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USD 1 = NOK 6.80 No. 12 - 20 April 1993
CONTENTS:
Wage agreements should boost competitivity (1)
Research whaling under way (2)
Stoltenberg to front-line job (3)
Komsomolets - nuclear time-bomb or harmless wreck? (4)
Best restaurant north of Continent (5)
50,000 year old polar bear discovered (6)
Living museum for Henrik Ibsen (7)
Norwegian superchip will outspeed competitors (8)
Arctic college (9)
Nobel Institute plans unique collection of archives (9)
Offshore injuries halved (10)
"Fateful" name for new oilfield (10)
norinform/1 20 April 1993
WAGE AGREEMENTS SHOULD BOOST COMPETITIVITY
The first stage of the spring wage talks in Norway was brought to completion
without recourse to strikes, either by union members in the Norwegian
Federation of Trade Unions (LO) or in the Confederation of Vocational Unions
(YS). This was largely due to the fact that the Government finally conceded
to allocating about USD 7 million towards a fund which finances voluntary
retirement. This means that LO members can opt for early retirement from the
age of 64, an advantage previously only enjoyed by 65 and 66 year-olds. But
the Government's willingness was sharply criticized by political opponents.
All those included in this first round of negotiations will receive a
general pay raise of NOK 1 (about 14 cents) per hour in companies without
local wage negotiations and about 8 cents per hour where such negotiations
are normal procedure. A major strike was thus averted for 225,000 LO members
and for a good 400 of the 9,000 members of YS whose wages were being
arbitrated.
The employer side had to concede to the general pay raise which they had
warned against before talks started. But LO too was defeated in its bid for
special increases for low income groups. As a result, both LO leader Yngve
Haagensen and Karl Glad, head of the Confederation of Norwegian Business and
Industry, (NHO) considered the outcome to be a reasonable compromise. Glad
was confident that Norwegian industry will sharpen its competitive edge as a
result of the talks. Accepting general pay raises in companies which hold
local wage talks was the bitterest pill to swallow, he said.
The NHO-LO-YS talks are only the first stage of this spring's wage
settlement. Other negotiations will follow in rapid succession. But there is
good reason to believe that most of the agreements will be revised along the
lines set out in these first talks.
(norinform)
norinform/2 20 April 1993
RESEARCH WHALING UNDER WAY
Whaling for research purposes started last week, when four whaling boats
left ports in North Norway en route for the Barents Sea.
If everything goes according to plan, the boats will catch a total of 136
minke whales. On board each of the four vessels will be three scientists
whose main assignment will be to study the whales' eating patterns and
migration routes.
But they will also be making tests on behalf of researchers, both in Norway
and abroad, who are interested in other aspects relating to the minke whale.
Environmentalist groups are not expected to lodge any especially strong
protests to this hunt, which is only the overture to the commercial whaling
- scheduled to start in mid May. When this commences, many of the world's
biggest television companies - from Europe, the USA and Japan - plan to make
extensive, on-the-spot reports. One of them, BBC 2, is working on a major TV
coverage of Norwegian whaling for its popular "Assignment" programme.
Meanwhile, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is intensifying its
efforts to promote understanding for Norway's decision to resume
commercial whaling.
Prominent representatives of the Ministry have taken part in several talks
with officials of the Bill Clinton administration in Washington. "It is
important to step up information through diplomatic channels prior to the
meeting of the International Whaling Commission, due to start in Kyoto, Japan
on 9 May," says Ingvard Havnen, press spokesmen at the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.
(norinform)
norinform/3 20 April 1993
STOLTENBERG TO FRONT-LINE JOB
Thorvald Stoltenberg, who up to the beginning of April was Norway's Minister
of Foreign Affairs, has taken on one of the toughest jobs in the world.
At end March he left the Government to take over the post of UN peace envoy
in the former Yugoslavia. Stoltenberg readily admits that he will be facing
an extremely difficult task, one which Cyrus Vance, his predecessor in this
position, called "One of the toughest assignments I have ever handled."
Alongside Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, Thorvald Stoltenberg is
Norway's most experienced politician in the international arena. Just as
important in this context are the three years he spent as a diplomat in
Belgrade, the many personal contacts he established there and his knowledge
of Serbo-Croat.
Stoltenberg is one of the few top international politicians who is still
widely respected on all sides in the former Yugoslavia.
It was UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the five permanent
members of the United Nations Security Council who asked Stoltenberg to
replace Cyrus Vance when he retired from the position of UN mediator. Prime
Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland never doubted that her foreign minister must
accept the onerous task he was offered. "I think that the UN has made the
best possible choice," she said. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister was deeply
moved when on 2 April she made the announcement of Stoltenberg's release from
his office. "No one can replace Thorvald Stoltenberg as Minister of Foreign
Affairs," she said, though hastening to add that Norwegian foreign policy
will still be in very capable hands with former Minister of Defence Johan
Joergen Holst at the helm.
