Investigation into Oslo Airport drones dropped, new ticket inspectors on Ruter services, massive pledge for international forest fund and more news from Norway this Friday.
Police shelve investigation of Oslo Airport drones
Norwegian police have decided not to continue with investigations of suspected drone flights over Oslo Airport in the early hours of September 23rd.
Police were unable to confirm definitively whether the sightings over the airport on the night in question were in fact drones, newspaper VG reports based on a police statement.
“Investigations were unable to confirm whether the observations of the night of September 22nd were actually drones,” police said.
Airport staff were interviewed by police during the investigations and security camera footage was reviewed.
The suspected Oslo Airport drone flights occurred on the same night as a similar incident at Copenhagen Airport. Both airports were required to close their airspace for several hours, resulting in disruption to services throughout the following day.
Transport operator hires new inspectors to stop fare evasion
Public transport operator Ruter has hired what it terms støttekontrollører or “support ticket inspectors” to help prevent fare evasion.
The new Ruter staff will be able to physically hold back passengers who try to evade ticket inspection.
Although a 2020 Supreme Court ruling determined that outsourced inspectors could not detain passengers who refused to cooperate, Ruter has now avoided this restriction by hiring its own inspectors who are authorised to do this.
The company told newspaper Aftenposten that it has hired between five and ten new inspectors.
“The support ticket inspectors are currently undergoing training and will be active from this point onwards,” Eivind Graff Christiansen, Ruter’s Director of Marketing and Business Development, told Aftenposten.
Almost one in three passengers who are asked to show their tickets to inspectors attempts to abscond, according to Ruter.
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Norway pledges nearly $3 billion for forest fund
A forest protection fund launched at a climate summit in Brazil Thursday received a shot in the arm from Norway with a promised contribution of up to 30 billion kroner ($2.9 billion) in loans.
Norway’s contribution to the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) would be conditional on at least 100 billion kroner ($9.8 billion) having been secured from other donors, according to a government statement reported by news agency AFP.
Another condition is that Norway’s contribution must not exceed 20 percent of the fund’s total financing.
The Norwegian loans will be disbursed gradually until 2035 and must be repaid by 2075.
Brazil and Indonesia have announced contributions of $1 billion each, according to the Norwegian statement — meaning pledges to the fund so far have reached half the targeted $10 billion in startup capital to be raised from governments within a year.
“There is no time to lose if we are to save the world’s tropical forests,” the statement quoted Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre as saying.
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Police respond to shooting incident in Oslo
Several police units responded to reports of a shooting incident in Oslo’s Høybråten neighbourhood last night, broadcaster NRK reports.
No injuries have been reported so far.
“Work is ongoing to clarify what happened in the lead-up to this,” Oslo Police officer Øyvind Hammervold told NRK.
Police do not yet know how many shots were fired or the type of weapon that was used, but two men have already been detained. They were taken in around midnight on Thursday.
The shots were reportedly fired at a building which has suffered material damage.
A number of “involved parties”, which may include witnesses, have spoken to police, Hammervold said.