Oslo, Norway | AFP | A controversial former leader of Norway’s anti-immigration party on Friday failed in his bid to join the committee that awards the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the five members of the committee are elected by the Norwegian Parliament, which takes into account …
Read More »Ambassadors of Western nuclear powers to snub Nobel ceremony
Oslo, Norway | AFP | Breaking with tradition, nearly all ambassadors of the world’s nuclear powers will not attend this year’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony which honours efforts to ban atomic weapons, the Nobel Institute said Thursday. Russia and Israel will be the only exceptions, with their ambassadors due to …
Read More »Norway’s wealth fund – a jumbo piggy bank to be used prudently
Norway’s wealth fund – a jumbo piggy bank to be used prudently Oslo, Norway | AFP | Norway has the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund — a treasure chest nearly $1 trillion (830 billion euros) to be set aside for rainy days but also to help fund today’s election promises. …
Read More »Total sells Norwegian assets to Kuwait
Paris, France | AFP | French oil giant Total said Monday it has agreed to sell its remaining stake in a Norwegian oil field to Kuwait so that it can focus on its recent acquisition of Denmark’s Maersk Oil. “Total has signed an agreement to divest its remaining 15-percent interest in …
Read More »British-Norwegian ex-soldier linked to Ugandan security firm, freed from DRC jail
Oslo, Norway | AFP | A British-Norwegian dual citizen who was serving a life sentence for murder and espionage in a Congolose prison was released and returned to Norway on Wednesday, authorities said. Joshua French, 35, was sentenced to life in prison in 2013 for the murder of his cellmate …
Read More »‘The best words’: Trump may be a poet without knowing it
Oslo, Norway | AFP | “I know words… I have the best words,” Donald Trump said one day in his superlative way. Now those words by the new US president have been pulled together as a “collection of poetry” in Norway. Who knew? Trump the poet? “What Trump says is …
Read More »China’s Xi praises normalisation of ties with Norway
Beijing, China | AFP | Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday praised the normalisation of relations with Norway, six years after a dispute over the Nobel Peace Prize, as Norway’s prime minister said she was glad to be back. The visit by Erna Solberg is the first high-level exchange since December, …
Read More »Rattled by ‘fake news’, Nordic press dumps April Fools
Stockholm, Sweden | AFP | Swedish and Norwegian newspapers on Friday said they would refrain from the tradition of publishing April Fools’ Day jokes this year over fears that it might spread “fake news”. Magnus Karlsson, editor-in-chief at the daily Smalandsposten said on its website that he doesn’t want the newspaper’s …
Read More »Norway is happiest, East African countries among the bottom
And the world’s happiest country is… Norway, as Uganda is ranked 133 New York, United States | AFP | A chilly climate isn’t keeping Norway from basking in the glow of being named the world’s happiest country on Monday. The Scandinavian country surged from fourth place in last year’s UN …
Read More »Facebook backs off censoring ‘napalm girl’ photo
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Facebook backtracked Friday on a decision to censor an iconic Vietnam War photo of a naked girl escaping a napalm bombing, after its block on the historic image sparked outrage. The online giant stopped short of apologizing, saying the image had been …
Read More »