The chairman of the Storting Standing Committee on Justice, Joergen Kosmo,
was appointed new Minister of Defence.
(norinform)
norinform/4 20 April 1993
KOMSOMOLETS - NUCLEAR TIME-BOMB OR HARMLESS WRECK?
"On the basis of present knowledge, we believe it is safest to leave the
nuclear submarine "Komsomolets" on the seabed of the Barents Sea where it
sank four years ago," says Ole Harbitz, head of the Norwegian Radiation
Protection Authority, in a comment to recent claims that the vessel is an
environmental time bomb.
It was President Yeltsin's environmental advisor, Alexei Yablokov, who in a
recent interview in the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten asserted that the sunken
submarine constitutes a serious threat to the environment. Yablokov appealed
for Western capital in order to avert a catastrophe.
"In view of Yablokov's anxieties, Norwegian authorities should realize that
they cannot close their eyes to the problem any longer," says Frederic Hauge,
leader of the Norwegian environmentalist organization, Bellona. Hauge, who
demands concrete action from Norway, is also a board member of the
international Komsomolets Foundation.
Ole Harbitz, however, stresses that Norway's attitude to the Komsomolets
issue is based on the available facts. But he adds that the authorities will
request that the Russians keep Norway informed of any new developments and
says that only when fresh information is received will it be possible to
reassess the situation.
(norinform)
norinform/5 20 April 1993
BEST RESTAURANT NORTH OF CONTINENT
For the first time, a Norwegian restaurant has been honoured with two of
three possible stars in the gourmet bible, Guide Michelin. This is no trifle
for the Bagatelle Restaurant in Oslo, run by Eyvind Hellstroem. It was
already known by connoisseurs as the best restaurant in the Nordic countries.
With its second star it now ranks among the top 25 restaurants in Europe.
The jubilant restaurateur Hellstroem earned his first Michelin star in 1986
and has vigorously defended it ever since. "Daily efforts and continous
developments are needed to keep an establishment up, and being awarded a
second star is extremely encouraging," he says. The little restaurant on
Bygdoey Alle,downtown Oslo, has also been praised in a Japanese guidebook on
the best 300 eating establishments in Europe.
The Bagatelle's rating adds to a series of accolades to Norwegian chefs,
including the recent apex - Bent Stiansen's gold medal in the Bocuse d'Or
last autumn. Theoretically, Hellstroem could strive for a third star, but for
all practical purposes, only a handful of restaurants in the world's best
established epicurean milieux have a chance. Michelin stars are reviewed (and
can be withdrawn) annually, but he plans to try. At any time, one of his
customers might be an incognito Michelin agent. Or maybe you or me.
(norinform)
norinform/6 20 April 1993
50,000 year old polar bear discovered
Animal remains discovered in a limestone cave in Kjoepsvik, North Norway
apparently originate from a polar bear which is no less than 50,000 years
old.
Senior lecturer Stein-Erik Lauritzen at the University of Bergen confirms
that these are the oldest remains of polar bear ever to have been found in
Norway-dating from the period before the last great Ice Age, when the
mammoths roamed Northern Europe. Alongside the bear bones was the lower jaw
of a wolf, which seems to have lived in the same period.
Up to now, the oldest bear to have been discovered was a specimen found north
of Stavanger in 1976. It lived about 10,600 years ago, when the ice started
to retreat from the coast. This too was a polar bear.
Adding special interest to the Kjoepsvik finds is the fact that researchers
believe the polar bear and the brown bear parted ways as a single species
some 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. This means that the bear could be one of
the very first of the polar bears or one of a half-way evolved species
somewhere between the two types. At present this is impossible to confirm,
but Lauritzen hopes that future discoveries may be able to provide the
answer. Excavators at the site of the find are starting to look for human
remains from the same period.
Such finds would be the first evidence that human beings also existed before
the last Ice Age.
Excavations started at Kjoepsvik in the summer of 1991, after the Norcem
company which was drilling a tunnel through the rock, came over the remains.
(norinform)
norinform/7 20 April 1993
LIVING MUSEUM FOR HENRIK IBSEN
Tourists visiting Oslo this summer will have the opportunity to visit a newly
opened museum where Norway's great dramatist, Henrik Ibsen, lived during
the latter years of his life.
