete the race and among them was 93-year-old Tollef Sverdrup, who was taking part for the 45th time. His goal, according to Birkebeinerrennet’s web site, was simply to cross the finish line, perhaps with the same time he had last year: 11 hours and 14 minutes.
“What’s most important is that it’s fun, exciting and that there are lots of people out on the trails,” Sverdrup told birken.no (external link, in Norwegian). “In addition, the course runs through fantastic, fine terrain. The time you take isn’t so important.”
Meanwhile, back in Oslo, Norwegian skiing star Petter Northug was the favourite in the men’s 50K on Saturday. The women’s race 30-kilometer World Cup race was scheduled for Sunday this year, just before the ski jumpers start flying off the newly rebuilt Holmenkollen Ski Jump. Both men and women would be jumping in the same event this year.

Brad Norwegian Catholic "pave France"

As Catholics around the world hailed their new Pope Francis, the man called Pave Frans in Norway (roughly pronounced “Pah-vuh Frahns”) was being warmly welcomed as well. Around 100 Catholics took part in a spontaneous mass at St Olav’s Cathedral in Oslo Wednesday evening to pray for their new spiritual leader.

They gathered shortly after Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was chosen by his fellow cardinals at the Vatican and then broke historic ground by being the first pope from outside Europe and for choosing the name “Francis.” A Vatican spokesman said Pope Francis chose his name in honor of St Francis of Assisi because he is a “lover of the poor.” Several Norwegian Catholics think the name also suggests that the new pope will be reform-minded.
“His name bodes well,” the Catholic Bishop of Oslo Bernt Ivar Eidsvig told those gathered at St Olav’s Cathedral on Wednesday evening. “Francis of Assisi (born in the late 12th century) reformed the church at a time of clear signs of deterioration. And he was concerned with more than just his own circles, something that his dialogue with Muslims suggests.”
‘Exciting’
The Oslo bishop called the election of Pope Francis “exciting,” and said he thinks the new pope will be a leader who will pay attention to the poor and to social questions. Choosing a name that’s never been used by a pope before “gives him more freedom to define himself, and that’s a strong signal that he’s reform-friendly,” the bishop told news bureau NTB.
The new pope, who greeted the crowds in Rome Wednesday night with a smile and a friendly buona sera (“good evening”) in Italian, also intends to meet with journalists in Rome at 11am on Saturday, another sign of his willingness to respond to questions amidst demands for reforms from congregations around the world, and scandals over sexual abuse by priests.
Parish priest Arne Marco Kirsebom in Oslo was also pleased by the choice of the new pope. “I had hoped for someone from Latin America myself,” Kirsebom told NTB. “For Argentinians and South Americans, this is a fantastic day, and this can give a new boost for Catholicism in that part of the world. The pope is aware of poverty in a completely different way than Europeans are.”
Growing Catholic population in Norway
Norway’s Catholic population is relatively small but growing steadily especially as a result of immigration. Norway has three bishops based in Oslo, Trondheim and Tromsø whom all report directly to Rome, according to Den Katolske Kirke i Norge (external link, in Norwegian). The three dioceses are in turn divided into 35 congregations serving the roughly 85,000 Catholics registered with the church as of March 2011.
Since as many as 90 percent of Norway’s Catholics reside in the Oslo area, the church is administered from the capital where it long has sought new sites for conducting mass because of heavy demand. The church regularly conducts mass in several languages to serve Norway’s immigrant population, among them English, Spanish, Croatian, French, Tagalog, Lithuanian, Vietnamese and Polish.
Congratulations
Oslo Bishop Ole Christian Kvarme of the Norwegian state church congratulated Bishop Bernt Eidsvig and “friends in the Catholic Church” on the election of Pope Francis. Kvarme called the choice “a sign of hope, both for the Catholic Church and the society we live in.”
As head of the world’s largest church, Kvarme noted that the pope is also an “important symbol for those of us who aren’t Catholics,” and referred to St Francis of Assisi as “part of our Christian heritage.”

Star system fades away

Business and Trade Minister Trond Giske has been spending millions on a plan to rate Norwegian hotels through a national star system, but the hotels themselves have been resistant from the beginning. Only a handful of hotels are now cooperating, and the whole plan looks likely to be scrapped.

