Police stop fewer drivers, but more lose their licences (Aftenposten)

Eleven per cent more drivers lost their licences in May and June than during the same months last year, despite the fact that the Central Mobile Police Force’s (UP) 12 radar cameras have not been in use and there have therefore been fewer checks. "The driving speeds today remind me of the Yuppie era. It seems as though drivers are calculating cynically that they can afford to exceed the speed limit," said Jan Guttormsen, police inspector at the UP. However, now the UP has borrowed 12 radar cameras from the Swedish police force. This means that in practice all vehicles in the areas where the radar cameras have been set up will be checked.

Discuss politics, not gender (Klassekampen)

Eva Kristin Hansen, head of the Labour Youth League, is accusing her Labour colleagues of using gender quotas as a means of preventing Trond Giske from being elected to the position of party deputy chairman. "This is actually about politics," she said. Some Labour members believe that Mr. Giske cannot be chosen as deputy chairman because he would then be disloyal to the principle that there should be at least 40 per cent of each sex in all positions within the party. In addition to defining himself as the "left wing" of the party, Mr. Giske has gained popularity among a large percentage of young people in the Labour Party as an opponent of the EU and gas-fired power plants.

Conservatives to clean up within own ranks after flirting with Progress (Aftenposten)

"Bringing the Progress Party into the Government is not an option. It is important for me to make it clear that this is not the Conservative Party’s policy. We are satisfied with the sitting Government, which is able to show outstanding results after eight months of hard work," said Oddvar Nilsen, chairman of the Conservative Party parliamentary group. Yesterday five Conservative MPs expressed their frustration in Verdens Gang at being bullied by the opposition, and said that they were not averse to strengthening their team by bringing in the Progress Party as a partner.

SAS to reduce prices (Dagsavisen)

SAS, the Scandinavian Airlines System, will reduce the prices of its least expensive tickets by 25 per cent as of 15 August. That date is two weeks before the low-cost airline Norwegian Air Shuttle will begin to fly the same routes as SAS. At the same time, SAS is offering a considerably larger number of low-price tickets than previously. Norwegian Air Shuttle says its ticket prices from Oslo to the other major cities in southern Norway will range from just under NOK 500 to just under NOK 1000. SAS will charge between NOK 690 and NOK 990.

Politicians want Gjedrem to explain interest rate hike (Dagsavisen)

The latest interest rate hike in Norges Bank may end up in the Storting. Both Carl I. Hagen (Progress) and Øystein Djupedal (Socialist Left) are indicating that there will be political repercussions. "In my view it would be natural for the Standing Committee on Finance to have Governor of Norges Bank Svein Gjedrem appear at a public hearing in connection with the Storting’s consideration of the budget this autumn," said Mr. Hagen. According to the Progress chairman, it "seems strange" that it was necessary to raise the interest rate now, and he wants to know how Mr. Gjedrem interprets the mandate given to him by the politicians. "The way monetary policy is being managed now, it is both narrow and undemocratic. Far too much power has been placed in the hands of one man, and this man has shown extremely poor judgment," said Mr. Djupedal.

Debate on monetary policy necessary (Verdens Gang)

Rector Torger Reve of the Norwegian School of Management BI believes that the high interest rate and the strong krone should spark a debate on Norway’s monetary policy. "Today’s monetary policy is harming us in two different ways: the commercial sector is suffering with a high exchange rate for the krone, and the consumer with a high interest rate," said Mr. Reve. He declined to go into detail as to whether Svein Gjedrem, Governor of Norges Bank, has misunderstood his mandate and is placing too much emphasis on curbing inflation. "But the critics do have a point. We need a thorough debate on monetary policy," said Mr. Reve.

Nordic telecommunications merger rejected by Telenor CEO (Dagens Næringsliv)

Jon Fredrik Baksaas, Telenor’s new group chief executive, does not want to participate in any gigantic Nordic merger. Telenor has previously conducted negotiations with Telia, Sonera and Tele Danmark on precisely this subject. Nor does Mr. Baksaas want to make any major purchases of other companies. "We don’t want to be a new WorldCom," he said. Three weeks after taking over as head of Norway’s largest telecommunications firm, Jon Fredik Baksaas is now preparing for a sales tour. At the end of this month the new Telenor CEO will travel through Europe to sell Telenor stock to wealthy investors.

