Anti-terrorism insurance to become compulsory (Dagsavisen)

The insurance industry believes that all Norwegians should carry anti-terrorism insurance following the September 11 attacks in the USA. Last year the insurance industry took NOK 27 billion off its customers in general insurance premiums. If we are forced to insure ourselves against the threat of terrorism, premiums will rise by at least one per cent, and the industry will bank an additional NOK 270 million per year.

Divorced men more likely to end up on social security (Aftenposten)

Divorced men receive much more sickness benefit and more often end up becoming permanently unfit for work than married men. A woman who gets divorced has a much smaller risk of taking sick leave or receiving incapacity benefit.

Telenor may acquire A-pressen (Dagens Næringsliv)

Telenor could take complete control of the newspaper group, A-pressen, which would give it a 30 per cent stake in TV2 into the bargain. The Finnish media group, Sanoma, has decided to sell off its stake in A-pressen. A stock broking firm has been commissioned to find a buyer and several Norwegian companies have been contacted. The price tag will probably be around NOK 350 million to NOK 400 million.

Almost no immigrant women choose a Norwegian husband (Aftenposten)

Non-western immigrants choose their spouses from the countries they themselves or their parents come from. This is particularly true of people from Muslim countries, but also applies to those from countries like India and Vietnam. Only three out of 682 Pakistani women chose a Norwegian husband in the period 1996-2000.

Dog-owner charged with manslaughter (Dagbladet)

The woman owner of the dogs which killed Johannes Åsheim (7), will today be charged with manslaughter. Supreme Court Advocate Tor Erling Staff, who is representing Johannes Åsheim’s family, says the dog-owner should be charged with either unlawful killing or involuntary manslaughter.

Charges against Somalis dropped (Dagbladet)

In a blaze of publicity last October, the National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime announced that there was evidence that seven Somalis had laundered huge sums of money before transferring it to terrorist organizations. Now, however, the police have decided to drop the charges. "This represents an almost complete exoneration of the very serious charges that had been brought against them," said Rene Ibsen, defence counsel for two of the accused.

Worth Noting

1. Health Minister Dagfinn Høybråten (Chr.Dem) is considering a complete ban on smoking in restaurants, bars and pubs. A specific proposal will probably be presented in the spring, but for the moment neither the Minister nor the rest of the Government have made a final decision.
2. Norwegian women are crossing their legs. The number of babies born last year has not been lower since 1987, according to figures released by Statistics Norway. (Dagsavisen)
3. Police in Finnmark are considering whether to strengthen their numbers ahead of the controversial development of the Snow White gas field in the Barents Sea. Environmental organizations have warned they will take action, and the police believe they could be facing the largest environmental protests since the construction of the Alta and Kautokeino hydro-electric scheme in 1979.
4. Talk-show host Fredrik Skavland has promised to clean up his act and flirt more with his male guests. He is laughing off criticism from historian Jon Hustad, who complained that Mr Skavland only uses his female guests as ornamentation and treats them as sex-objects when they appear on his weekly television show. (Aftenposten)
5. This weekend the annual general meeting of the Christian motorbike club, the Holy Riders, decided to exclude the chairman of one of its county branches, though the organization was deeply divided on the issue. The Holy Riders leadership has refused to accept elected officials who do not reject both homosexuality and cohabitation.
6. "We are not flashy show-offs," said superchef Trond Moi. Moi was responding to criticism in a newspaper article by anthropologist Runar Døving, who described the superchefs as representing a male-dominated, self-absorbed rebellion against the matriarchy, in which frugality and health were sacrificed on the alter of taste.

Today’s comment from Aftenposten

Foreign Minister Jan Petersen has been rightly criticized for acting like President George W. Bush’s poodle. In yesterday’s Dagbladet he drew a line which means that a US attack on countries included in Bush’s ‘axis of evil’ is one attack too many. Mr Petersen said he is putting his faith in the moderating element in the Bush administration – Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is responsible for America’s foreign policy. The entire world is doing just the same. And the fact is that the world is not sure its faith is justified, which has led a number of political leaders to voice their fears about what is happening in Washington. On several occasions they have seen Colin Powell’s authority set aside by other sections of the administration. Even UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who has every reason to tread warily in relation to the USA, has said it is wrong to divide the world into good and evil. The EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner, Britain’s Chris Patten, said in an interview with The Guardian on Saturday that he thinks Mr Bush’s branding of countries as being part of an ‘axis of evil’ could not have been well thought out. It would be nice to have a Government which could say something similar. We do not think that Norway’s voice is likely to scare anyone in Washington, but it is important that as many people as possible make it perfectly clear – and preferably clearer than clear – that the USA cannot play global policeman with reference to no one but itself. The world does not need a sheriff that uses Wild West allegories to justify political action. The gap between the USA and Europe over a possible expansion of the war on terrorism is growing steadily. And it is painful to us in Norway to see that an ocean – more precisely the Atlantic Ocean – separates our closest allies. But that pain is something a Norwegian Foreign Minister must be capable of bearing. And one day he could be forced to choose between them.