Giske took over the star system plan from his predecessor Dag Terje Andersen, now president of the Norwegian Parliament. Newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) reported Thursday that Giske, known as being someone who hates to admit defeat, may have to this time.
“Giske is a clever politician, but seeing what’s in the stars is not his strongest suit,” Roar Ingdal, chief executive of Nordic Choice Hotels, told DN. “He should stay away from astrology in the future.”
Ingdal did agree to join a group that will evaluate the future of the state hotel star-marking system for hotels set up by the government five years ago. He already thinks the entire plan should be “buried.”
“Our view is the same today as it was when all this started, that star classification is pre-historic,” Ingdal told DN. “The reality is that hotels are rated every single day on websites like Tripadvisor.com. Our hotels are linked up to it and are transparent all the time.
“A static system where inspectors travel around and count clothes hangers in the closet may have worked in the 1980s, but not today.”
NOK 10 million in costs so far
DN reported that of the roughly 900 hotels operating in Norway, only five have joined the national hotel rating system QualityMarkNorway that Giske has been trying to build up. It was supposed to have been self-financed by the hotels themselves, but with so few participating, the state has been paying the costs of its administration, so far more than NOK 10 million since its origin in 2007.
The idea was for QualityMarkNorway to give consumers a signal about the quality of a hotel on a scale from one to five stars. The system evaluates everything from the size of guest rooms, availability of room service, cleanliness and, yes, the number of clothes hangers in the closets.
The industry admitted to one problem at the outset, that even the best hotels in Norway that presumably would be granted five stars can’t compare with the famous five-star hotels of Asia, for example. Standards of service luxury are just too different, making it difficult to make meaningful comparisons in an international perspective.
‘Lost in translation’
Anita Blomberg-Nygård of Norsk Akkreditering, which was formed in Giske’s trade ministry to administer QualityMarkNorway, admitted that the Norwegian hotel chains so far haven’t seen advantages of the star system “and it’s of course up to the hotels whether we shall have such a system or not. The whole project seems ‘lost in translation.’”
She acknowledged that once the proposed system was actually hammered out in 2008, “incredibly much” has developed in terms of technological solutions and user-generated websites. “Now our mandate has changed, funding also. We are operating very carefully until June,” when a final evaluation is expected. Blomberg-Nygård said there’s been no active marketing of the star system since November, when a meeting between the hotels and the ministry led to formation of the evaluation group of which Ingdal is a member.
Giske hasn’t given up yet. The system’s days seem numbered, though.
“We have registered the signals from the hotel chains and understand that this system hasn’t functioned,” Kristin Maurstad, state secretary for Giske, told DN. “At the same time a lot has happened on the Internet with Tripadvisor and other websites during this period. But we will wait for what the evaluation group comes with before making any conclusions.”

Restaurants keep Michelin stars

The three Norwegian restaurants that won stars in the prestigious Michelin Guide last year have won them again in the guide’s latest edition. Maaemo, the innovative Oslo restaurant that won two stars last year, kept both of them.
Two other Oslo restaurants, Bagatelle and Statholdergaarden, retained their single stars. A fourth Oslo restaurant, Osgarsgate, had won a Michelin star as well but it has since gone out of business.
Espen Holmboe-Bang, chef at Maaemo, told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) he was relieved that both stars were intact. “This confirms that we’re Norway’s best restaurant, so we’re very glad and proud,” Holmoe-Bang told NRK. “The mood in the kitchen is very good at the moment.”
There would be no immediate celebration, though. “No, we have guests coming this evening, so the rest of the day will be used for preparations in the kitchen,” Holmboe-Bang said. The restaurant is usually fully booked for months in advance.
Three other Norwegian restaurants, all in Oslo, won the title Bib Gourmand, including Lille B (the less-formal sister restaurant to Bagatelle), Restaurant Eik and Oro Bar & Grill. That was also unchanged from last year.
Copenhagen remained the “restaurant capital” of the Nordic region, with 15 Michelin stars awarded to 13 restaurants. Geranium and Noma each won two stars. Noma also has topped a British list of the world’s best restaurants, but suffered some bad publicity last week when 63 persons fell ill after eating there and Danish health authorities penalized Noma for poor hygiene in the kitchen.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

To win the main airport in Oslo rivals

Oslo’s main airport at Gardermoen, OSL, has now emerged as the largest in the Nordic region, with more passenger traffic last month than the airports at Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki or Reykjavik. It’s the first time OSL has had more traffic than Copenhagen (CPH).

