NSB to be penalized if trains don't rund on time (Aftenposten)

The Government plans to change the way NSB, the national railway company, is financed. According to the new scheme, which will probably be introduced in 2002, NSB will be paid according to how well it does its job. If the trains don’t arrive when they should, NSB will be penalized financially. It is a similar system to the activity based financing scheme which the hospitals now operate.

Public transport to be put out to tender (Klassekampen)

The Government has chosen to accept new EU regulations requiring all public transport, including buses, trains, metros, trams and ferries, to be put out to tender. The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) is calling for a veto. Several senior LO representatives had a meeting with Transport Minister Terje Moe Gustavsen on Monday in an attempt to prevent the change.

Pre-Christmas crash for IT shares (Dagens Næringsliv)

IT companies listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange saw their entire year’s rise in share values wiped out yesterday. In a few short weeks IT shares have dropped NOK 50 billion in value, with yesterday’s fall amounting to a record 8.18 per cent. Newly listed Telenor has seen investors abandon the company’s stock.

Minister sows doubts about brokers' actions (Dagens Næringsliv)

Trade and Industry Minister Grete Knudsen has come close to accusing the stock brokers who participated in Telenor’s recent stock market flotation of having misled the market. At the same time she has cleared DnB Markets and Goldman Sachs who coordinated the flotation of any wrong-doing. The Banking, Insurance and Securities Commission is currently investigating the Telenor share issue. Among other things the Commission will look at the information given to the market by the various stock broking firms.

EU red tape (Dagens Næringsliv)

The EEA Agreement is not all positive for Norwegian business. It has given Norwegian companies several hundred new regulations to comply with. The Government is working to weed out some of the many thousands of Norwegian regulations currently in effect, but new ones keep arriving from abroad. The Government has established a project to simplify the legislative jungle. One important step is to identify just what regulations there actually are.

Lucrative Christmas for Salvation Army (Vårt Land)

This year’s pre-Christmas season has been particularly lucrative for the Salvation Army. Helping to swell the organization’s war chest is a veritable regiment of top Norwegian artists. Every afternoon "The Christmas Carollers" series of street concerts blocks Oslo’s main thoroughfare Karl Johans gate. The "Pearly Gates" CD, in which Norwegian pop stars sing Salvation Army hymns, has already sold 65,000 copies.

"Pirate" boat can fish for cod (Dagbladet)

The fishing boat "Aliza Glaxial" was the reason that several countries, including Norway, set up a black-list of vessels guilty of widespread illegal fishing. Norwegian fishermen are shocked to learn that the "Aliza Glaxial" has been given a license to fish for cod in the Barents Sea. The fishing boat now sails under a Russian flag and has recently changed its name to the "Rubin". The Directorate of Fisheries has given the "Rubin" a license to fish for cod and haddock in the Norwegian economic zone north of the 62 ^nd> parallel. The Norwegian Fishermen’s Association is angry over what they call total paralysis at the Fisheries Ministry.

Worth noting

• Manufacturing industry looks set to make record profits this year. While the IT sector is severely in the red, the billions are rolling in for "old" industries. Their profits will total NOK 15 billion this year. (Aftenposten)
• Beautiful Norwegian fjords conceal unimaginable quantities of environmental toxins. If Norway continues to allow its fisheries sector to operate without limitations, the clean-up may cost up to NOK 50 billion. (Aftenposten)
• Norsk Hydro is planning to develop the smaller oil and gas deposits in the Troll field, one of the largest fields in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. Norsk Hydro will invest NOK 4.2 billion in the development. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• According to the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association, the cargo ships plying the Norwegian coast are far below acceptable standards and should be replaced. The Association’s chief executive Rolf Sæther says that low revenues are no excuse for using vessels that are ready for the scrap yard. (NRK/NTB)
• Since Norway’s national broadcaster NRK has now decided to take several cultural programmes off the air to save money, Synne Skouen, NRK’s head of cultural affairs, is considering selling some of them to arch-rival TV2. (Dagsavisen)
• Only one in five Norwegian consumers feels that Norwegian food is safe enough, according to a recent opinion poll on Norway’s efforts to stop the spread of mad cow disease. (Nationen)
• The Norwegian produced electric car, Think, is a flop with the public. Only 400 cars have been produced this year at the Think factory, which has a total production capacity of 5,000 cars per year. (Dagbladet)
• Hilde Haugsgjerd was yesterday named Dagsavisen’s new editor-in-chief, while Mads Nygaard becomes the newspaper’s chief executive. (Dagsavisen)
• A major rise in the number of medical students means that there are too few house doctor positions at Norwegian hospitals, and students will soon have to wait in line for their turn to practice what they have learned. (Dagsavisen)

Today's comment from Aftenposten

We would like to thank the Progress Party’s Fredrikstad branch for reminding us all of the forces which shape a much too large part of the party’s political foundation. At an extraordinary general meeting, the local party pledged that all its delegates would vote for Øystein Hedstrøm’s list when the Østfold County organization meets to nominate its candidates for next year’s general election. In doing so the Fredrikstad branch has secured the nomination of the controversial MP and demonstrated with all clarity that there is still a groundswell of virulent anti-immigration attitudes in the party that Carl I. Hagen is struggling to turn into a respectable and credible party of government. Politically Mr Hedstrøm is further away from us than his opponent for nomination in Østfold, Ulf Leirstein. Nevertheless, we congratulate him on his victory. The reason is quite simply that Mr Hedstrøm is more representative of the attitudes of the Progress Party’s members in the county than Mr Leirstein. By choosing Mr Hedstrøm the party grass-roots have shown their true colours. The fact that this has been made so clear despite the attempts of Mr Hagen’s lieutenants to camouflage the unpalatable truth, is extremely welcome. Mr Hedstrøm may be a bigger political headache for Mr Hagen than Dag Danielsen, who was suspended from the party’s Oslo branch. But Mr Hagen has no good reason for suspending or excluding Mr Hedstrøm. The Conservatives and the Christian Democrats have, however, been given a good reason for excluding the Progress Party from any post-election government coalition.

NOREG