Bad News from Norway

Military women in Norway face serious difficulties

Aftenposten is featuring a series on the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault in the Norwegian military. It turns out that the Norwegian defense has few to none mechanisms for detecting, reporting, or dealing with this sort of thing. Aftenposten is profiling one service woman - "Private 7" - who has presumably had awful experiences.

So bad is the situation that the military does not even have the means to track incidents that have been reported to (civilian) law enforcement authorities.

As a side but probably related note, the Norwegian military has failed to meet the goal of having 10% of its force be women by 2000 - the number is 6-7%. The goal now is 20% by 2020.

Norwegian students among the weakest in science

Klassekampen reports that Norwegian students scored the lowest among all Nordic countries in science, and only ranked #33 among all OECD countries in the subject. Finland scored the highest. This according to the PISA of the OECD. Some of the blame is placed on the frequent educational reforms in Norway, but another article in Klassekampen indicates that the parents' educational background makes a big difference on the results. Which seems to suggest that a major cause of the social democratic movement - to reduce differences based on socio-economic class structures - has failed.

Norway criticized in Bali for CO2 emissions

Norway arrived at the international climate conference in Bali prepared to act as a leading voice for reduced emissions, but found itself on the defensive, as NGOs including World Wildlife Federation and Greenpeace accused the country of being all talk and no action. Norway's per capita greenhouse gas emissions are high by international standards, and the gas terminal at Melkøya in Northern Norway is about to be a major source of pollution that neither the government nor the operator have figured out yet.