Foreign

Court Jails Doctor for Raping Patients

By Web News 191

A court in Norway has sentenced a doctor to 21 years in prison for the rape and sexual abuse of dozens of women, in a case that has shocked the Scandinavian country.

Former GP Arne Bye has been convicted of 70 counts of rape and sexual assault. He was also convicted of 82 counts of abusing his position as a doctor, Norwegian media reports.

Nearly all of the offenses took place during medical examinations that Bye carried out on his patients while he worked as a physician in the small town of Frosta – a tiny community of fewer than 3,000 residents, near Trondheim on the west coast of Norway.

Bye was also banned from practising medicine and ordered to pay compensation.

The court had deliberated over a lengthy indictment, which included allegations spanning nearly two decades relating to 94 women, according to Norwegian media.

Bye pleaded guilty to some of the crimes, and was also acquitted on a number of the charges.

Addressing the court in Trondheim on Friday, Judge Espen Haug said the case was “very serious” and described Bye’s actions as “absolutely unacceptable”.

“The defendant’s actions happened in a place and setting where people are supposed to feel safe,” Judge Haug said. “His actions have undermined public trust in the health service as well as doctors in general.”

The 55-year-old defendant stood on his feet, appearing calm and unmoved as the maximum sentence was handed down.

The courtroom was then asked to sit as it took more than an hour for the judgement to be read out.

Health authorities had first alerted the police to concerns about Bye in August 2022, and he was charged a year later.

Bye had secretly installed a camera in his office, Norwegian media reports. Police uncovered the scale of his offences after reviewing hundreds of hours of footage.

Dozens of women, reportedly aged between 14 and 67, from the small, rural community came forward. The earliest complaint dated back to 2004, the most recent from 2022.

Central to the case had been the methods Bye used for medical examinations.

Over four months, the court heard details of non-consensual touching and inappropriate pelvic examinations conducted by Bye.

These act constitute rape under Norwegian law, which makes a distinction between penetrative and non-penetrative rape.

Bye was also shown to have used non-medical equipment, such as a deodorant, during these exams, with no justification for doing so.

The defence attorneys had sought a lower sentence of around 17-18 years as Bye had pleaded guilty to the rape of 21 victims.

Bye’s lawyer also said he would take some time to read the verdict properly before considering whether to appeal.

BBC/Adebukola Aluko

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Foreign

Extreme Snowfall Leaves 1,000 Vehicles Trapped On Swedish Road

By Web News 332

Swedish authorities say people who got trapped in 1,000 vehicles in heavy snow for more than 24 hours have been evacuated.

Rescuers worked through the night to free people stuck on the main E22 road in the Skane Area of southern Sweden.

Many of those trapped were evacuated by rescue teams and told to return to their cars later.

The travel chaos occurred amid plummeting winter temperatures across the Nordic countries.

Extreme cold weather has hit parts of Sweden, Finland and Norway, and snow storms in Denmark have left drivers trapped on a motorway near Aarhus since Wednesday.

The Kvikkjokk-Arrenjarka weather station in northern Sweden recorded its coldest night for 25 years on Tuesday night, with temperatures dropping to -43.6C.

Rescuers said all people travelling by car had been evacuated and only lorry drivers remained in their vehicles by Thursday morning.

Rescue teams began clearing cars from the snowbound E22 but many of the lorries were expected to remain on the road until Friday.

Buses and trains were cancelled in the Skane region on Thursday morning and authorities urged people to avoid unessential travel.

BBC/Maxwell Oyekunle

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Feature

Weird Hell Offering Chills, Thrills

By Web News 593

The small village of Hell is located in Nord-Trøndelag County in Central Norway.

Hell on Earth is currently home to around 1,500 people, and instead of burning in it, people tend to get chilly: In wintertime, temperatures can reach −13 °F (−25 °C).

The village of Hell is quaint. There are your Scandinavian houses, healthy gardens, and kids playing on the streets. As it turns out, Hell in Norway was named after the overhanging cliff caves in the area. Overhangs and cliff caves were called “hellir” in Old Norse. And if you’re wondering, the Norwegian word for actual hell is “helvete.”

