More losers with the Conservatives (Dagsavisen)

Immigrants, the handicapped and psychiatric patients will be among the losers if the Conservatives come into power after the election. This is the view of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who gave his election campaign a false start yesterday on the island of Hvaler. Mr. Stoltenberg painted a picture in which the election will be a struggle between egoism and the spirit of community, between tax reductions and the common good. Although he doesn’t say it in so many words, Mr. Stoltenberg’s message is clear: with the Conservatives in power, Norway will have more losers.

Will attack the conservatives through the UN (Aftenposten)

At a meeting on Hvaler yesterday, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg announced that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will make an official visit to Norway on 19 and 20 August. And this is a visit that will be very convenient for Labour Party leaders. Only moments after making his announcement, Prime Minister Stoltenberg launched a verbal attack on the Conservatives, using the UN visit as a club. After he had explained to the audience of around 200 Labour supporters how closely Labour and the UN agreed on such points as solidarity and the war on poverty, he lambasted the Conservative Party for proposing cutbacks. Kofi Annan will meet with the Storting’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, of which Conservative chairman Jan Petersen is a member. Mr. Stoltenberg is looking forward to seeing how the Conservative Party will defend its proposals.

Cutbacks affected the most poverty-stricken (Verdens Gang)

The Conservative Party can forget cutbacks in development assistance if it wants to form a coalition with the Christian Democrats, warns Christian Democratic prime minister candidate Kjell Magne Bondevik. Yet he himself reduced Norway’s support to the poor people of the world during his own period as prime minister. In an attempt to avert a crisis for the centrist alliance in Molde, Mr. Bondevik cited development assistance as a main point against Conservative policies. "The Christian Democratic Party would never consider being part of a government that reduced development assistance. On the contrary, we want to increase it," he said. At the same time, the centrist parties are challenging Labour to increase allocations to development assistance.

Sampo decision after the election (Aftenposten)

Minister of Finance Karl Eirik Schjøtt-Pedersen is perfectly clear on the Sampo issue: the views of neither the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) nor the EU will be taken into account by the Government in its deliberations. Norwegian legislation alone will be applicable when dealing with this case. Mr. Schjøtt-Pedersen, who is against the Sampo takeover, has sufficient legal authority to stop the Finnish company. But the Finance Minister says the Sampo management will have to wait until after the general election before receiving an answer.

Believes that Sampo’s bid will be rejected (Dagens Næringsliv)

Olav Hytta, director of the Gjensidige Nor insurance company, believes that the Norwegian authorities will not let Sampo acquire Storebrand. He has no confidence in a merger of Storebrand with Den norske Bank (DnB), and thinks that Storebrand will just be left to drift. This will be harmful to the company in his view. Mr. Hytta does not see any possibility of a merger of Storebrand, DnB and Sampo, which is what Orkla wants.

Eide: "Russians have a more aggressive attitude" (Dagsavisen)

The Russian protest against the Norwegian Orion flight in the Barents Sea a week ago may indicate a more aggressive stand against Norway on the part of the Russian military than previously. State Secretary Espen Barth Eide at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed this view to the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. Yesterday Russia submitted a written protest against the flight, which they regard as having taken place extremely close to a Russian military helicopter. Mr. Eide does not agree with this.

Lindegaard: "I’m not worried" (Dagbladet)

Flight technicians believe that the level of maintenance in the SAS fleet is unacceptable. SAS’s Danish CEO, Jørgen Lindegaard, is not the slightest bit worried about the fact that 12 SAS aircraft in the past month have made emergency landings or turned back due to technical problems. "The number of incidents reported is no higher than it was in July of last year, and I don’t believe that there have been more emergency landings or interrupted flights. Most likely there are just more people writing about these incidents," said Mr. Lindegaard. However, he did react strongly against the flight technicians’ trade union, which claimed that safety has not improved at SAS and that the frequency of maintenance is declining.

Government model for day-care centres rejected (Aftenposten)

The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities has repeatedly rejected models proposed by the central government for financing day-care centres. Several of the Association’s central organizations are also strongly opposed to unit price financing. The Association of Local and Regional Authorities, the Norwegian Union of Municipal Employees and the Norwegian Union of Teachers are warning the Government against advocating the financing of day-care centres on a per-child basis.

Worth Noting

• SAS expects the Norwegian Competition Authority to announce its decision on the takeover of Braathens sometime this week. SAS is planning a major expansion whether or not it has its Norwegian competitor in its stall. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) supports limited whaling activities in order to save the whales and to avert a total breakdown of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). (Aftenposten)
• Minister of Education, Research and Church Affairs Trond Giske has approved the establishment of 11 private primary schools since he took office. None of these schools is Christian. (Vårt Land)
• Telenor and NetCom will continue to charge high prices for sending text messages on mobile phones. They will not reduce charges until they are forced to do so. "These companies charge up to 2,000 per cent more for bandwidth for text message services," said Torben Rune, head of Netplan, a telecommunications consultancy firm. In the view of Mr. Rune, there should be no charge for sending text messages. (Dagbladet)
• In its report "Opera for Everyone", SINTEF proposes that smoking at the magnificent new opera building being planned should be prohibited both indoors and out. Members of the Storting’s Standing Committee on Family, Cultural Affairs and Government Administration are not particularly keen on the idea of prohibiting smoking both inside and outside the Opera House. (Aftenposten)

Today's comment from Dagsavisen and Aftenposten:

Eleven incidents and interruptions in a single three-week period -- and this is not even the Norwegian State Railways or the Oslo public transport system. Now we are talking about SAS. Most people are more nervous about flying than travelling by train or tram, so it is not surprising that people are starting to wonder whether they are prepared to take the chance of flying with SAS after all these incidents. The statements made by SAS so far have not convinced anyone that it is as safe to fly with them as it used to be. SAS has to do better than claim that all the interrupted flights simply prove that the safety procedures are working. If not, the airline will see a severe drop in its passenger volume. (Dagsavisen)

When SAS provoked many Norwegians with its whale meat boycott, it pointed out that Norwegian passengers account for only a small percentage of the total, and that their views could therefore not be allowed to have any noticeable effect on company policy. The company had to take the broad view, of course. All the same, it would not be a bad idea for the airline to seek the good will of Norwegians, too. We Norwegians already have to put up with SAS’s exorbitant prices, which make air travel more expensive for us than for almost anyone else in the world. Many Norwegians dread a situation in which SAS, after having swallowed most of Widerøe, will also gulp down Braathens, thereby securing a near monopoly in the Norwegian skies. This fear has not lessened after the company was caught in the act of cheating its customers by manipulating prices. There are supposed to be advantages to be gained when several countries join together to form a company like SAS, advantages that should also be passed down to the passengers. But all we get are sky-high prices and a boycott of whale meat. It does not benefit the majority of Norwegians if SAS subsidizes its international activities by raking in fat profits in Norway, enabled by an almost total lack of competition. These views are currently shared by a great many people. In a situation like this, it is even more important for SAS to safeguard its one undeniable advantage: its hitherto irreproachable reputation for safety in the skies. (Aftenposten)