Can bitcoin be sustainable? Inside the Norwegian mine that also dries wood

Kryptovault’s operation is part of a fightback against criticism of the famously energy-intensive industry

A line of large blue skips full of chopped wood sit at the back of a site belonging to Norway’s biggest bitcoin mining operation, a 5,000 sq metre warehouse on the outskirts of Hønefoss, a small town 40 miles west of Oslo.

Hot air is being pumped into the 12 skips through bendy corrugated pipes curling out from the warehouse. Despite the snow, it will take a few days for the logs to be dried out, after which a local lumberjack, grateful for the free service, will take them away for sale.

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Costa’s win in Portugal continues comeback by Europe’s centre-left

Analysis: Social democratic parties that have adapted to the political landscape are winning elections again

The unexpected triumph of António Costa’s Socialist party in Portugal’s elections this week continues a cautious comeback by Europe’s centre-left – and, analysts say, may hold some lessons in what remains a mixed picture for the continent’s social democrats.

After wins last autumn by Germany’s SPD and Norway’s Labour party, the Portuguese prime minister’s unexpected victory – with 41.7% of the vote, five points up on 2019 – was further good news for a movement that five years ago looked in terminal decline.

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New gender-neutral pronoun likely to enter Norwegian dictionaries

Hen’ expected to be recognised as alternative to feminine ‘hun’ and masculine ‘han’ in official language this year

A new gender-neutral pronoun is likely to enter the official Norwegian language within a year, the Language Council of Norway has confirmed.

Hen” would become an alternative to the existing singular third-person pronouns, the feminine “hun” and the masculine “han”.

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Norway’s wolves ‘saved for this year’ as animal rights groups fight cull

Government halts planned slaughter of animals in ‘wolf zone’, after campaigners secure injunction

Norway has halted a major hunt of wolves after campaigners secured a court injunction.

Twenty-five animals, within four packs, are in the “wolf zone”, an area of nature set aside to protect the predators, and these have been given a stay of execution by the courts after campaigners argued wolves in a conservation area should not be shot.

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As UK households feel pressure, how are other European countries tackling energy crisis?

Many European countries are a step ahead of the British government, which has yet to announce plans to help homes facing annual bills of almost £2,000

In the next week Great Britain’s energy regulator will announce the steepest rise ever in its energy price cap, effectively saddling millions of households with an annual energy bill of close to £2,000.

The blow to household finances follows almost six months of record high energy market prices because of the global gas crisis. Despite the deepening gloom facing bill payers, ministers are yet to agree a package of measures to prevent a national energy crisis.

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‘I got 12 years and 74 lashes’: Confess, the band jailed for playing metal in Iran

After their songs were deemed blasphemous propaganda, the duo were forced to flee to Norway and claim asylum. Now a band, they are writing angrily about what they faced

For almost as long as it’s existed, heavy metal has been used as protest music. On Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, the first thing you’re barraged with is War Pigs: a seven-minute savaging of the politicians who instigated the Vietnam war. Iron Maiden once had their mascot, Eddie, murder Margaret Thatcher on a single’s artwork; Metallica and Megadeth spent the 1980s lambasting cold war superpowers that didn’t know whether to shake hands or nuke each other.

Nikan Khosravi, singer and guitarist of Iranian/Norwegian thrashers Confess, views his band as another protest act in the metal lineage. “I’m the kid who told the emperor: ‘You’re naked!’” he exclaims with pride and excitement on a call from Norway. However, the five-piece don’t write their brutish tracks about some faraway conflict, or satirise a government certain to ignore them.

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‘The treeline is out of control’: how the climate crisis is turning the Arctic green

In northern Norway, trees are rapidly taking over the tundra and threatening an ancient way of life that depends on snow and ice

Altafjord is a wide expanse of black water on the edge of the Barents Sea, ringed with mountains. Alta is a relatively large town in the Finnmark province, the crown of the horse’s mane that forms Norway’s jagged coastline and Europe’s northern shore. Here at sea level the most northerly trees in Europe are moving upslope, gobbling up the tundra as they go. The people and animals that live here are trying to make sense of the rapid changes with a mixture of confusion, denial and panic.

Dawn at 70 degrees north during winter lasts nearly the whole day. The sun never rises, the day is permanently on the verge of breaking. It is disorienting. On the way to city hall from the guesthouse, I spied few pedestrians. Alta is a town built along American principles – that is to say a town built for a world in which petrol is cheap and cars are taken for granted. It is a landscape of shopping malls, gas stations and spaced-out residential suburbs. Normally at this time of year it isn’t safe to be outside for long without wearing animal skins, but on the day of my visit it was only -1C.

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‘I was brainwashed’: Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik appears before parole hearing – video

The Norwegian far-right killer behind the country’s worst peacetime massacre has appeared in court asking to be released on parole after serving 10 years in prison in near-isolation for murdering 77 people in a bomb and gun attack in 2011.

Breivik – who legally changed his name to Fjotolf Hansen in 2017 – attacked the country’s government quarter in Oslo with a van bomb before heading to a youth camp being held by the country’s Labour party on the island of Utøya where he killed 69 people, most of them teenagers, in a gun attack.

Despite the gravity of his crimes, Breivik, 42, is entitled under Norwegian law to apply for parole after serving a decade in prison of his 21-year sentence, and can reapply each year for a parole hearing.

The court that convicted him in 2012 found him criminally sane, rejecting the prosecution’s view that he was psychotic. Breivik did not appeal against his sentence

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Finland, Sweden and Norway to cull wolf population

Conservation groups appeal to EU to take action against slaughter they allege flouts rules

Finland is joining Sweden and Norway in culling wolves this winter to control their population, as conservation groups appeal to the European Union to take action against the slaughter.

