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Norway's two biggest companies want to form one of the biggest oil companies in the world, through a merger between Statoil and the oil and gas division of Norsk Hydro. Both companies are heavily state-owned, and government officials are supporting the pending deal. Statoil's young boss, Helge Lund, would become chief executive of the new oil giant, while Hydro chief executive Eivind Reiten would become chairman of the merged company. Reiten would remain chief executive of Hydro Aluminium, which would also retain Hydro's operations within the hydro-electric and solar industries. Lund called the merger "an historic milestone," adding that "the...

The Norwegian defense attorney for terror suspect Mullah Krekar said he was unaware of an alleged US military plan to kidnap his client three years ago. Norwegian politicians claim they also were left in the dark. We knew that there was a threat of kidnapping in 2003, but the evaluation of something resembling a military action is new to me," attorney Brynjar Meling told newspaper Dagbladet on Friday. Meling was responding to a report in the international magazine Newsweek that US officials at the Pentagon considered sending special forces to Oslo to seize Krekar, who recently landed on both US...

Immigration authorities suspect that as many as half of the would-be refugees arriving from Somalia are bluffing their way into Norway. The Norwegian authorities say many of the Somalian asylum seekers claim they're from the war-torn south, when they instead may come from the more peaceful north and thus be inelibigle for refugee status. The authorities therefore have been using language tests in an effort to expose asylum seekers who may be lying about their background. Test results show that as many as half speak dialects found in the north, and not the south. Most of those arriving from Somalia...

The striking sight of a white moose in the forests of Østfold prompted a call for protection as the hunting season nears, but experts insisted the animal be shot. The moose hunting season starts on Thursday, and hunting parties in the Østfold area where the rare albino moose has been sighted have asked that the animal be protected, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) reports. But the head of the wildlife committee in the area, Sigmund Lerheim, can make no promises. "I can't guarantee that it will survive as long as there are people who disagree that it should get to live," Lerheim...

Norway's justice minister was contacting key members of the Jewish community in Oslo on Monday, after a round of shots was fired at the capital's synagogue over the weekend. Higher security around the synagogue may involve closing off the street where it's located. No one was injured in the shooting, which damaged the front of the synagogue in Oslo's St Hanshaugen district. Police said more than 10 shots were fired, probably from an automatic weapon, at the synagogue's façade early Sunday morning. "We are taking this type of violence very seriously," Justice Minister Knut Storberget told newspaper Vårt Land on...

The Norwegian Defense has refused to comply with NATO's plans to move nearly 300 Norwegian troops to southern Afghanistan. The Norwegian soldiers, many of them fresh from basic training, were in danger earlier this month of being sent from the relatively calm north to escalating conflicts with the Taliban in the south. NATO wants to shift more force to fight the Taliban in the area and sketched out a draft order that would move Norway's Quick Reaction Force from the north to Kandahar in the troubled south. There it would relieve an allied watch force which in turn would join...

The US embassy in Oslo has issued a statement after Imam Zulqarnain Sakandar Madni, leader of Muslim imams in Norway, cast doubts on the existence of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The embassy statement said that while it was "normal and healthy to have disagreements", Sakandar Madni's suggestions that Sep. 11 was anything but a terrorist attack was simply incorrect, and "spreading false stories to protect terrorists is destructive". "The UN has listed Osama bin Laden as a terrorist and Al Qaeda as a terrorist organization, and the attacks on September 11 affected the whole world. We find it...

Norway's largest synagogue received an ominous warning last November that it would be one of two targets of terrorist attacks in Oslo. The threats came in conjunction with the arrests in Italy of several members of an alleged terror group. "I can confirm that we received information that an attack was planned against the synagogue," Anne Sender of The Mosaic Religious Community in Norway (Det Mosaiske Trossamfund, DMT) told newspaper VG on Monday. Sender said the threats were so credible and alarming that they were taken "very seriously," and the synagogue's security went on high alert. She wouldn't say who...

Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian synonymous with traitor, will have his planned book of philosophy published shortly. Quisling, who was Norway's head of government during the Nazi occupation, had high ambitions as an author and thinker. His ambitious work on what he called "Universism" aimed to "ignite a new light for mankind". The book will appear in October from the new publishing house Juritzen. Arve Juritzen and his editor Anne-Kristin Strøm have prepared the volume from the mass of papers and handwritten notes the notorious Norwegian left behind. The book will be organized according to the chapter headings Quisling intended. "This...

The US ambassador to Norway gave a speech full of polite but very firm criticism of the Norwegian oil fund's blacklisting of American companies. US ambassador to Norway Benson K. Whitney spoke to the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) on Friday, and made it clear that shared core values "like fairness, transparency, justice, dialogue, ethics" gave way to "disappointment and surprise" due to the failure of Norway to live up these ideals when investing its petroleum riches. "It's one thing for an individual Norwegian to get up one morning, read the paper, decide they don't like a company for...

