EU ruling on oil licences, Christian Democratic party dispute, drivers of Chinese registered vehicle arrested and more news from Norway this Tuesday.
Norway faces European court climate ruling over oil licences
The European Court of Human Rights will decide on Tuesday if Norway breached its climate obligations when it awarded Arctic oil exploration licenses in 2016, new agency AFP reports.
The Strasbourg court, which last year issued a historic first ruling condemning a state for its lack of action on climate change, was approached four years ago by six Norwegian activists and local branches of environmental NGOs Greenpeace and Young Friends of the Earth.
The groups say that before awarding the licences, Norwegian “authorities did not conduct an environmental impact assessment of the potential impacts of petroleum extraction on Norway’s obligations to mitigate climate change”.
Christian Democratic Party disagrees with youth leader on abortion
The socially conservative Christian Democratic Party (KrF) appears to have different views on abortion to the newly-elected leader of its youth party (KrFU).
KrFU’s new leader, 20-year-old Ingrid Olina Hovland, recently said she believes victims of rape should carry any pregnancy to term.
“The first thing I thought was that this is not KrF or KrFU policy,” KrF’s deputy leader Ida Lindtveit Røse told NRK during its Politisk kvarter programme.
“No one should be made to feel shame or feel they’ve made the wrong choice, no matter what they decide,” Røse added.
She added that she was glad Hovland had clarified that this was her personal opinion.
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Chinese nationals arrested on suspicion of espionage
Two Chinese nationals who were stopped by traffic police on October 19th and are now suspected of espionage, local media Hamar Arbeiderblad reports.
The two men were stopped by police on the E6 road in Ringsaker Municipality because they were driving a vehicle with Chinese number plates.
Norway’s police intelligence service PST has been informed and an investigation is underway to determine what the two men were actually doing in Norway amid suspicion of illegal intelligence activity, according to the report.
They are believed to have driven all the way from China to Norway but gave reportedly vague explanations about why they were in Norway.
Their lawyers declined to comment to the newspaper.
Cancer deaths at lowest-ever level in Norway
Death rates from cancer have fallen significantly in recent years and are now lower than ever before at 203 in 100,000 people, according to a report from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI).
Despite to positive trend, cancer remains the leading cause of death in Norway. Lung cancer is the form of cancer that causes the most deaths.
FHI’s report is based on the national registry of causes of death in 2024. It also states that 739 suicides were recorded, which is the highest number ever registered in a year and means Norway’s suicide rate in 2024 was at its highest since 1999.
Deaths from cardiovascular disease have levelled off, while dementia among the elderly continues to rise. Covid-19 was the underlying cause of death in 510 cases.