Only 9,500 patients treated abroad (Dagsavisen)

During the period from January 2001 until the present, 1.5 per cent of all planned surgery involving Norwegian patients was carried out abroad. "The scheme has included run-of-the-mill surgical procedures and advanced forms of treatment. The purchase of medical services abroad has so far been a success with regard to the numbers being treated and the quality of the treatment received," claims Jan Ove Nesse, project manager at the National Insurance Scheme. However, critics claim that much of the treatment could have been carried out in Norway if the country’s hospitals had been given the chance to compete for funds from the NOK 1 billion allocated for foreign treatment – which was eventually reduced to NOK 615 million.

Call for Home Guard weapons to be recalled (Aftenposten)

23 people have been killed using the Norwegian Armed Forces AG3 assault rifle since 1986. The majority of incidents have involved weapons belonging to army reservists serving in the Home Guard. Following the tragic deaths of four people in Kongsvinger at the weekend, the debate about keeping Home Guard weapons in private homes has once again resurfaced. "I personally feel that no one, except officers and special forces operatives, should have Home Guard weapons at home," said Marit Nybakk (Lab), leader of the Storting’s Defence Committee. The Armed Forces and Home Guard leadership want gun locks on all army reservists’ weapons. "Even if the Storting this spring had been willing to pay NOK 50 million for gun locks for 83,000 weapons, it would not have prevented this particular tragedy," said Lt Col Helge Thommassen.

Home Guard weapons not locked for at least a year (Dagsavisen)

Politicians are yet again promising swift measures to prevent further tragic shooting incidents. Gun locks are one of such measure. But putting a lock on all army reservists’ weapons will take at least a year. "First we have to put the job out to tender to find a supplier and then the gun locks will have to be manufactured. We do not have a situation where gun locks for 80,000 Home Guard rifles are lying in some warehouse waiting to be fitted," said Sigurd Hellstrøm, deputy commander-in-chief of the Home Guard. In addition, fitting a gun lock on each individual weapon will require a considerable amount of organization.

Pay hike for union bosses (Dagbladet)

The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) decided yesterday to give its department heads pay rises of up to 25 per cent. The decision was made just hours after the LO and the Labour Party asked the country’s employees to show moderation in the forthcoming round of wage negotiations. LO paymaster Bente Halvorsen refused to comment on the salaries of the individual department heads, but confirmed that the pay hike for the 12 concerned amounts to just under 12 per cent on average. "We must not confuse the issue here. What LO president Gerd-Liv Valla has said applies to senior executives for the 2003 round of wage negotiations," said Ms Halvorsen.

Wages expert believes union members will reject Valla’s call for moderation (Dagens Næringsliv)

Professor Geir Høgsnes, an expert on wage formation, does not believe Gerd-Liv Valla, president of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), will win the support of her own members when it comes to wage moderation. He feels there is little likelihood of a new broad-based agreement on wages seeing the light of day. "Why does the LO think its members will be more willing to accept moderation now than they have been over the past few years? The call for moderation worked when there was high unemployment in the early 1990s. The LO had control and managed to keep discipline in the ranks. But once we achieved almost full employment the LO’s members were no longer interested in moderation," said professor Høgsnes.

Labour youth will fight for extended party leadership (Dagsavisen)

The Labour Party’s youth wing, the AUF, has not given up its plan to extend the party’s leadership team from four to five. They believe this is the recipe for getting Trond Giske elected as deputy leader. Two weeks ago the party’s women’s movement rejected a proposal to extend the leadership team to five people. "We do not interpret it in such a way that the proposal to extend the leadership team was rejected. We want Trond Giske to become deputy leader of the party, and will therefore consider any proposal that will put him into that office – including the proposal to have a party leadership consisting of five people," said Gry Larsen, deputy leader of the AUF.

Could be deported – and live in Norway for the rest of his life (Aftenposten)

Norway has built up such strong protection for political refugees that it would in practice be impossible to get Mullah Krekar out of Norway – if he prefers to return here. Legal experts Aftenposten has been in touch with confirm that this is the case. Even if Local Government and Regional Affairs Minister Erna Solberg has formally sent the Mullah notification of Norway’s intention to deport him and is piling on the pressure to get the matter resolved as quickly as possible, there is little chance that her efforts to be rid of him will succeed. "If it should prove difficult to get Mullah Krekar out of the country we should take a look at what constraints we have given ourselves. The next step would then be to loosen those constraints," said Progress Party chairman Carl I. Hagen.