Even though Norway’s population is much smaller than Sweden’s and also smaller than Denmark’s or Finland’s, Norwegians are traveling like never before. The country’s strong economy has also generated a surge of business travel, visitors and prospective immigrants.
Low airfares can also help explain why a total of 1,609,185 passengers traveled through OSL Gardermoen last month, according to OSL officials. Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported that 1,594,715 passengers traveled in February through Copenhagen’s airport at Kastrup (CPH), which traditionally has been the hub for the Scandinavian countries.
“This is good news to get,” OSL spokesman Joachim Westher Andersen told NRK. “It means a lot to us that we can now call ourselves ‘Norden’s biggest airport.’” “Norden” is the name given to the Nordic region that includes Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland. Scandinavia includes just Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
Andersen noted, however, the February statistics are only for the month “and that means we won’t necessarily be biggest when the year is over, but we are undoubtedly on the right track.” Environmentalists worried about the carbon emissions of so much air traffic may not agree, while the airline industry welcomes the growth. OSL Gardermoen, which opened in 1998, is already undergoing a major expansion program to handle its rising numbers of passengers and flights.
Growth strongest in Stavanger
Avinor, which runs Norway’s airports, said traffic through OSL was actually down slightly from February last year, while the strongest passenger growth domestically was logged at Stavanger’s main airport at Sola, up 6.5 percent. Stavanger is the traditional hub for Norway’s oil and gas industry, which generates a lot of business travel.
Traffic through Bergen’s airport was up 2 percent and Trondheim was up 1.8 percent, reported Avinor. Traffic at the airport in Tromsø in northern Norway, which has been experiencing a big increase in winter tourism, was up 4.3 percent.
Airport traffic on a nationwide basis was up 0.4 percent, with 3,416,169 passengers passing through Norway’s airports in February, according to Avinor.

The police had to release a violent man

Police in Haugesund on Norway’s west coast had to release a man from custody on Wednesday even though he’d been charged with rape and wife-beating, and even though a court had ordered him held on fears he’d attack again. The reason: There were no available jail cells in which to detain him.

“There aren’t any cells for remand custody available at present, not anywhere in the country,” police lawyer Brita Lysaker of the Haugaland og Sunnhordland Police District told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). “We didn’t have any choice but to release the person.”
Local newspaper Haugesunds Avis wrote that the man’s wife had reported him to police over the weekend for repeated assault. He was arrested and held in a cell at the police station until Tuesday, when the court ordered him held for at least another four weeks while police continued to investigate the case.
Police aren’t allowed to hold remand prisoners in the fairly spartan police station cells for such an extended period, though, and there was nowhere else to send him, according to Lysaker.
The court had ordered the relatively lengthy remand custody because fare for gjentakelse (danger that he would attack again). “That’s what the police fear, too,” admitted Lysaker. “But if there aren’t any remand cells, that’s the way it is. We can only hold a person in police arrest a certain number of hours, or just a few days. After that the person must be released.”
She told NRK that the defendant, who in keeping with Norwegian press custom was not identified, was issued with a restraining order to stay away from his wife. Asked how the police could otherwise protect his wife, Lysaker said he also was ordered to report daily to the police throughout the four weeks he was supposed to be in custody.

State support measures Monaco

After years of quarreling among city officials over construction of a new Munch Museum, the state is finally stepping in with an offer to share costs. The move by Culture Minister Hadia Tajik may end the conflict and get the project back on track.

Newspaper Dagbladet reported Wednesday that the state government will offer financial support for a new Munch Museum, but only if and when the quarreling city politicians finally agree on a location for it.
Much of their disagreement has centered on the costs of the three sites proposed – a waterfront location next to the Opera House at Bjørvika, expansion of the existing museum on its site at Tøyen on the city’s east side, and a relocation to the National Gallery downtown after its contents are moved to a new National Museum planned near the city’s western waterfront. The long-proposed site at Bjørvika has been believed by some to be too expensive and extravagant, while the Tøyen and National Gallery alternatives also involve significant costs and may take longer to realize.
If the city officials had received an offer of state funding earlier they may have avoided much of the conflict of the past few years, but Tajik of the Labour Party claims the state had to wait for an actual request from the city government, which is controlled by the opposition Conservative Party. That came earlier this year, when the city government official in charge of  cultural affairs, Hallstein Bjercke, sent an application for economic support and organizational help for both a new Munch Museum and a new main library, also at Bjørvika.