Some of Norway's closest allies are unhappy with the country's contribution to NATO-led operations, and think Norway should offer more military participation overseas. Defense Minister Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen may feel the heat next week. Defense Minister Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen may face pressure from her American counterpart during a meeting next week. Newspaper Aftenposten reported Thursday that generals and politicians in Washington, along with NATO's secretary general, have been putting pressure on Norway. They want Norway's left-center coalition government to boost Norway's contribution to international military operations. Officials in Great Britain, traditionally one of Norway's closest allies, also think Norway can and should...

A man claiming to be a transsexual has asked the LDO for assistance in acquiring two passports, one with a "woman passport photo". "I have previously applied to the Ministry of Justice on this matter, since traveling as a woman leads to considerable problems when one's passport photo depicts a man," the man writes, describing himself as a "trans-person". The applicant explains in the letter that traveling as a woman has become markedly more complicated after the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, due to the increased security checks at airports. "For me this has made it virtually impossible to travel...

Calls streamed in to local police stations during the night after an unidentified flying object darted over the night skies in northern Norway. A top astronomer, though, thinks it was another meteorite. Astronomer Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard thinks the object flying though the northern skies Monday night was a meteorite. Several police districts logged reports from members of the public who observed "something" flying at high speed. "What they're talking about here is some sort of flying object, and we can't explain what it was," Oddgeir Slettli, operations leader for the Midtre Hålogaland Police District, told dagbladet.no. Observations were reported...

Service on Norway's northern train line (Nordlandsbanen) wasn't expected to resume until Wednesday afternoon at the earliest, after a train collided with a moose and derailed. The train, designed to carry loads of iron ore, derailed after it hit the moose on the tracks Monday evening. "It must have been a monster moose," said Harry Korslund of the agency in charge of the rails, Jernbaneverket. "It all depends, of couse, on how the train hit the moose, but in this case it was enough that it derailed." The accident occurred between Dunderland and Mo i Rana. Passengers were being transported...

Oslo's Sperm Bank seeks to double its number of donors but is not interested in contributions from homosexuals. A legislative change in January 2005 gave the child of a sperm donation the right to know the identity of the donor when reaching age 18. The sperm bank at Rikshospitalet, Oslo has been trying various recruitment drives to make up for the resulting reluctance but the Bank is far from its goal of finding 30-40 new donors every year, newspaper Dagsavisen reports. Nevertheless, the Bank is unwilling to accept homosexual donors, despite the regulations not mentioning the exclusion of this group....

Author Jostein Gaarder is shocked by the backlash after his volatile opinion article in Aftenposten criticizing Israel's recent actions in Lebanon. The piece has fired fierce debate on political, religious and cultural fronts. Hate mail and dialogue - 08.08.2006 Clumsy fall in familiar trap - 08.08.2006 Injured and threatened - 08.08.2006 For the first time in my life I have begun to look over my shoulder," Gaarder said after his article was published in Aftenposten on Saturday. The article, titled "God's chosen people" has since been compared with Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf". "The last few days have been tough. The...

The second student-built satellite in the NCube project has likely met an even worse fate than the first. A Russian launch rocket carrying the Norwegian project and a dozen others from around the world most likely crashed into a desert in Kazakhstan on Wednesday evening. "Rudolf" was launched from rocket base Baikonour in Kazakhstan at 9:43 p.m. Norwegian time on Wednesday evening. Oslo engineer Eystein Sæther, technical coordinator of the NCube project, believes that the second attempt to get the special satellite into orbit is now buried in the sand. "Something went wrong during the launch. For 110 seconds all...

Two of the CIA agents wanted in the Schengen area, suspected of abductions, were in Norway three years ago, allegedly to get mullah Krekar. Newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad recently reported ostensible links between the secret CIA operation and the removal of Krekar, a former Kurdish guerrilla leader, from Norway. Krekar's lawyer Brynjar Meling contacted Norwegian authorities at the relevant time, in 2003, warning he had learned of rumors that his client risked abduction. New information has come to light in the wake of an intensive investigation by Italian authorities into the kidnapping of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also called Abu Omar,...

The Mosaic Religious Community has advised its Jewish members against speaking Hebrew loudly on the streets of Oslo or wearing Jewish emblems. The suggestion has infuriated some in the membership. It comes after a Jewish man wearing a kippah, or yarmulke, was assaulted on an Oslo street Saturday. The Mosaic Religious Community wants its members to be careful. "We have encouraged our members to avoid speaking Hebrew loudly on the street," Anne Sender of the Jewish organization told newspaper Vårt Land. She also told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) that men may want to reconsider wearing the yarmulke. That's provoked journalist Mona...

A Norwegian newspaper is reporting that several agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have been present and operating in Norway, in an effort to spirit Mullah Krekar out of the country. US officials have long suspected Krekar of having terrorist links. As the former head of guerrilla group Ansar al-Islam, Krekar also is accused of murders back in Iraq, and he has voiced support for Islamic terrorists on Arabic television. Newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad has reported that the US government tried to spirit Krekar out of Norway three years ago. The newspaper said it had information showing that several...