Category Archives: Norway

Europe urged to raise plight of Iran’s political prisoners in any future talks

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Rights activists say Tehran’s crackdown must be on agenda in any talks on future relations between Europe and Iran

Iranian human rights groups are urging MEPs and European governments to escalate the issue of Tehran’s mistreatment of political prisoners, arguing that the crackdown on internal dissent must be on the agenda in any talks about future relations between Europe and Iran.

The Iranian foreign ministry appears to be in no rush to stage further talks with the west without clear US assurances that it will not be attacked again.

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Norway lottery operator apologises to 47,000 players over prize mixup

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Norsk Tipping informed thousands of people they won big sums of money after mistake in currency conversions

Norwegian lottery bosses have sent a text message apologising to tens of thousands of disappointed players who were accidentally told they had won large sums of money.

Norsk Tipping, the state-owned gambling operator, had admitted “several thousand” people were mistakenly told on Friday they had won life-changing sums of money after an error in converting from euros to Norwegian kroner. It was not until Monday, three days later, that a text message was sent to 47,000 people apologising for the error.

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Son of Norway’s crown princess charged with rape, sexual assault and bodily harm

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Police in Oslo announce charges against Marius Borg Høiby after months-long investigation involving ‘double-digit’ number of alleged victims

Oslo police on Friday announced charges against Marius Borg Høiby, the eldest son of Norway’s crown princess, on counts including rape, sexual assault and bodily harm after a months-long investigation of a case that involved a “double-digit” number of alleged victims.

Høiby, the son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit and stepson of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon, has been under scrutiny since he was repeatedly arrested in 2024 amid allegations of rape and on preliminary charges of bodily harm and criminal damage.

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Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s father found guilty of hitting his daughter but cleared of abusing Olympic champion

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  • Gjert Ingebrigtsen acquitted of Jakob charges due to ‘reasonable doubt’

  • Handed suspended 15-day sentence and fined for abuse of Ingrid

The father of the double Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen has been found guilty of hitting the Norwegian runner’s younger sister, Ingrid, with a wet towel, and handed a 15-day suspended sentence.

However, Gjert Ingebrigtsen, who coached his Jakob to 1500m gold at the Tokyo Games in 2021 before an acrimonious split a year later, was acquitted of charges of physical and verbal abuse against Jakob after a court in Norway found there was “reasonable doubt” about the accusations.

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‘A momentous day’: families of Britons killed in 1980 oil rig disaster finally win compensation

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Norway will set up state payment scheme for families of 123 men killed in Kielland disaster, but some feel it comes too late

“I think we all feel like we’ve had a bit of a weight lifted off our shoulders,” said Laura Fleming after an important milestone in one of Europe’s longest-running industrial disaster sagas. “It is just 45 years too late.”

Fleming’s father, Michael, was one of 123 men who were killed when the Alexander L Kielland accommodation rig capsized during a fierce storm in the Norwegian North Sea oilfields on 27 March 1980.

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Israel’s ‘violations’ in Gaza make world more dangerous, Norway warns

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Low respect for international law and human rights set worrying precedent, international development minister says

Israel is setting a dangerous precedent for international human rights law violations in Gaza that is making the whole world more dangerous, Norway’s international development minister has warned.

Norway has played a historical role in the region, including by facilitating the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians that led to a celebrated breakthrough deal in 1993. Last year it recognised the Palestinian state, one of a minority of European countries to do so.

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‘It was so unreal’: Norwegian man wakes to cargo ship in his garden

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A 135-metre container vessel ran aground in Byneset, near Trondheim, narrowly missing a house

A Norwegian man has spoken of the “unreal” moment he woke up to discover that a 135-metre container ship had crashed into his front garden.

The cargo vessel, the NCL Salten, had run aground just before 5am on Thursday after entering the Trondheim fjord on its way to the western town of Orkanger.

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Norway hands over Arctic Council intact after ‘difficult’ term as chair

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Ukraine conflict and Trump’s threat to seize Greenland have caused internal tensions within intergovernmental body

Norway is to hand over the leadership of an intergovernmental body comprising countries with territory in the Arctic after what its foreign minister called a “difficult two years”, during which there have been unprecedented tensions within the group’s membership related to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Donald Trump’s threat to seize Greenland.

The Arctic Council requires consensus from all eight Arctic states – the US, Russia, Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the kingdom of Denmark, which includes Greenland, and Sweden – for all decisions and statements.

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Norwegian fan trades five kilos of fish for ticket to Bodø/Glimt v Tottenham

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  • Supporter with spare ticket took the bait over offer
  • Around 50,000 supporters vying for just 480 seats

A Norwegian bartered five kilos of semi-dried fish for a ticket to Thursday’s semi-final clash between Bodø/Glimt and Tottenham in the Arctic Circle, as the hosts aim to become the first Norwegian club to reach a European final.

Some 50,000 fans were vying for just 480 remaining tickets to the second leg of Bodø/Glimt’s Europa League semi-final.

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Equinor considers suing Trump administration over halted US windfarm

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Norway’s state energy company’s $2.5bn project off coast of New York was almost a third finished

Norway’s state energy company may take Donald Trump’s administration to court after it ordered an “unprecedented” halt to a $2.5bn (£1.87bn) windfarm project off the coast of New York.