Dagbladet broke the news that Tajik is willing to help and now may emerge as the political heroine in the Munch drama. That may embarrass both the Progress Party, which has publicly confronted Tajik on cultural issues, and the right-center coalition currently running the city government. Others think Tajik’s involvement can only help resolve the process, and welcome the state’s contribution towards ending a deadlock.
“I have high expectations and am impatient to be allowed to contribute to a new Munch Museum being built in Oslo,” Tajik told Dagbladet. She later confirmed to Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) that the state “will gladly help pay for a new Munch Museum,” after city government officials admitted that they couldn’t manage to settle the museum conflict themselves.
The actual amount of state funding for the museum will depend on what the city actually seeks in another formal application for financing. Tajik told NRK she would meet with city officials next week to draft plans. She said she “looked forward” to a dialogue with Bjercke, “so that the Munch collections that the City of Oslo owns can be properly exhibited.”
Tajik continued to refrain from saying where she or her state colleagues would prefer to see the museum built, leaving that to the city officials to decide. Her Labour Party colleagues in the city government have favoured the existing Tøyen location, while her Labour Party predecessor Trond Giske was among those initiating the Bjørvika location when he was culture minister several years ago.
Tajik’s support now was welcomed by Munch’s heirs and by management and staff at the existing and deeply troubled Munch Museum. It’s caught in a budget crisis over operations, threatened staff cuts and an emerging scandal over management of the museum and alleged misuse of funding. A hearing was scheduled for Wednesday at which both museum management and the city officials to whom they answer faced grilling by opposition politicians. Speculation has risen over whether museum director Stein Olav Henrichsen will survive the crisis, just as the museum is in the midst worldwide interest in Munch’s art and what’s supposed to be a year of celebrations over the the 150th anniversary of Edvard Munch’s birth.
Henrichsen has said he has no intention of stepping down himself, and he, too, welcomed the news from Tajik on the state’s willingness to fund a new museum. “It’s great that there’s also something nice happening around us,” he told Dagbladet.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Oil Fund to start its strength

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, popularly known as the “Oil Fund,” has reported another year of strong growth and impressive returns amounting to its next-best result ever. Now the fund’s bosses reportedly want to take a more active role in the companies where the fund is a major investor.

The fund logged an overall return of 13.4 percent in 2012, broken down by 18.1 percent on its stock portfolio, 6.7 percent on its interest-bearing investments and 5.8 percent on its real estate holdings. As some Norwegian media reported, the enormous fund used to save up Norway’s oil wealth for future generations earned an average of NOK 1.2 billion every single day last year.
The fund currently invests 60 percent of its assets in securities, 35-40 percent in interest-bearing investments and up to 5 percent in real estate. The fund’s investments are also subject to ethical standards by order of Parliament, with criticism erupting from time to time over the fund’s holdings. The finance ministry’s ethical reviews have led to the fund selling off stock when companies fail to perform in accordance with ethical standards, while the fund also has been criticized for allegedly unethical investments, for example its holdings in steel company Posco which newspaper Dagsavisen has reported is currently accused of harming the environment and forcing residents to move from their homes.
The oil fund has ranked for several years now as one of the world’s biggest and a huge investor. It now also ranks as one of the largest shareholders in several of the world’s largest companies, with ownership stakes of 5 percent or more in 34 large companies. What’s essentially a pension fund, formally known as Statens pensjonsfond utland, now ranks as the second-largest shareholder in, for example, food giant Nestlé. It holds 9 percent of the shares in US investment company BlackRock Inc.

Newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) reported over the weekend that oil fund chief Yngve Slyngstad is gearing up to be a more active owner, given the oil fund’s holdings and clout.
“It’s necessary for us to take on active ownership,” Slyngstad told DN. “And in companies where we own 5 percent of more, where we’re among the five largest shareholders and where we have a big investment, NOK 5 billion or more, we must be more active in the election process around board members.”
Slyngstad noted that “the board members are, of course, our representatives.” In countries where the election process is formalized, as it is in the Nordic countries like Finland, Sweden and Denmark, “it will be of interest to us to sit on the election committee in companies where we have such large interests.”
Slyngstad already has drawn up a list of companies where he is eyeing greater influence. “In the Swedish companies, it’s only Svenska Cellulosa and Volvo where we have such large investments that we feel it would be natural (to influence election of board members),” Slyngstad told DN. Among Finnish companies he mentioned UPM Kymmene and Stora Enso, and said board influence was likely to be exercised “already this year.”
Companies elsewhere don’t necessarily have a formal committee that proposes board member candidates. “But in practice there’s something similar, sort of a round of hearings among the biggest shareholders,” Slyngstad said. “And we see that in more and more companies, we are among the five biggest shareholders, and then the chairman takes contact with us to see if we have any standpoints, not necessarily on specific names but on the process. And we have opinions about the process.”
Grace Reksten Skaugen, the highly educated shipping heiress who sits on several major boards herself and is chairman of a Norwegian institute for board members, said she thinks the companies in which the oil fund has a major stake will welcome the fund’s more active role.
“I know that in many countries, they like to see the largest and most long-term owners on the election committees,” Skaugen told DN.
She said the most important thing for the fund is that it ensures good ownership involvement and that company values are in line with the profile the fund wants to have. Agreeing with her was Ingebjørg Harto, who leads the NUES commission dealing with ownership involvement and management that was formed by the Oslo Stock Exchange, the banking industry’s trade association FNO and Norwegian employers’ organization NHO.
“Active ownership is always much better than passive ownership,” Harto told DN. “When an investor has some thoughts about the investments made, as the Oil Fund has, it’s correct to use the possibilities you have as a large investor to have influence over who sits on the board.”

Oslo launches its Olympic plan

City officials have rolled out prospects for a Winter Olympics in Oslo in 2022 that would cost at least NOK 2o billion (USD 3.6 billion) and spur major redevelopment of the city’s semi-industrial northeast side. It would also play heavily on the success of the 1994 Olympics at Lillehammer, re-using facilities built in that area for alpine and bobsledding events.

That breaks from the plan to keep Oslo’s so-called “Games in the City” project located in or around the Norwegian capital. It takes around two- to three hours to drive or take the train to Kvitfjell in the mountain valley known as Gudbrandsdalen, but many sports officials hailed the decision to use the downhill and slalom slopes there that also still are frequently used in World Cup competition.
The main alternative had been to locate the alpine skiing events at Norefjell, another popular alpine skiing center much closer to Oslo that also was used in the Winter Olympics of 1952. Norefjell promoters were disappointed, but both sports bureaucrats and Lillehammer officials were relieved.
“Norefjell was an exciting prospect, but we have chosen the Lillehammer area,” said Oslo city government leader Stian Berger Røsland. “We also think the good reputation of the Olympics in 1994 can be important.”
All the other Olympic events are planned for the Oslo area with only the adjacent township of Bærum allocated a venue for major competition (figure skating at the Telenor Arena at Fornebu) and Lørenskog just northeast of Oslo getting the curling competition.

Otherwise the Oslo organizers plan to have ski jumping and Nordic skiing events in the hills at Holmenkollen, as expected, with freestyle and snowboard events at Wyllerløypa and Grefsenkollen, biathlon at Linderud on the city’s east side, ice hockey in new arenas to be built at Stubberud and Jordal and speed skating in a rebuilt arena at Valle Hovin. The plans would allow for what city officials believe are badly needed new skating facilities in Oslo.
“All of this is what Oslo needs even without an Olympics,” Ola Elvestuen, the city government official in charge of sports, told newspaper Dagsavisen.
Opening and closing ceremonies would either be held at Norway’s national football stadium at Ullevål or at a new stadium at Bjerke or on the Ekeberg plateau, both on the east side. An Olympic Village to house athletes along with a media center are planned for Kjelsrud, Breivoll and Økern, also in the eastern urban area known as Groruddalen.
Long road ahead
Much remains to be decided, not least whether city officials will actually vote to apply to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to host a Winter Games and whether the state would provide a financial guarantee. The city also needs to drum up public support for an Olympics because of the enormous costs involved, which range from NOK 20 billion at the low end to NOK 34 billion at the high end. Newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN) reported that when adjusted for inflation, the city’s own estimate of NOK 20 billion-23 billion amounts to twice as much as the amount spent on the Lillehammer Olympics 20 years ago, despite the city’s attempts at moderation and re-use of facilities.
And despite Norway’s solid economy and oil wealth, many Norwegians think the money would be better spent on schools, nursing homes, health care and other community services. The city already has decided to hold a rare referendum on the issue in conjunction with national elections in September. The referendum itself has been controversial, because they’re rarely held in Norway and because Oslo’s tens of thousands of permanent residents who are non-citizens but normally allowed to vote in municipal elections would be excluded, since it will be part of national election balloting.
‘More than just a sporting event’
A major rival for Oslo dropped out last week as a potential host site, when voters in St Moritz and Davos, Switzerland decided they didn’t want to move forward with an expensive Olympic project. “That increases our chances,” claimed Eli Grimsby, who’s heading the Olympic project for Oslo. Others view the Swiss rejection as a warning that Oslo should be careful about taking on such an expensive project as well, but Grimsby claims “this isn’t just an event that will last for 14 days. It will benefit Norwegians all over the country both before and after the Winter Games. In terms of health and activities, we’ll start four years before the games and continue afterwards.”
Oslo tourism officials and hotel operators like Petter Stordalen were predictably positive to the Olympic prospects. “I think this will be a fantastic possibility for Oslo,” Stordalen told DN. “I just hope it leads to construction of new arenas like they’re building in Stockholm even without an Olympics.” He sees benefits from economic and real estate development, and new facilities that could attract more international conferences and other visitors in the future.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Is Erna Solberg tighten abortion law


