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Although Linnea and Lukas/Lucas were the most popular names nationwide in 2008 in Norway, Mohammad is now the most common name in Oslo, accordring to the Norwegian Central Bureau of Statistics (SSB). This was also the case in 2007. 120 boys were called Mohammad in 2008.

Norway's Chief of Defense Sverre Diesen said Monday that if the current loss of spending power continued, Norway's national defense would be history in 25 years. Diesen presented Minister of Defense Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen with FS 07 - the study of the next 20 years of Norway's Defense - on Monday. "If the loss of spending power continues the Defense will be so weakened in 25 years time that only limited units such as the Coast Guard and the Russian border guard will be fully functional - an independent, national Defense will be history," Diesen wrote. The Defense chief also warned...

Norway's center-left government has issued a warning to 140 companies that still don't have enough women on their boards of directors: Appoint more, or be dissolved. Companies organized as "ASA" corporations are required to meet a state-mandated quota that calls for 40 percent of their directors to be women. The quota was ushered in during the previous center-right government coalition, and has been enthusiastically embraced by the current Labour Party-led government. Equality minister Karita Bekkemellem told newspaper Aftenposten on Friday that those companies failing to meet the quota will face involuntary dissolution from January 1. Many are within traditionally male-oriented...

Norway's military has felt it necessary to dispatch fighter jets 29 times so far this year, to monitor Russian military flights offshore. Now it's emerged that at least one of the Russian aircraft was equipped with a cruise missile. Newspaper Aftenposten carried a photo of the Russian Tupolev 22 bomber on its front page on Thursday. The photo was taken by a Norwegian fighter jet crew sent out to monitor the flights of two such aircraft about seven weeks ago. Military officials say the two Russian flights were in "classic position" to fire cruise missiles off Bodø, but both turned...

Two interceptors were scrambled to identify air traffic in international airspace north of Finnmark, Norway, late friday evening. The two fighter jets from Bodø Air Base took off just before 20:00 local norwegian time, after they were alerted by NATO's Air Operation Centre CAOC 3 on Reitan, Norway. This according to Lt. Col. John Espen Lien at Landsdelskommando Nord-Norge (Land Command North Norway). He states that it was probably russian planes. - It is most likely, because the planes stayed in and outside russian air space, he says. The planes turned around and disapeared before the norwegian jets made a...

With hunting season just around the corner, things could look bleak for the rare white moose, which became a national celebrity after it was first spotted last year. But now hunters are instructed to spare it. The rare white moose, first spotted in the county of Østfold, has been given at least one more year to live. Hunters are now being instructed from the local agency in charge of the hunt to protect it from their bullets. The moose, named Albin, quickly became a national celebrity after it was fist spotted a year ago. And it is Albin’s celebrity status...

Norwegian scientists believes mysterious light-phenomenons may provide us with the key to a non-polluting source of energy in the future. - I believe the Hessdalen phenomenon is some sort of whirlwind energy in the electromagnetic field. We can’t see it. It’s invisible until it hit something, or is ignited by something. Then it begins to give out energy as light, says engineer Bjørn Gitle Hauge from Østfold University College. May replace the gasoline engine He has researched the light phenomenons for several years and thinks they can give us the sollution to the world’s energy crisis. – I think this...

The Norwegian military scrambled fighter jets twice on Thursday, to monitor yet another series of flights by Russian jets just outside Norwegian air space. The Norwegian F-16 fighter jets took off from Bodø in the early morning hours to keep an eye on Russia bombers flying in international airspace off the Norwegian coast. It was the latest of several such incidents in recent months, as Russia apparently is trying to assert its presence in the north. The Russians have stepped up military exercises from its Arctic bases and flown near Norway and the UK, both members of NATO. A Norwegian...

Both Norwegian oil company Statoil and Norsk Hydro have struck more oil in territorial waters of the North Sea. It's not clear how much oil is involved. Norway's oil directorate reported Monday that Statoil found the oil in a well that lies 35 kilometers east of the Gudrun field. Statoil has a 30 percent stake in the area, along with the national agency Petoro that represents the state's direct oil investment and Det Norske Oljeselskap. Talisman Energy Norge AS has the remaining 10 percent, and Statoil is the operator. The sea is 113 meters deep at the site of the...

One of Norway's most internationally known diplomats, Jan Egeland, confirmed Friday that he'd gladly negotiate with al-Qaida, if it could help spread understanding and hope. "I wouldn't rule out conversations with the devil if it could help victims out of the depths of hell," Egeland told Aftenposten.no. Egeland, who helped broker Middle East peace pacts and most recently was the UN's foreign aid coordinator, was responding to a Reuters article about the possibility of negotiating with terrorist groups. In the article, Egeland won support for his views from former Anglican church envoy and hostage negotiator Terry Waite, who noted that...

