The Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oslo
Press Division

Norway Daily No. 50/01

Date: 13 March 2001

True need for pre-school childcare unknown (Nationen)

50,000 children will be left without a place at a pre-school nursery if the Government’s target of nursery places for all is met by 2003. This is because the Government’s definition of "places for all" is 70 per cent of all children under five. As yet neither the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs nor the Norwegian Association of Local Authorities knows how many of the 50,000 actually require a nursery place.

Agreement between consumer watchdog and real estate agents (Dagens Næringsliv)

The Consumer Ombudsman and the Norwegian Real Estate Agents’ Association have agreed that private real estate sales should be conducted using a system of open bids. The agreement is intended to put an end to estate agents using fictitious bids to drive up the sales price. However, before a final agreement can be reached the issue of who should have the right to see the incoming bids in each round still remains to be hammered out.

Porn advertising shock (Vårt Land)

Senior executives of retail fashion stores aimed at the youth market have been shocked by the pornographic approach used in the Sisley clothes brand’s latest advertising catalogue. Sisley garments are sold in Benetton stores, and the retail chain’s general manager, Knut Ringstad, is calling on all Benetton outlets to withdraw the catalogue from use.

Only minor damage to hearing from loud noise? (Dagsavisen)

According to the preliminary results of a survey carried out by the National Institute of Public Health of 51,000 people over 20 in North Trøndelag, loud noise from portable cassette and CD-players, rock concerts and discotheques has only a minor effect on an individual’s hearing. Nor is workplace noise as damaging to hearing as we have previously thought.

LO opposition to independent hospitals (Dagsavisen)

The national secretariat of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) voted yesterday to oppose government plans to turn the country’s hospitals into independent enterprises. The LO is also opposed to tendering and wants a ban on partial privatization of the health service. The LO is also calling for an improvement in employee conditions and greater influence to shape the way the hospital reform is carried out.

Sponsor paid nurses’ salaries (Aftenposten)

In 1995 GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceuticals company, started sponsoring nursing positions at Norwegian hospitals. The positions were linked to nursing staff whose task was to teach children with asthma. The Health Ministry has indicated that the sponsorship funds which have been received by eight different hospitals may be another breach of the Healthcare Workers Act.

Stockbroker calls for a halt to government sale of DnB (Aftenposten)

According to Finansbanken’s head of trading, Peter Warren, there are hardly any good reasons to buy the shares in DnB which the Government is currently planning to sell off because they can be bought just as cheaply on the stock exchange. Nevertheless, in the next few weeks the Government will spend at least NOK 17 million on an advertising campaign to persuade Norwegians to buy government shares in DnB. The reason is a desire for continued Norwegian ownership.

Police want wider powers (Dagbladet)

In a memo to the Ministry of Justice, the Police Union has demanded wider powers. Among the union’s demands are compulsory attendance at a police station if ordered to do so by the police, the possibility to hold a suspect in custody for 72 hours before a remand hearing is required, no upper limit on the time a suspect may be held on remand and automatic transfer of convicted remand prisoners to gaol. The objective is to ensure the police are in a stronger position to combat the rising level of crime. "The police already have good enough conditions under which to carry out their investigations. In fact they should be tightened up," says attorney Harald Stabell.

Worth Noting

• A new and improved hay-fever drug may be on the market by the end of the year. (Dagbladet)
• Eleven fish farms were reported to the police last year after farmed fish escaped. (Nationen)
• Both timber and pulp prices have fallen dramatically since the start of the year. Swedish and other sawmills have been pouring timber onto export markets. (Nationen)
• The Norwegian Union of University Educated Teachers will probably become the 15th organization to become a member of the union federation The Academics. The Academics currently have 18,000 members. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• The Centre Party’s Oslo branch is calling for the additional cash benefit for children under three to be completely abolished. This call has the backing of three of the eleven members of the party’s political programme committee in the run up to the Centre Party’s annual conference this coming weekend. (Vårt Land)
• Key church leaders who would like to change the Church of Norway’s official view on homosexuality oppose the Government’s proposed new legislation which would force the Church to employ cohabiting homosexual and lesbian clergy. (Vårt Land)
• Two men from Augskog-Høland in Akershus county have been given 30-day suspended sentences for their part in the laying of poisoned bait in areas within the local authority which are frequented by wolves.
• "Detektor", which was last year’s most popular Norwegian film, was yesterday awarded the Film Critics Award 2000. (Aftenposten)
• Since NSB, the Norwegian national railway company, was established as an independent company by act of parliament in 1996, it has lost NOK 2 billion in equity capital. The Norwegian Union of Railway Workers’ vice president has warned that steadily increasing interest expenses may bring NSB to its knees. (Klassekampen)

Today’s comment from Klassekampen

Milosevic is no longer in power, but the guerrilla movement which the CIA has been accused of creating and supporting has got the bit between its teeth. This spring Norway will take over command of the KFOR forces, and may end up with a formidable problem in its lap. The ethnic Albanian guerrillas’ dream of capturing territory in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and South Serbia may lead to more than today’s border skirmishes. We have no reason to believe that Thorbjørn Jagland’s alleged contribution to the secret operations which paved the way for Milosevic’s downfall also included a collaboration with the CIA to create a destabilizing guerrilla movement. But through its submissiveness to the USA as a member of Nato, Norway may have played a part in making a rod for its own back now that Norwegians are to take command of KFOR in an area where today’s smouldering conflict could easily ignite into full-blown war.