Jeg kan ikke gå inn i alle debatter som kommer på Høyres landsmøte, det kan bli oppfattet som et press. Men dette er et standpunkt partiet har hatt i tolv år, og som jeg har argumentert for, sier Erna Solberg til Dagbladet.
Årsaken til at partiet ønsker å endre abortloven, er frykt for at dagens lov sammen med framtidas teknologi kan føre til at flere fostre velges bort

Mens Solberg er enig med partiets programkomité om at alvorlig sykdom hos fosteret ikke skal være selvstendig abortgrunn etter uke tolv, ønsker Høyre-kvinnene å bevare abortloven slik den er i dag, skrev Aftenposten torsdag.
- Abortloven har fungert godt i snart 40 år. Den var en av de største seirene norske kvinner har hatt. Høyres kvinneforum ønsker ikke å stramme inn abortloven og kvinners mulighet til å ta egne valg, sa kvinneforumets leder Julie Brodtkorb.
Høyre-nestleder Bent Høie som har ledet arbeidet med nytt partiprogram, fastslo torsdag at loven oppleves som diskriminerende av dem som lever med den typen sykdom som gir et selvstendig grunnlag for abort. Han mener også at lovendringen vil hindre en videre utvikling mot et sterkere sorteringssamfunn

Norway warns of Palestinian donor fatigue

Norway, the chair of a group of donors to the Palestinian Authority (PA), said on Wednesday the political deadlock in the Middle East was causing "fatigue" among financial backers of a future Palestinian state.

There is a significant fatigue among many donors and a kind of questioning of whether this process leads to a Palestinian state," said the Norwegian foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, during a meeting with journalists in Oslo.
The Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, which groups international donors to the PA,will meet in Brussels on March 19th against a backdrop of budget difficulties aggravated by non-payment of aid pledged by global donors, mainly the United States and Arab nations.
The development aid already distributed has allowed the government of Salam Fayyad to build the institutions needed for a future state, but the current political stalemate could have dramatic consequences if donors feel discouraged, Barth Eide said.
"If the sense is that this is a deadlock and it remains a deadlock ... I think that the fatigue problem will be very acute. And that means that the Palestinian Authority could collapse and ... then Israel would get a much more difficult neighbour," he said.
But the Norwegian foreign minister said there were also developments that could help break the impasse, such as the arrival of a new Israeli government without any ultra-Orthodox parties, and the possibility of greater US involvement in the Middle East after President Barack Obama was reelected.
Obama is due to make a state visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories between March 20th and 22nd.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Movie Night in Norway Taiwan: Life of Pi

Life of Pi made itself a blockbuster with the box office result of $583 million and a masterpiece with Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score and Best Visual Effect this year. The Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee handed Taiwan a lofty cinematic compliment when he said that his latest celluloid offering “Life of Pi” could never have been filmed anywhere else. Exploring the threads between Taiwan and Life of Pi offers you comprehensive concepts about this film.The director:

Ang Lee (Chinese: 李安; born October 23, 1954) is a Taiwanese film director, screenwriter and producer. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Sense and Sensibility (1995), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Hulk (2003). He has won the Academy Award for Best Director twice, first for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and most recently for Life of Pi (2012). He is the first person of Asian descendant to win an Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA for Best Director, and the only director to win two Best Film Awards (Golden Bear) at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Ang Lee was born in the town of Chaochou in Pingtung, a southern agricultural county in Taiwan. After his secondary education and mandatory military service in Taiwan, Lee went to the U.S. in 1979 to study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he completed his bachelor's degree in theater in 1980. Thereupon, he enrolled at the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University, where he received his MFA in Film Production.

