Shimon Peres and LO clash over boycott (NTB)

When senior officials of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) and the Labour Party met Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres at the Storting on Tuesday evening a fierce confrontation ensued. "LO president Gerd-Liv Valla explained the LO’s support for a boycott of Israeli goods, to which Shimon Peres responded forcefully," Labour leader Thorbjørn Jagland, who is also chairman of the Storting’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told NTB. He said he had been prepared for such a confrontation, but felt that Mr Peres would have done better to have "reasoned a little more, instead of name-calling". Mr Peres said that the LO was misinformed and did not have a good enough factual basis to warrant its call for a boycott. He had no understanding for the LO’s views at all. Thorbjørn Jagland underlined that neither the Labour Party nor the other parties represented in the Storting have called for a boycott of Israel.

LO leadership shocked by Shimon Peres (NTB)

Finn-Erik Thoresen, deputy president of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), has said he is shocked by the behaviour of Israel’s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres at a meeting with LO and Labour Party representatives on Tuesday evening. The Labour Party had invited Mr Thoresen and LO president Gerd-Liv Valla to the meeting with Shimon Peres at the Storting. Ms Valla explained the LO’s view on the Middle East conflict and why she had encouraged LO members not to buy Israeli goods. "I have never seen a worse demonstration of male bully-boy tactics. Mr Peres continually interrupted Ms Valla and made sarcastic remarks about the LO, describing it as a small and unimportant organization," Mr Thoresen told NTB. He described Mr Peres’s behaviour as nothing short of rude, and said he felt the Israeli Foreign Minister had abused an opportunity to win greater understanding for his views and explain the political difficulties facing Israel.

Shimon Peres aggressive in response to LO boycott (Aftenposten)

Labour leader Thorbjørn Jagland has confirmed that Shimon Peres became "very aggressive" when Gerd-Liv Valla, president of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), spoke about the unions’ decision to boycott Israel. Mr Peres, himself a social democrat, was yesterday introduced to almost 50 members of the Norwegian social democratic movement. Relations between the Israeli and Norwegian labour movements have been extremely close for decades. Mr Peres repeated his wish for that friendship to continue, but disagreements between the two sides are now many. Earlier in the day Foreign Minister Jan Petersen had sharply criticized the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians. "He (Foreign Minister Peres) has noted our view, which is critical of Israel, with regard to assassinations, the bulldozing of houses and the use of human shields. These are things we cannot accept, and they are not things which serve Israel’s reputation in the international community," said Mr Petersen at a joint press conference. However, both foreign ministers described relations between the two countries as "close" and "good", and say that they still want Norway to play an active role in the efforts for peace.

Norway powerless on UN committee (Klassekampen)

The UN Sanctions Committee on Iraq is not being led by Norway. It is controlled by means of threats, secret meeting and the naked use of power. "Norway has no voice in the development of sanctions policy," claims James Paul, head of Global Policy Forum, which coordinates the activities of a number of non-governmental organizations with regard to the UN. As such Mr Paul is in regular contact with UN officials. He is dissatisfied with the role Norway has played. "Norway has not taken as independent a stance, nor been as critical as we originally hoped," said Mr Paul. He claims that the Norwegian Foreign Ministry came to its new job on the UN Security Council with a number of political memos containing proposals for sanctions reform. According to Mr Paul these proposals have been withdrawn following pressure from the USA.

Labour women in revolt (Verdens Gang)

Several high-profile Labour women are in revolt – and are demanding the election of two women to the party’s leadership team. They claim that the heritage of Gro Harlem Brundtland is at stake. The revolt is aimed in particular at Trond Giske, who is willing to torpedo the party leadership’s gender balance in order to get himself elected deputy leader. A number of women on the party’s selection committee are now saying openly that the annual conference this autumn should be instructed to elect two women to the Labour leadership.

Child benefit could be cut (Aftenposten)

The Government is thinking of cutting the child benefit so that it can afford to make pre-school nursery places cheaper. If this goes through, it will leave those families the nursery reform was intended to help no better off. One possibility is to abolish the supplementary benefit for children aged 1-3, amounting to NOK 8,000 per year. In that case a family which currently pays NOK 3,100 per month for a nursery place for their one-year-old would lose more than they gain. The boost to the pre-school day-care sector, which is guaranteed a place in this autumn’s national budget, will cost around NOK 1.4 billion, according to the opposition. Child benefit costs ten times as much, and makes a tempting target for government cuts.

Giske calls for change in interest rate policy (Dagsavisen)

Trond Giske, one of the candidates for Labour’s deputy leadership, has called for a change in the country’s interest rate policy, claiming the current system puts young people at a disadvantage. "Interest rates are currently being used with such vigour to prevent the economy from overheating that it is having an unsocial effect on the younger generation," said Mr Giske. Figures from Statistics Norway show that Norwegians under the age of 45 have around NOK 500 billion in home loans. With interest rates at eight per cent this group is paying a massive NOK 40 billion a year in interest.

