Minister casts doubt on boost to pre-school care (Aftenposten)

According to Local Government and Regional Affairs Minister Erna Solberg (Con), the current stock market crash and lower profits from the Government Petroleum Fund will make it difficult to find the cash to pay for the boost to pre-school day care that a parliamentary majority, made up of the Labour Party, Socialist Left Party and Progress Party, has agreed on. The Minister’s claim has provoked anger among opposition MPs. "That the Government is blaming the international economic downturn for its unwillingness to lower pre-school nursery fees, is just stupid. They have managed to find NOK 13 billion for tax cuts. They should simply shut up and do what the majority in the Storting has instructed them to do. If the Government backs Ms Solberg’s claim, it is the same as saying this Government will not survive very long," said Øystein Djupedal, deputy leader of the Socialist Left Party. Labour’s Karita Bekkemellem Orheim has said that the Government is signing its own death warrant if it does not find the money to fund the pre-school day care reform.

Three men at the top gets go ahead from Labour branches (Dagsavisen)

A substantial majority of Labour’s branch chairmen have said they have no objection to there being three men in the Labour leadership team. They do not support proposals to make it mandatory to have two women and two men at the top. This gives a significant boost to the chances of the male candidates in the contest for Labour’s deputy leadership slot. The battle for the fourth place on Labour’s leadership team is starting to hot up. It is already more or less decided that Jens Stoltenberg will become party leader, Martin Kolberg party secretary and that Hill-Marta Solberg will be re-elected as one of the party’s deputy leaders.

Conservatives in Finnmark oppose Sami rule (Aftenposten)

The Conservative Party’s Finnmark branch is furious over what it describes as the Government’s Sami-friendly proposals for a new Finnmark Act. "We are extremely opposed to our region being governed on the basis of ethnic origin," says Birger Westlund, chairman of the Finnmark branch of the Conservative Party. Labour’s spokesman on Sami affairs, Karl Eirik Schjøtt-Pedersen, has described the Government’s thoughts as "interesting". The Sami Assembly has such a negative view of the proposals that its president has broken off discussions with the Government over the issue. Only 900 people are listed on the Sami Assembly’s electoral roll, and not all of these actually voted at the last Assembly elections.

Call for equal pay day (Verdens Gang)

Men can earn up to 25 per cent more than women who do exactly the same job. The average pay differential between the sexes is 17 per cent. Ingunn Yssen, head of the Norwegian Centre for Gender Equality, is not satisfied with there being just one women’s day in the year. She is now calling for a separate equal pay day. The date, 11 November, is no coincidence. "On that date men in full-time employment have earned the same amount as full-time working women earn in a whole year," said Ms Yssen.

Further increase in drug seizures (Aftenposten)

So far this year the National Bureau of Crime Investigation has recorded a 13 per cent increase in the total number of drug-related prosecutions, compared with the same period last year. And like last year, Rohypnol stands apart from the rest. "More than one quarter of the drugs seized belongs to the benzodiazepine group, in other words tranquilizers and sleeping pills. Most of the seizures relate to Rohypnol," said Tormod Bønes, head of the chemical substances department at the National Bureau of Crime Investigation.

One in five travellers a smuggler (Dagsavisen)

One in five people bring in more than the permitted quota of wines, spirits and tobacco when they land at Oslo’s Gardermoen Airport. The risk of being stopped is almost zero, at least if you are not a young, single male. Only one out of 195 passengers uses the red lane as they pass through customs. According to Tor Fredriksen, acting head of the customs unit at Gardermoen, that figure should be a lot higher.

Rise in smuggling of natural medicines (Nationen)

More and more natural medicines from Asia are being smuggled into Norway. The remedies are used to heal everything from hangovers to heart disease. Many of them are based on raw materials from plants and animals threatened with extinction. The National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime has now called for stiffer penalties for smuggling this kind of products. Exports of traditional Asian medicines to Europe have increased by 500 per cent since 1995.

NOK 34 billion wiped off Oslo Stock Exchange yesterday (Aftenposten)

Not since the crash of 1987 has the Oslo Stock Exchange plunged so far, so fast. The value of shares quoted on the Oslo Stock Exchanged was slashed by a dizzying NOK 34 billion yesterday. Telenor, originally touted as the ‘people’s share’ is turning into a major headache for many small investors. It has plummeted 16.5 per cent since Monday. "Confidence must be rebuilt quickly," said Morten Sundstø of Fearnley Fonds.

Increased acceptance for euthanasia (Vårt Land)

Over 30 per cent of Norwegian nurses approve of euthanasia, according to a recent survey. This is a ten per cent increase since 1998. Only 40 per cent of those questioned said they were opposed to euthanasia. The nurses’ age is the single factor which has most influence on their attitude to euthanasia. Opposition is lowest among nurses under the age of 40.

We have world’s best living standard (Dagsavisen)

Ignore the fact that taxes are high, cars are expensive and the weather is lousy. Norway continues to be the best country in the world in which to live. So says the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in its annual report, which was published yesterday. Norway tops the list for the second year running after dethroning Canada, which held the title in 2000. Sweden and Canada follow Norway in the current world ranking. And Norwegians know how to make the most of their good fortune. Luxury of a level which would have been a remote dream for our ancestors is commonplace for Norwegians living in 2002, according to figures from Statistics Norway.

1 Worth Noting

• Signe Øye, chairman of Labour’s Østfold County branch, says that the party should abandon its current practice of having two deputy leaders. She prefers a system consisting of a leader, a party secretary and one deputy leader. Her major concern is that too many leadership figures will blur the party’s profile. (Dagsavisen)
• House advertisements on the internet are a boon for burglars, who use them to check out what valuables you have at home and find out all they need to know to break into your house. (Dagbladet)
• Despite employee dissatisfaction with SAS’s offer, 500 of Braathens’ 1,400 ground staff have accepted severance packages. The deadline for accepting the severance packages and other solutions does not expire until 15 August, so no final figures are yet available. However, it does look as though Braathens will find a solution for its 1,400 ground staff, whose jobs have been axed. (Aftenposten)
• The stock market slump could have slashed the value of the Government Petroleum Fund by NOK 70 billion. The loss wipes out more than the Fund has earned since 1996. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• Pension funds and insurance companies are pulling out of the stock market. At the end of the second quarter they had invested only 13 per cent of their funds in shares. (Dagsavisen)
• If a salesman can persuade a customer to invest in unit trusts rather than bank deposits he can multiply the bank’s profits. According to the Consumer Council, that is why high-risk projects are being pushed far too hard. (Aftenposten)
• Norway’s traffic police are alarmed by the reckless driving they see on the roads. 13 motorists lost their licences yesterday, and 230 were fined. "The results are frightening. There has been a steady increase in the number of fines and confiscated licences through the summer, with significant peaks at the weekends," said Superintendent Willy Langstrand of the Central Mobile Police Force, which had set up some 15 checkpoints around the country yesterday. (Verdens Gang)
• Some of the soldiers guarding the King work a 98-hour week. Others are on duty for ‘just’ 90 hours a week. Up and down the country the pressure on soldiers is now so great that they have asked the Labour Inspectorate for help. (Aftenposten)

2 Today’s comment from Vårt Land

Norway has played an extremely active role in championing the rights of indigenous peoples around the world, and we have signed a convention intended to give them control over land and natural resources when this is necessary to protect their livelihoods and cultures. But when it comes to our own indigenous people, things are not so easy. It has taken five years for the politicians to put the recommendations of the Sami Rights Commission on their agenda. Negotiations between the Government and the Sami Assembly have now broken down. We expect this government to make sure we fulfil our obligations.