In 1990, Lee submitted two screenplays, Pushing Hands and The Wedding Banquet, to a competition sponsored by Taiwan's Government Information Office, and they came in first and second respectively. The winning screenplays brought Lee to the attention of Li-Kong Hsu, a first-time producer who had strong interests in Lee's unique style and soon invited Lee to direct Pushing Hands, a full-length feature that debuted in 1991.

Career: Debut from Taiwan:

The "Father Knows Best" trilogy (Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman)

The three films show the Confucian family at risk to form what has been called Lee's "Father Knows Best" trilogy.

Arrival in Hollywood:

The acclaimed trilogy of Lee opened the gate to Hollywood for him in 1995, With directing the British classic: Sense and Sensibility which made Lee a second-time winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, he started his bravura journey in Hollywood. In the following decade, Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) (nominated for Academy Award for Best Director) and Brokeback Mountain (2005) (which won the Academy Award for Best Director) made him even more globally sensational. The masterpiece, Life of Pi, representing another peak of his career, honored him with the second-time Academy Award for Best Director twice in 2013

The Scenes:

A. The Taipei Zoo:

The beginning of Life of Pi features some of the animals belong to the Taipei Zoo. Located in the southeastern part of Taipei City, the zoo receives about 6 million visitors every year and features crowd pleasers such as giant pandas and koalas. The zoo is also located near Maokong, a mountainous area dotted with teahouses where you can get relaxed over their fresh brew while enjoying views of the city.

B. White Bark Banyan Park:

The park served as the set for the sequence in the movie in which Pi explores an island that seems to be populated only by meerkats. The 0.35 hectare reserve is located with Kenting National Park at southern tip of Taiwan. In most cases, only researchers with permits to study the park’s tropical trees and birds are able to enter. That also explains why birdwatchers often gather outside the park’s boundary to see birds in flight. Near the park you can also visit the Hengchun Tropical Botanical Garden, one of the world’s major repositories of tropical species.

C. The wave tank in the defunct Shuinan Airport in Taichung City

Much of Life of Pi was filmed at a giant wave tank at the decommissioned airport in Taichung, central Taiwan. The tank now is managed by the city government which is promoting its facilities to foreign filmmakers.

Meanwhile, the airport and its surroundings are the site of a large redevelopment project called Taichung Gateway District which includes a business park for the movie industry, a film studio and a screening facility and so on. Taichung City’s other attractions range from national museums and well-know temples to shopping malls and night markets












D. Baisha Bay in Kenting National Park:

Baisha bay, southern Taiwan is known for its beautiful beaches. Dir. Lee chose Baisha Bay as the set for the sequence near the end of the film in which the protagonist and the tiger reach “the coast of Mexico”. In real life, the bay’s just located about a two-and-half-hour drive from Kaohsiung City to the south and a major attraction for sunbathers and lovers of water activities where we highly recommend you to visit.

The Legacy of Pi:

Describing the 3-D film as the most conceptually and technically challenging he has worked on, the Taiwan-born director said he drew great comfort from the fact that every member of his crew from 24 countries considered their time in country substantial and a delight. But more importantly, these professionals imparted invaluable knowledge and experience to their local counterparts, giving Taiwan’s film industry a welcome injection of know-how, confidence and energy.

The bulk of scenes featuring actor Suraj Sharma in a Kaohsiung City-made lifeboat were captured at a massive wave tank in central Taiwan’s shuttered Taichung Shuinan Airport. His animal co-stars were later added by Hollywood’s leading animation and visual effects company Rhythm & Hues Studios at its Kaohsiung Pier-2 Art Center facility.

R&H’s involvement in the project did not occur by chance. Lee has long urged the ROC government and studio to explore the possibility of a tie-up, which both parties formalized in December 2011 with a memorandum of understanding on digital content cooperation in Taiwan. Under the agreement, R&H set up a Kaohsiung visual effects studio, began training the first of its locally sourced workforce and established venture fund East Grand Films, which was backed to the tune of US$21 million by the government-administered National Development Fund. Since its launch, East Grand has introduced state-of-the-art visual effects technology to Taiwanand promoted collaboration between the local and Hollywood film sectors. Its commitment to financing and producing at least 10 headline projects with major U.S. studios within the next six years is also helping position the country in the supply chain of U.S. filmmaking for the worldwide audience.