Hunters in Sweden have already shot dead most of their annual target of 27 wolves, while Finland is to authorise the killing of 20 wolves in its first “population management cull” for seven years.

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Polar priest: the church in the world’s northernmost town – a photo essay

Photojournalist Giuia Besana visits the world’s northernmost priest who runs the Svalbard Church in Longyearbyen, in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. Pastor Siv Limstrand is the community’s guiding figure as it looks to an uncertain future in the face of economic shifts and the effects of climate change

Located in the Svalbard archipelago in Norway, Longyearbyen is the world’s northernmost settlement. Here, winter temperatures range from -13 to -20C and inhabitants are prepared for two and half months of complete darkness in winter, the constant danger of polar bears, and avalanches.

The road to the cabin of Siv Limstrand, in Adventdalen Valley, an 18-mile-long valley east of Longyearbyen, during a brief moment of daylight

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Masks for school students mandatory in several EU countries

Analysis: Amid a backlash in England over the rule change, we look at the rules in place in other countries

The return of a requirement in England for secondary pupils to wear face masks in class has sparked a backlash at the start of the new term, but several EU countries have already adopted the measure even for primary school children.

Some Conservative MPs and parents’ groups have objected to the move, warning of a long-term impact of masks on children’s mental health and arguing that they they will have a longer-term effect on people’s ability to learn and socialise.

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Hygge, glögg and pepparkakor… why we’re all falling for a Scandi Christmas

After the comfort food and rituals, Britons are embracing more traditions, such as the festival of Santa Lucia

From Ikea to meatballs, hygge to Nordic noir, Scandinavia’s influence on the UK has been rising steadily for decades. But this Christmas, amid the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit, enthusiasm for the region and its traditions is hitting new heights.

Scandinavian goods distributor ScandiKitchen closed online Christmas orders early this year after unprecedented demand for festive products including meatballs, glögg (mulled wine), pepparkakor (ginger biscuits), chocolate, ham and cheese.

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Philippines court allows Nobel laureate Maria Ressa to go to Norway

Journalist permitted to receive peace prize in person after judge eases travel restrictions

The Philippine journalist Maria Ressa will be allowed to travel overseas so she can accept her Nobel peace prize in person after a court gave her permission to leave the country to visit Norway this month.

Ressa, who is subject to travel restrictions because of the legal cases she faces in the Philippines, shared the prize with the Russian investigative journalist Dmitry Muratov, amid growing concerns over curbs on free speech worldwide.

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Norway attack victims stabbed not shot with arrows, say police

Attacker was armed with bow and arrows but five people who died had in fact been stabbed, police confirm

Five people killed in Norway last week were all stabbed to death and not shot with arrows as initially suspected, police have announced.

Four women and one man, aged between 52 and 78, were killed on Wednesday in the attack in Kongsberg, a town about 45 miles (70km) west of the capital, Oslo.

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‘I saw a man walking with an arrow in his back’: witnesses recall Norway attack – video

A witness of a bow and arrow attack that killed five people in the town of Kongsberg recalled on Thursday seeing one of the victims walking on a street with an arrow in his back. Investigators named the suspect as Espen Andersen Braathen, a 37-year-old living in the municipality where the attacks took place. Police had been concerned about signs of radicalisation in the suspect before the attacks, carried out with a bow and arrow and other weapons, a senior officer said.

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Norway bow and arrow attack: suspect showed signs of radicalisation, say police

Danish man, who is in custody in connection with deaths of five people, is Muslim convert

A Danish man suspected of killing five people and injuring two more in a bow-and-arrow attack in Norway is a Muslim convert with previous criminal convictions who had been flagged as a possible Islamic extremist, police have said.

“We’re talking about a convert to Islam,” Norwegian police chief Ole Bredrup Sæverud said on Thursday. There were “previously fears linked to his radicalisation”, he said, but establishing motive would be “complicated … and will take time”.

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‘Many crime scenes’: at least five dead in bow-and-arrow attacks in Kongsberg – video

A police official describes bow-and-arrow attacks in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg that have killed five and wounded two others. The government said police had launched a large-scale investigation. Kongsberg police chief Øyvind Aas said police would investigate whether the attacks amounted to an 'act of terror'. The death toll was the worst of any attack in Norway since 2011, when far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people, most of them teenagers at a youth camp.

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At least five people killed in bow and arrow attack in Norway

Police say suspect has been apprehended after attack in town of Kongsberg, 70km from Oslo

At least five people have been killed and two others injured in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg by a man armed with a bow and arrow, police said.

Øyvind Aas, the police chief in the town, about 70km southwest of the capital, Oslo, told a press conference on Wednesday night that the attacker had been arrested and “according to our information, is the only person implicated”.

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Norway court rules two windfarms harming Sami reindeer herders

More than 150 turbines may be torn down after licences to operate and build them are declared void

Two windfarms in western Norway are harming reindeer herders from the Sami people by encroaching on their pastures, the country’s supreme court has ruled.

It was not immediately clear what the judgment’s consequences of would be, but lawyers for the herders said the 151 turbines on the Fosen peninsula could be torn down. The turbines, whose construction was completed in 2020, form part of the largest onshore windfarm in Europe.

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Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov win Nobel peace prize

Filipina and Russian given 2021 award as organisers warn of threat to independent media worldwide

Campaigning journalists from the Philippines and Russia have won the 2021 Nobel peace prize as the Norwegian committee recognised the vital importance of an independent media to democracy and warned it was increasingly under assault.

Maria Ressa, the chief executive and cofounder of Rappler, and Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, were named as this year’s laureates by Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee.

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