Marit Arnstad rising star in Centre Party (Nationen)

According to a straw-poll, the solution to the Centre Party’s leadership question that has the most support is to have Marit Arnstad as party leader and Odd Roger Enoksen as leader of the party’s parliamentary group. Marit Arnstad’s star is therefore rising. She has become a more popular candidate for party leader than Åslaug Haga.

Bondevik must sort things out with Hagen (Dagbladet)

"It is not my job to sort out the mess on the political right. But it is high time that the Government clarifies its relations with the Progress Party. The Progress Party put the Bondevik government in office and that brings with it a responsibility which it seems neither Mr Hagen nor Mr Bondevik wants to shoulder," said Jens Stoltenberg, incoming leader of the Labour Party. He has issued this challenge to the two party leaders ahead of the negotiations on next year’s national budget, which will be presented on Thursday. Mr Stoltenberg expects the two to sit down for a serious talk and come to an agreement on the budget. The Labour Party has never previously entered into a budget compromise which included the Conservatives.

Depressed by Foss (Dagsavisen)

The signals we have received via the press do not bode well. The signals are quite simply depressing," said Siv Jensen, deputy leader of the Progress Party. "We got nothing last year – the negotiations were futile. The coalition parties said, ‘Wait until next year when we present a budget proposal that is all our own. Then there will be more for you.’ As it looks now, there is not much to get excited about this year either," she said.

Only 4 out of 10 refugee children complete their education (Aftenposten)

511 unaccompanied children under the age of 18 fled to Norway in the years 1989-1992. After ten years in the country only 224 of them have taken their final upper secondary school exams. Instead of a good education and well-paid jobs, the majority end up as unskilled workers on low pay. Many of them feel they are trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea. The children are expected by their relatives in their country of origin to gain a good education and send home financial assistance, according a survey carried out by the Telemark University College.

Palace roof still leaks (Dagbladet)

Three years ago the Government spent NOK 512 million to renovate the royal palace in Oslo. But the King’s roof still leaks. The Palace Commission has asked for money to be allocated in next year’s national budget so that the roof can be examined. No cost estimate for the the planned repairs has yet been calculated. The Palace Commission yesterday handed a report on the royal residences to Labour and Government Administration Minister Victor D. Norman.

1. Worth Noting

• More children are killed by their parents or other carers than the impression given by the media, says Hedda Giertsen, a senior lecturer at the University of Oslo’s Department of Criminology.
  (Vårt Land)
• Incoming Labour Party leader Jens Stoltenberg and Gerd-Liv Valla, president of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), want a new solidarity agreement. But neither the Government nor employees are particularly keen on the idea. "We already have a good dialogue with both unions and employers’ organizations and, in any case, I do not think that the problems we are facing can be solved by copying a recipe that is ten years old," said State Secretary Lars Arne Ryssdal at the Ministry of Labour and Government Administration.
  (Dagsavisen)
• The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) secretariat has agreed to back a wages policy initiative along the lines proposed by Labour leader Jens Stoltenberg and LO president Gerd-Liv Valla. This means that the LO is now offering the Government a moderate wage settlement.
  (Klassekampen)
• Torill Selsvold Nyborg, chairman of the Christian Democratic Party’s Hordaland branch, hopes there will be a budget compromise deal with the Labour Party. A number of other leading Christian Democrats have indicated that they feel the same. Four of the party’s 16 branch chairmen have come out clearly in favour of a deal with the Labour Party.
  (Dagens Næringsliv)
• SAS is to air freight the mail for the next four years. This is the result of an invitation to tender issued by Norway Post, the Norwegian postal service. The four-year contract is worth NOK 680 million.
  (Dagens Næringsliv)

2. Today’s comment from Vårt Land

Three children were murdered this weekend – and, incredibly, by people who were close to them and whose role was to take care of them. While the police struggle to find explanations, local communities are striving to come to terms with these tragedies. The killings do not call for quick, superficial proposals for how such tragedies can be avoided. But when Children and Family Affairs Minister Laila Dåvøy says that the number of child and family protection cases is increasing, it shows that this is an area which represents a major challenge for society. According to Ms Dåvøy, violence against children is never a private affair, but is the responsibility of society and concerns us all. In the Government’s family report, due to be published in December, children’s legal rights are a key issue. This weekend’s murders show that, unfortunately, this is a correct point of focus. Children are vulnerable and in the grown-up world there are far too many people who do not take this into account. Children are exploited and abused in many ways. Children’s best protection lies in a local community and wider society which makes a habit of sounding the alarm every time it is felt that children’s rights are being violated.