Another essential plank in the plan is a cloud animation visual effects center being set up in Taipei City by Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom Co. Ltd. and R&H. Agreed in a    memorandum    of understanding inked November 2012, the center is expected to create 300 jobs and turn out 1,000 special effects professionals by 2016. This development will play a key role in delivering customized digital content solutions for the global market.

The government has worked steadily to build Taiwan’s film infrastructure to the point where it can handle large-scale projects like “Life of Pi” with aplomb. While this move has thrust the country firmly into the Hollywood spotlight, it is just one step of many on the road to attracting major productions and adding more cinematic kudos to the nation’s CV.
Taiwan Movie Night-Life of Pi
Time: Kl.17:00, 5th March 2013
Venue: Saga Kino (Hall 5) Stortingsgata 28, 0161 Oslo

Norway won the silence on 'stateless Rohingyas



The Norwegian government has been criticised for failing to pressure the Burmese government on the statelessness of the Rohingya minority during a landmark visit by President Thein Sein to the Scandinavian country this week. Activists say they are disappointed that the government failed to press Thein Sein on citizenship rights for the Muslim minority in western Burma, who are considered one the world’s most persecuted peoples by the UN.“Norway has performed a shocking u-turn from being one of the countries which did the most to support Burma’s democracy movement to one which now won’t even speak up for the most vulnerable and desperate people in Burma,” Mark Farmaner from Burma Campaign UK told DVB.

It follows news that both the Norwegian prime minister and foreign minister have explicitly declared the issue of Rohingya citizenship to be an internal Burmese affair.

“We brought up this issue [the conflict in Arakan], of course. It is a serious situation. We ask that all people who live in Burma are treated with respect according to the human rights,” Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told Aftenposten.

“But there are disagreements regarding citizenship. In that regard we have encouraged dialogue, but we will not demand that Burma’s government give citizenship to the Rohingyas.”

The Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide insisted that a nation is “not obligated to give citizenship to everybody who is living there.”

“This is not something we are going to demand. Some critical voices talk as if all nations would have received people from neighbouring nations and made them citizens. We think this is a conflict that can be resolved through economic development and local reconciliation processes.”

More than 125,000 people have been displaced in western Burma after two bouts of vicious ethno-religious clashes between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims last year. The Rohingya are considered illegal Bengali immigrants by the government and are denied basic civic rights, including access to health and education.

Oddny Gumaer from Partners Relief and Development told DVB that she was “shocked” by Eide’s comments, which seem to back the quasi-civilian regime’s claim that Rohingyas are not legitimate citizens, even though many have lived in the country for generations. The right to citizenship is also enshrined in international law.

“I cannot believe that a man with his influence would say what he did,” said Gumaer. “I am considering writing him a letter asking him if he really believes the government’s line about the Rohingya being illegal immigrants. It is wrong and ugly.”

Farmaner agreed that his comments “cross the line into defending the Burmese government’s violation of international law and its treaty obligations.”

“To imply the Rohingya are from neighbouring countries will only encourage extremists to commit more acts of violence against them. The Norwegian government’s approach to Burma now appears to be completely without principle.”

The Norwegian government has played a leading role in bringing the former pariah state back into the global economic fold, including funding a controversial peace initiative in Burma’s volatile border regions, which critics say could destabilise the ethnic reconciliation process.

In an exclusive interview with DVB this week, Thein Sein thanked Oslo for its continued economic support in lifting sanctions and waiving up to US$3 billion in debts owed to the global financial group – known as the Paris Club. Norway was the first western country to shed economic sanctions against the regime.

“Most significantly, when we talked with Paris Club members regarding the debt we owed them for decades – at first they were reluctant on the percentage they can provide and the percentage they will wave off,” Thein Sein told DVB.

“But then Norway, taking the lead, waved off 50 percent of the debts and also 50 percent more from the additional debt and other countries followed suit,” referring to another US$3 billion later dropped by the Japanese government.

Gumaer described the two governments’ public declarations to “strengthen economic ties” as “telling”. Burmese state media also welcomed future investment by Norway in the country’s “energy, information and technology sectors”.

“It seems to me that our leaders are mostly busy making sure that we get lucrative business deals in the country now that we (Norway) have given them so much money and aid,” Gumaer told DVB.

But a spokesperson for the Norwegian government insisted that there should be “no unclarity” on their message. “Long-term stability in Myanmar [Burma] will depend on continued political reforms, respect for human rights and a more equitable distribution of income and wealth.”

(DVB)