Upon your arrival in Hell via train, you’ll soon spot a small building with a sign that reads, “Gods-expedition.” This seems like another interesting choice for a place named the way it is, but apparently, this is the archaic way to spell the contemporary Norwegian word “godsekspedisjon,” which means “freight forwarding.”

So what’s there to do in Hell? Aside from Blues in Hell, the annual festival held in September, tourists can also enjoy a short hike to Helleristninger, a site of animal carvings that date back to the Stone Age. 

Culled / Titilayo Kupoliyi

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Foreign

Norway Calls Off Gas Strikes 

By Web News 870

Strikes which threatened to cut off most of the UK’s gas imports from Norway have been called off.

The Norwegian labour ministry confirmed it had stepped in to end industrial action set for later this week.

“Workers are going back to work as soon as possible. We are cancelling the planned escalation,” Lederne union leader Audun Ingvartsen.

The Department for Business had insisted: “The UK has no issues with gas supply.”

The UK imports about 50% of its gas and Norway is its biggest supplier making up 77% of imports, ONS data shows.

Oil and gas from Norway, Europe’s second-largest energy supplier after Russia, is in high demand as many countries reduce their dependence on Russian supplies in response to the war in Ukraine.

The industrial action started on Monday following a pay dispute between the employer’s organisation, the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association, and the union Lederne, which represents oil and gas workers.

The first phase forced the Norwegian energy company Equinor to shut down three of its oil and gas fields. More strikes were expected on Tuesday evening, impacting three more Equinor facilities.

The union had threatened to take further strike action from Saturday if the dispute was not resolved.

But labour minister, Marte Mjoes Persen, told Reuters the government had exercised its right to intervene.

“Norway plays a vital role in supplying gas to Europe, and the planned escalation [of the strike] would have had serious consequences, for Britain, Germany and other nations,” he said.

“The volume impact would have been dramatic in light of the current European situation.”

Reacting to the strike being called off, NOG, the oil lobby, said in a statement: “We are glad to see that the government understood the seriousness of the situation and acted to uphold Norway’s reputation as a reliable and stable supplier of natural gas to Europe.”

Norwegian gas arrives in the UK at two terminals – Easington in Yorkshire and St Fergus in Scotland.

It was Saturday’s planned strike that would have affected UK supplies as it would have temporarily closed the Sleipner field – a key distribution point for gas exports to the UK.

Norwegian-state owned Gassco had told the BBC “in a worst case scenario, from this Saturday there will be zero deliveries to Easington”, a gas terminal on the East Yorkshire coast, something reported by the Financial Times.

But while the potential strike action would only have impacted the operations at Easington, Gassco said that was by far the most significant of the two, receiving 80% to 90% of the gas from Norway.

The Department for Business said: “We have one of the most reliable and diverse energy systems in the world, with access to our own North Sea gas reserves, and the second largest LNG port infrastructure in Europe.”

Gassco transports gas to other European countries including Germany and Belgium. It’s thought strike action would have prevented up to 170 million cubic litres of gas from being delivered, around 50% of the total daily delivery amount from the company.


BBC /Taiwo Akinola

Foreign

Norway Landslide: Houses Buried in Gjerdrum Village near Oslo

By Web News 786

A landslide in a Norwegian village has injured 10 people, left 21 unaccounted for and buried houses under what looks like a huge slick of mud in a gully.

About 500 people have been evacuated from the village of Gjerdrum, which lies some 25km (15 miles) north-east of the capital, Oslo.

One person was seriously hurt, reports say.

“Police are designating this as a disaster,” head of the local police operation, Roger Pettersen, said.

“There are dramatic reports and the situation is serious,” he said, adding that people had called emergency services saying that their whole house was moving.

Several people were reported to be trapped and some were said to have managed to phone relatives appealing for help.

Of those still missing, police said in a statement: “We don’t know if these people are in the landslide area, if they are away on holiday or in another way unable to contact police.”

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg posted on social media, saying: “It hurts to see how the forces of nature have ravaged Gjerdrum.

“My thoughts go to everyone affected by the landslide.”

NRK said recent heavy precipitation may have made the soil unstable.

The landslide struck in the early hours of Wednesday and is reported to cover an area of 210,000 sq m (2.3m sq ft).

BBC