Norway’s North Cape is one of the country’s foremost tourist attractions where visitors have long had to controversially pay for access to the Arctic plateau. Now coastal voyage line Hurtigruten is challenging the Scandic hotel chain’s operating monopoly on the North Cape, through a complaint to the European Free Trade Association’s surveillance authority ESA. Conflicts […]
Two East Barents wells come up dry
June 18, 2019
State-owned oil company Equinor is disappointed while climate activists are relieved: Norway’s Petroleum Directorate has reported that a second well drilled by Equinor and its partners in a once-promising portion of the eastern Barents Sea was “classified as dry,” and has now been “permanently plugged and abandoned.” The failure to find oil in the well drilled […]
Oil-happy minister defies own experts
June 3, 2019
Oil & Energy Minister Kjell-Børge Freiberg set off more sparks heading into the weekend, when he invited oil companies to apply for 90 new exploration licenses on oil and gas fields his ministry is opening on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Freiberg is thus once again defying the state’s own professional advisers, in addition to all […]
White whale ailing in Hammerfest
May 27, 2019
The friendly white whale named Hvaldimir, who sought human contact off the coast of Northern Norway after apparently escaping from captivity, fell ill over the weekend. Researchers and the founder of the Norwegian Orca Survey feared the worst, but were breathing a bit easier on Monday. “It was a tough weekend,” Eve Jourdain, a marine […]
Protests persist after top Chinese visit
May 20, 2019
NEWS ANALYSIS: What does this man and his Chinese government colleagues want from Norway? Many suspect more influence in the Arctic, lucrative trade deals and tacit acceptance of their authoritarian regime after Li Zhanshu, China’s third most-powerful leader, visited Oslo and Stavanger last week. Protests and angry questions are still flying after both Norwegian and […]
New theory ties whale to therapy
May 7, 2019
A white beluga whale that turned up recently in Norwegian waters has neither been trained as a spy nor as an assault weapon, according to a Norwegian newspaper specializing in the fishing industry. It reported on Tuesday that it’s fairly certain the whale is named “Semjon,” and was trained for entertainment purposes and to offer therapy […]
White whale now named ‘Hvaldimir’
May 3, 2019
Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) declared on Friday that “the public has spoken,” and named a cute white whale that was freed of mysterious harnesses off Finnmark last week Hvaldimir. “Hval” (pronounced “vall”) is the Norwegian word for whale, and the name is also a play on the name of Russian president Vladimir Putin. NRK, which had […]
White whale still worries researchers
April 30, 2019
A white beluga whale bearing harnesses that caught the attention of a Norwegian fishing boat’s crew, and later much of the world, has been performing tricks this week for spectators in the far northern village of Tufjord. The whale’s unusual behaviour still worries researchers who aren’t sure he’ll survive in the wild. “He’s so comfortable […]
Body found in Barents still a mystery
April 11, 2019
A preliminary autopsy report indicates that a decaying human body found in a Norwegian trawler’s fishing nets in the Arctic last week was a man between the ages of 30 and 50, according to the Troms Police District. His identity remains unknown. “We have secured DNA and fingerprints,” inspector Ståle Luther told state broadcaster NRK. […]
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