Sylvia Brustad reverses her viewpoint (Verdens Gang)

Sylvia Brustad (Labour) was pleased when her proposal for the "Brustad-bua" was adopted by the Labour Party and the Christian Democratic Party in the Storting in 1998 after over a year of intense debate. According to "Brustad-bua" legislation, kiosks and grocery stores under 100 square metres in size, and petrol stations under 150 square metres, are allowed to be open on Sundays. She felt that this was the wave of the future. Today, however, she would not submit the matter to the Storting. "I was too loyal. The debate was carried out internally within the Labour Party, and I submitted the matter in my capacity as minister. If I were in the same situation today I would not submit it. I would not have bowed to the pressure," said Ms. Brustad.

Have Norwegians become a bunch of sissies? (Aftenposten)

Norwegians top world statistics for absence due to illness. Each year we contact physicians 20 million times. Are we a bunch of sissies who can’t accept anything other than a total absence of discomfort? "Being tired or having muscle pain is not the same as being ill. Doctors who define these conditions as illness are doing their patients a disservice," said Professor Holger Ursin of the Department of Psychology at the University of Bergen.

WORTH NOTING:

• Minister of Labour and Government Administration Victor Norman believes that the private sector and public institutions are too slow in implementing important measures designed to reduce absence due to illness. "We have no time to lose," said Mr. Norman. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• The Directorate of Immigration (UDI) is planning to conduct additional interviews in 38 of the cases a former UDI official, Terje Tune, was involved in. The UDI has already investigated 114 of the cases he dealt with. (NTB)
• Every year the average Norwegian produces 2000 kilos of rubbish. 1200 kilos of this is neither recycled, used for compost nor used in energy production. This is an increase of one billion kilos in the course of just five years. (Dagsavisen)
• Telenor CEO Jon Fredrik Baksaas believes that it will take time before the crisis in the telecommunications sector is over, but that the value of Telenor shares will not drop any lower. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• The new Telenor CEO will not promise that prices for telecommunications services will fall. "We must remember that prices in this sector have been dropping steadily for a long period of time. There are a number of indications that we have reached rock bottom in many areas," said Jon Fredrik Baksaas. (Aftenposten)
• Other tourists buy Norwegian trolls and woollen jumpers, but Japanese tourists are buying up all the cod liver oil and Omega 3 products they can find on the shelves. This summer sales of cod liver oil have tripled. (Aftenposten, Monday evening edition)
• Interest in the planned opera house in Bjørvika, Oslo, is waning. Barely 36 per cent of all Norwegian say that they will go to the opera when it is finished, according to a survey. In a similar survey in 1999, 40 per cent showed an interest in going to the opera in Bjørvika. There is least interest in the parts of the country that are farthest from Oslo, from central Norway and northwards. (Nationen)
• The Fram Museum, Kon-Tiki Museum and Norwegian Maritime Museum want the Nasjonalgalleriet to charge an entrance fee. They claim that the museum is stealing visitors from them because entry is free. (Aftenposten)

TODAY’S COMMENT from Aftenposten:

Anyone who thinks that Labour has learned from the deep and painful wounds inflicted on the party by the leadership conflict between Thorbjørn Jagland and Jens Stoltenberg only a few months ago may be mistaken. Some of the remarks made about incoming party chairman Jens Stoltenberg by members of the Labour Youth League at their summer camp at Utøya do not bode well for the future. There is nothing new about the fact that there can be differences of political opinion between Labour leaders and enthusiastic members of the party’s youth organization. This could even be regarded as a healthy state of affairs. But when the young members of the Labour party use expressions like "a cowardly, spoilt little boy who wants to please everyone" to describe the party’s incoming chairman and prime minister candidate, they have vastly overstepped the mark. It is too easy to excuse such statements as representing the immaturity and frustration of a few individuals. Eva Kristin Hansen, head of the Labour Youth League, is not willing to apologize for or disassociate herself from this type of personal attack on her own party colleagues. One of the primary tasks of the youth group of a political party should be to help teach its members proper political conduct and good manners. An important task of the representatives of these organizations lies in teaching its young members to differentiate between objective disagreement and personal antagonism. Respect for one’s political adversaries is one of the basic tenets of our democracy. This is why it is particularly shocking when this respect is lacking within the ranks of a party.