Politicians attacked for decimating Norwegian industry (Aftenposten)

Eivind Reiten, chief executive of Norsk Hydro, has launched a savage attack yesterday on Norwegian politicians whose policies are de-industrializing Norway. Svein Gjedrem, Governor of the Norwegian Central Bank, is currently the target of much criticism because he has put up interest rates. This has led to a strong Norwegian currency and is the main reason for the loss of jobs, according to many commentators. "It is not the Governor of the Norwegian Central Bank who should be the target for criticism. The problem is that this year’s wage rises have been too high, our fiscal policy has gone in the wrong direction following the tax reform of a few years ago, and our politicians cannot manage to reform the public sector. This contributes to an artificially high level of costs and puts pressure on the labour market. We who make a living from exports cannot simply pass these costs on to our customers," said Mr Reiten.

No evaluation of figures by Foreign Ministry for two years (Nationen)

The Foreign Ministry has still not evaluated the figures produced by Statistics Norway on the benefits derived from the EEA Agreement and the WTO agreements, which it has been sitting on for two years. "The Government is suppressing information about the EEA Agreement," claims the Centre Party’s Åslaug Haga. According to Foreign Ministry spokesman Karsten Klepsvik, the Ministry has not yet evaluated the report from Statistics Norway, which is one of four reports commissioned by the Foreign Ministry on the relationship between liberalization and the environment. "The reports and the results of the consultation process will be made public. But we will not be making our conclusions known until all those who have been invited to comment have done so," said Mr Klepsvik. When the deadline for responses to the Advisory Council on Trade and the Environment expired last Friday, not a single one of those who had been included in the consultation process had sent in any comments.

1. Worth Noting

• "Our opponents are loud, but our Norwegian supporters are many," said Israel’s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres when he visited Oslo yesterday. Mr Peres met Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik and Foreign Minister Jan Petersen. Among the topics discussed were the Oslo accords, Israeli withdrawal and Yasser Arafat’s ability to lead the Palestinians.
  (Vårt Land)
• Immigrants must do more to integrate themselves into Norwegian society, according to Local Government and Regional Affairs Minister Erna Solberg. She told NRK that many immigrants shut themselves off from Norwegian society, which can lead to crime. The Minister promised to improve Norwegian language tuition and employ more people from immigrant backgrounds in public sector jobs. But at the same time she is demanding that immigrants themselves do more to improve integration.
  (NTB)
• The Ministry of Justice is investigating the possibility of handing responsibility for the deportation of rejected asylum seekers to private security companies. The Police Union has warned against such a move and air traffic controllers have protested.
  (Aftenposten)
• In reality 100,000 people are unemployed in Norway, and Roger Bjørnstad of Statistics Norway believes unemployment will rise to at least 120,000 before it flattens out. The Directorate of Labour had registered 79,900 people as unemployed at the end of July. The reason for the large discrepancy between the figures is that Statistics Norway also includes those who are looking for work, but who do not register with an employment office.
  (Nationen)
• Norwegian shoppers spent NOK 400 million in the Strömstad region of Sweden in July, according to calculations made by the Federation of Norwegian Commercial and Service Enterprises (HSH). This is almost as much as a medium-sized Norwegian shopping centre takes in six months.
  (Aftenposten)
• The nightmare continues for millionaire investor Christen Sveaas. Two weeks ago he was forced to take a huge loss on his shares in Storebrand. Yesterday he was pressured into selling his shares in Orkla, the food and drink, media and investment conglomerate, for NOK 935 million. He has now reduced his stake in Orkla from 9 per cent to just under 6 per cent.
  (Aftenposten)

2. Today’s comment from Aftenposten

It was, of course, unintentional, but yesterday’s visit to Oslo by Shimon Peres coincided with the day nine years ago when the Oslo agreement was signed in the Government’s official residence in Parkveien. Nine years in which hope, disappointment and failure have followed each other in rapid and ever changing succession, with hope the dominant emotion on fewer and fewer occasions. Shimon Peres (79) was a key player in the process which led up to the agreement and, in his political old age, has tied much prestige to its historic significance. It is therefore not simply out of politeness to his Norwegian hosts that the Israeli Foreign Minister dismisses those who have declared the Oslo agreement dead and buried. Nor is it coincidental that Mr Peres yesterday used the Nobel Institute’s podium to defend the view that Yasser Arafat also deserved the Peace Prize which he was awarded eight years ago. Politicians and commentators have been writing the Oslo agreement’s obituary for years. And developments in the Middle East have demonstrated with tragic clarity that the process of building trust, which is one of the agreement’s fundamental pillars, has long ago been destroyed. It is therefore partly correct to claim that the hopes which were linked to the Oslo process have been buried in a spiral of violence by Israeli brutality and Palestinian terrorism. But to do so would be to overlook the historic advance which derives from the acknowledgement by both Israel and the Palestinians, through the Oslo agreement, that both sides have legitimate interests in the same area of the Middle East. An acknowledgement which in practice implies both sides’ acceptance of a two-state solution. This incredibly important acknowledgement now forms the fundamental political and psychological premise for all serious attempts to achieve peace. There is no other realistic basis. Shimon Peres was exasperated after his meeting yesterday afternoon with key representatives from the Norwegian labour movement. Mr Peres did not find his Norwegian sister party as understanding as he had hoped. When that disappointment has faded, we hope that the Israeli Foreign Minister will take that criticism seriously. For the iron fist policy which Ariel Sharon promised would bring Israelis security has failed, and has brought misery to Israel and the Palestinians with whom Shimon Peres made a historic peace nine years ago. It makes it difficult to understand that the Nobel laureate justifies this policy.