Ibsen lived in a flat in Arbinsgt.1, central Oslo - within easy walking
distance of the National Theatre and the Royal Palace - from 1895 to the year
of his death. It was within these walls that he wrote two of his most
famous plays,"John Gabriel Borkman" and "When We Dead Awaken". The room in
which he wrote them is at present reconstructed at the Norwegian Folk Museum
in Oslo, but it will be returned to the new museum in time for the opening
this summer.
Some of the rooms in the flat have already been refurbished with the expert
assistance of the Central Office of Historic Monuments. The aim is to make
the museum as authentic a copy of the original as possible. Only one room
remains to be decorated, Ibsen's bedroom, where he died in 1906.
Funding of the project was provided by a specially established foundation,
which collected about USD 430,000 for refurbishment costs. The daily running
of the museum will be financed by the Norwegian Folk Musuem.
Actor Knut Wigert, initiator and primus motor for the project, says the
museum will not be just a static representation of Ibsen's final home, but
a living museum where talks, recitations and theatrical performances will be
held regularly.
(norinform)
norinform/8 20 April 1993
NORWEGIAN SUPERCHIP WILL OUTSPEED COMPETITORS
Norwegian electronics are poised to score a knock-out against Japanese
and American manufacturers. The Siemens electronics factory in Oslo will
shortly start mass production of an ultra-fast data card, named the "Search
Engine", which is expected to give the firm of Microway MRT, near Oslo,
an annual turnover of millions of dollars. This chip, which can scan nine
telephone catalogues in the space of two seconds, was developed by Norwegian
Arne Halaas. Professor Halaas and his colleagues at the University of
Trondheim have spent ten years on the development project.
The ultra-fast speed at which the chip works is made possible through the aid
of so-called pattern matching techniques. The heart of the Search Engine
is the specially developed MS 160 data chip, which can be used in any type of
personal computer. The fully automated process utilized at Siemens takes only
4-6 minutes to produce a card with a chip mounted on it. Siemens hopes to
produce 500 such units per day.
"It will probably not be difficult to copy our invention," says
Managing Director Aage Tangen in Siemens, though he adds that it could take
some time. This makes it important to get the product onto the market as
soon as possible, and to keep up continuous development work. Particularly
strenuous efforts on the sales side have so far resulted in orders from
Japan, the UK, Italy, Germany, France and Finland.
(norinform)
norinform/9 20 April 1993
ARCTIC COLLEGE
1 August will mark the opening of the most northerly college in the world,
when 30 students and a staff of five or six assemble in Longyearbyen on
Svalbard, Norway's arctic archipelago. For the time being they will work in
rented premises, but a new building, costing about USD 7 million is planned
which will house 100 students and a staff of 12-15.
The new college will be a centre for students wishing to specialize in arctic
sciences as well as the more humanistic subjects such as the polar
environment and the history of polar exploration, says the leader of the
college's provisional board, Jan Larsen.
(norinform)
NOBEL INSTITUTE PLANS UNIQUE COLLECTION OF ARCHIVES
A number of former Nobel Peace Prize winners have reacted favourably to the
Nobel Institute's request that they place their archives at the disposal of
the Institute in Oslo, says head of research Odd Arve Westad. The
offer was extended to all previous laureates of the Peace Prize. Westad will
not yet disclose who has said "yes" to the Institute's offer.
"I think that this could be a valuable collection of documents, which will
attract considerable attention from historians," Westad says. The
Institute wishes to cooperate with researchers all over the world and plans
on the long term to put the documents at disposal for current research.
(norinform)
norinform/10 20 April 1993
OFFSHORE INJURIES HALVED
After the "Alexander Kielland" platform capsized in 1980, killing 123, safety
measures have been given higher priority and the number of accidents on
Norwegian oilfields has been halved. Fatal accidents have plunged from 2.8
per thousand annually prior to the accident, to 0.3 per thousand
afterwards. Injuries cost 120 man-labour years in 1979. This number fell to
60 in 1991.
The offshore industry is said to have emerged from its pioneer "trial and
error" phase, and preventive measures have a dominant place, explains the
shipping and offshore classification society, Det Norske Veritas (DNV).
Veritas has developed the International Safety Rating System which is
used by most of the oil companies on the shelf. The system can also be
applied on land, and after DNV took over the American firm,International Loss
Control Institute, the system has been sold to Pepsi Cola and Ford.
(norinform)
"FATEFUL" NAME FOR NEW OILFIELD
Norse mythology has provided inspiration for most of the names of Norwegian
offshore oil and gas fields. Statoil plans to pursue this tradition by
christening its big new oil field at Nordland II "Norne". Norne designates
any of three goddesses who sat at the base of the fabled ash tree,
Yggdrasil, and determined human fate. The three "nornes" were always present
when a child was born. "Norne" is a name which can be easily recognized in
English in case emergency help is needed at the field.
(norinform)
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