The Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Oslo Press Division

Norway Daily No. 70/00

Date: 7 April 2000

EXPERTS MOVE IN (Aftenposten)

Swedish experts were brought in from the Statoil facility in Stenungsund, Sweden, yesterday to attempt to drain propane out of the burning tank car in Lillestrøm. If left to itself, the fire could take as long as two more days to burn itself out, with the risk of explosion ever present, but a successful draining operation could empty the tanker in six or seven hours. The Swedish experts could not approach the tanker until the temperature of the flames could be measured, which could be done from a distance only after nightfall.

CRACKS IN TANKER ESCALATE DANGER ASSESSMENT (Verdens Gang)

The situation in Lillestrøm station took a dramatic turn for the worse at midnight last night when cracks were reported in a weld on the burning tanker. All available resources, including water cannon, were turned towards cooling down the damaged area.

EXPERTS TAKE A PAUSE (NTB)

The Swedish experts decided at 3.30am to make no further attempts to stop the fire in Lillestrøm station before morning. Things were quiet for the rest of the night after they called off their first attempt shortly before midnight.

ARSONIST ARRESTED AT GARDERMOEN (Verdens Gang)

A 26-year-old man was arrested at Gardermoen Airport yesterday morning for setting fire to the home of Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) president Yngve Hågensen. The man, who has 85 criminal offenses on his record, was on his way to London on a trip previously planned. In the past three years, charges have been brought against him for blackmail, threats, forgery, arson and various indecent acts. Due to his mental condition, however, he has never been convicted.

ARSONIST OPERATED ALONE (Aftenposten)

Police are quite certain that the 26-year-old arsonist was acting on his own when he set Yngve Hågensen’s house on fire. There are no indications that he is involved in any political group or that he has any political motive, says Police Chief Stein Ulrich.

DRASTIC NEW CUT IN POSTAL SERVICES (Dagsavisen)

The directors of Norway’s postal service, Posten Norge BA, decided yesterday to close another 500 post offices, which would leave some municipalities without a full-service post office. Some 2,000 jobs are at risk, and some municipalities could find themselves without adequate postal services.

OTHER EXECUTIVES HAVE SIMILAR GOLDEN PARACHUTES (Aftenposten)

Half the top management at Statoil have obtained golden parachutes and early-retirement agreements every bit as lucrative as the one former CEO Harald Norvik still retains. Statoil’s new chief executive, Olav Fjell, has a golden parachute worth NOK 4.4 million as well as a pension of at least NOK 1.4 million per year which he can claim at age 60—in addition to his NOK 2.2 million salary. Three other directors have similar arrangements.

WORTH NOTING

• Residents of Lillestrøm are impatient to return home, but they will probably have to wait until Saturday morning at the earliest. (Dagsavisen)
• Union leader Kjell Bjørndalen still has a round-the-clock police guard. Mr. Bjørndalen does not feel safe in his own home, despite the arrest of the 26-year-old charged with setting fire to Yngve Hågensen’s home. (Dagsavisen)
• The chances of dying on the operating table in any of Norway’s hospitals are about equal in all hospitals in Norway, according to a recent report from the Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research (SINTEF). I was actually a little bit surprised to find out how consistent treatment patients receive in all parts of our thinly-populated country, says senior researcher Hroar Piene of SINTEF. (Aftenposten)
• Kjell Magne Bondevik’s credibility as prime minister candidate will suffer if he does not run for re-election in the next general election, says political science professor Trond Nordby. Central Christian Democrats agree. (Dagsavisen)
• Government employees will not achieve higher pay by striking, says Federation of Norwegian Professional Associations (AF)president Ann Magrett Ånonsen. She further points out that in the public sector, strikes never affect the employer – only the public. Ms. Ånonsen calls for a whole new system for negotiating wages. (NTB)
• A Storting majority is not interested in partitioning the Kreditkassen, though Labour is silent on what it has in mind regarding the future structure of the Norwegian banking industry. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• Every third person leaving the Church of Norway joins a different Christian denomination. 47,000 people have left the Church of Norway in the past ten years, and of these, 14,000 have joined other denominations. (Vårt Land)

TODAY’S COMMENT from Dagens Næringsliv

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg seems to be having trouble synchronizing the public statements of his party leaders and his Government ministers. First, parliamentary leader Hill-Marta Solberg declared that a merger between DnB and Kreditkassen was out of the question, after which Finance Minister Karl Eirik Schjøtt-Pedersen said it could not be ruled out. In the next round, Ms. Solberg said Labour’s views had not changed, while Prime Minister Stoltenberg refused to make any comment, referring instead to Mr. Schjøtt-Pedersen’s statements. On a different front, Mr. Stoltenberg and Foreign Minister Thorbjørn Jagland express different views regarding Labour’s EU policy. The impression conveyed by Mr. Jagland is that it is more or less given that a new EU membership application will be forthcoming in the next electoral term, while Mr. Stoltenberg is less categoric. Mr. Schjøtt-Pedersen and Ms. Solberg’s differences could possibly be explained by saying that Mr. Schjøtt-Pedersen was discussing formalities, not politics. But the discrepancies between Mr. Jagland and Mr. Stoltenberg’s statements present greater difficulties. In a Government context, it is the Prime Minister who has the last word on how party policy is to be translated into Government action, but it cannot be easy even for a PM to overrule the party chairman if the latter takes a different view on the matter.