Equinor is considering its legal options after the US interior secretary, Doug Burgum, ordered the company to “immediately halt all construction activities” on an offshore windfarm last month.

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Mackerel stocks near breaking point because of overfishing, say experts

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North-east Atlantic mackerel in decline and Good Fish Guide says shoppers should look for other options

Mackerel stocks are nearing a “breaking point”, experts have said as the fish is downgraded as a sustainable option.

People should be eating herring instead, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) said, because mackerel continues to be overfished by countries including Norway and the UK.

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First orbital rocket launched from mainland Europe crashes after takeoff

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Uncrewed Spectrum test rocket’s failure seconds after blast-off said to have produced extensive data nonetheless

A test rocket intended to kickstart satellite launches from Europe fell to the ground and exploded less than a minute after takeoff from Norway on Sunday, in what the German startup Isar Aerospace had described as an initial test.

The Spectrum started smoking from its sides and crashed back to Earth in a powerful explosion just after its launch from from the Andøya spaceport in the Arctic. Images were broadcast live on YouTube.

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Stockpile 72 hours of supplies in case of disaster or attack, EU tells citizens

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Bloc’s first preparedness strategy urges people to prepare for floods, fires, pandemics or military strikes

People in the EU are being advised to stockpile enough food, water and essentials for 72 hours as part of a European strategy that aims to increase readiness for catastrophic floods and fires, pandemics and military attacks.

Outlining its first preparedness strategy, the European Commission said it wanted to encourage citizens to take “proactive measures to prepare for crises, such as developing household emergency plans and stockpiling essential supplies”.

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Norwegian files complaint after ChatGPT falsely said he had murdered his children

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Arve Hjalmar Holmen, who has never been accused of or convicted of a crime, says chatbot’s response to prompt was defamatory

A Norwegian man has filed a complaint against the company behind ChatGPT after the chatbot falsely claimed he had murdered two of his children.

Arve Hjalmar Holmen, a self-described “regular person” with no public profile in Norway, asked ChatGPT for information about himself and received a reply claiming he had killed his own sons.

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Norwegian writer Dag Solstad dies aged 83

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A hugely influential novelist and critic, Solstad won the Norwegian Critics prize three times, and his work was translated by Haruki Murakami

Dag Solstad, a towering figure of Norwegian letters admired by literary greats around the world, has died aged 83.

Known for prose combining existential despair, political subjects and a droll sense of humour, Solstad won the Norwegian critics prize for literature an unprecedented three times.

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‘I feel utter anger’: From Canada to Europe, a movement to boycott US goods is spreading

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Tesla sales are falling and apps and online groups are springing up to help consumers choose non-US items

The renowned German classical violinist Christian Tetzlaff was blunt in explaining why he and his quartet have cancelled a summer tour of the US.

“There seems to be a quietness or denial about what’s going on,” Tetzlaff said, describing his horror at the authoritarian polices of Donald Trump and the response of US elites to the country’s growing democratic crisis.

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Norway to open protected rivers to hydropower plants

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Green politicians describe plan as ‘a historic attack on Norwegian nature’

The Norwegian parliament has voted to open up protected rivers to hydropower plants, prompting fury from conservation groups who fear for the fate of fish and other wildlife.

The bill allows power plants bigger than 1MW to be built in protected waterways if the societal benefit is “significant” and the environmental consequences “acceptable”. It was voted through on Thursday as part of measures to improve flood and landslide protection.

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Campaigners call for action as jellyfish threaten Scottish salmon farms

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String jellyfish species that has killed millions of salmon in Norwegian sea farms reported in Scotland

A jellyfish species that has been wreaking havoc on Norway’s salmon industry has made its way to Scotland, causing significant damage and prompting calls for urgent action.

The string jellyfish has killed millions of salmon in Norwegian sea farms with officials urging an extermination of affected stocks.

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Swedish PM says Baltic sea now ‘high risk’ after suspected cable sabotage

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Regional leaders meet after undersea telecoms cables severed, while Chinese ship remains at anchor nearby

The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, has said the Baltic sea is now a “high risk” zone as he met Nordic and Baltic leaders days after a suspected sabotage attack on undersea cables.

The Swedish prime minister declined to speculate on who may have been responsible for the severing of two fibre optic telecoms cables in the Baltic last week. A Chinese ship – the Yi Peng 3 – that sailed over the cables about the time they were severed has remained anchored in the Kattegat strait between Sweden and Denmark since 19 November.

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Norway launches Jon Fosse prize for literary translators

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The award will be the biggest of its kind in Europe and aims to celebrate the work of an overlooked and underpaid profession facing an existential threat from AI

Norway is launching a new translation price that is one of the most highly endowed of its kind in Europe, in an attempt to boost a “partly invisible” and often poorly paid profession increasingly under threat from machine translation.

Named after the Norwegian novelist and playwright who won the 2023 Nobel prize in literature, Jon Fosse, the Fosse prize for translators will reward one author every year with 500,000 NOK (£36,000) for making “a particularly significant contribution to translating Norwegian literature into another language”.

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