Norway's transport minister thinks it's downright silly that airline passengers no longer can take water bottles, perfume or other toiletry items on board flights. Liv Signe Navarsete, from the Center Party (SP), plans to petition European authorities to lift the ban on liquids that went into effect last year. "This ban is irritating for individual travelers and a major cost for society," Navarsete told newspaper Dagbladet on Friday. She thinks officials need to examine whether the benefits of the ban really outweigh the costs. The cabinet minister who's a member of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's center-left government questioned whether the...

Calls were spreading on Monday for Princess Martha Louise to give up her royal title, to eliminate what's considered an inappropriate mix of her privileged position with her new controversial psychic venture. Even relatively conservative newspapers are criticizing the princess for "earning money on her princess title," as Bergens Tidende wrote in an editorial in Monday's editions. The newspaper, Norway's largest outside the Oslo area, also noted that "as a princess and theoretically an heir to the throne," Martha Louise "needs to relate to the rest of us others within a certain framework." The editorial questioned whether the princess' new...

The museum for Telemark County has devoted a new exhibit to one of its most infamous natives, national traitor Vidkun Quisling. It's not being entirely well-received. "I don't quite see the exhibit's point," one of the Telemark Museum's own board members, Arnulf Rafgård, told newspaper Aftenposten. He thinks the exhibit has an unnatural personal focus, and that it's not critical enough about Quisling himself. Quisling, born in Fyresdal in Telemark in 1887, once carried out humanitarian work for Fridtjof Nansen's organization in Russia, but went on to form Norway's nationalist party (NS) in 1933. He met Adolph Hitler in 1939...

The bones of one of the women found in one of Norway's most famous Viking graves suggest her ancestors came from the area around the Black Sea. The woman herself was "Norwegian," claims Professor Per Holck at the University of Oslo, who has conducted analyses of DNA material taken from her bones. But Holck says that while she came from the area that today is Norway, her forefathers may have lived in the Black Sea region. Holck, attached to the anthropological division of the university's anatomy institute (Anatomisk institutt), isn't willing to reveal more details pending publication of an article...

Employees of a day care center in northern Norway have long been bothered by what they're convinced are evil spirits. They've called in a local pastor to help get rid of them. The staff at the Bymyra day care center in Tromsø have been talking about the unusual occurrences at the children's facility for months. They've heard strange voices and had the feeling that someone is in the room with them. They've also felt someone touching them, tousling their hair or grabbing at their hands. "I don't dare stay in the day care center (called barnehagen in Norwegian) alone in...

Norwegian defense officials aren't declaring a new Cold War with Russia, but Norway's huge neighbour in the northeast is once again being described as a threat, also in the military sense. Relations between Russia and Norway have been strained of late, over incidents ranging from illegal fishing in the Barents to collapsed investment prospects in Russian gas fields to Russian restrictions on salmon imports. At the same time, Russia has been asserting itself all over Europe, often in unpopular ways. It has cut off gas supplies to countries that don't agree to its terms, it has refused entry to top...

The Norwegian government has decided to send more soldiers to Afghanistan, dispatching another 150 special forces to Kabul. The decision marks a new defeat for the Socialist Left Party (SV), which is part of Norway's center-left coalition government. The special forces will be in addition to the roughly 530 Norwegian soldiers and officers already in Afghanistan. The government previously has rejected calls for more troops from both NATO and key NATO members such as the US. Now it's changed its mind, clearly after intense negotiations among its three center-left parties that strive to maintain a united front. Political observers claim...

Vandalism, attempted break-in and in the end the theft of the car itself. All this after Lars Olsson put a Bush-sticker on the car. (Dagbladet.no): Wednesday last week Lars Olsson putt his sticker in support of Bush on his Chrysler Voyager: «George W. Bush. Saving your butt whether you like it or not.» Vandalism -Already the same day I started to notice the reactions. There was some honking and stuff, Lars says to Dagbladet.no -Then, Thursday morning I discovered that someone had broken off the window wipers at the rear of the car. I had to fix them, the 33...

A transsexual Norwegian wanted two passports, one as a man and one as a woman, but his request was rejected. The Norwegian, a 63-year-old crime fiction writer, applied to state officials in charge of enforcing sexual equality and anti-discrimination measures. The writer's current passport only shows him as a man, which isn't always how he appears as he undergoes treatment. Both the Ministry of Justice and the state police agency, which issues passports in Norway, contended, though, that current regulations don't allow issuance of two passports to the same person. "A basic assumption in the issuance of a passport is...

The Scandic Hotel chain's refusal to accept Cuban guests due to the policy of their new American owners has sparked furious reaction from a range of groups. The Scandic Edderkoppen Hotel in central Oslo. The Anti-racist Center, the Equality and Anti-discrimination Ombud (LDO) and the Oslo office of trade union confederation LO have issued strong reactions after a Cuban Tourism delegation were denied rooms at the Scandic Edderkoppen Hotel in Oslo. "LO Oslo demands that the government take the step of denying business activity to companies like Scandic, which clearly adhere to the USA's illegal boycott and blockade rather than...