Plain packaging was the theme for World No Tobacco Day. Minister of Health and Care Services Bent Høie marked the occasion together with WHO, the Norwegian Cancer Society and representatives from United Kingdom and Australia.
– In Norway, young people are smoking less, but the last decade we have seen a dramatic growth in the use of smokeless tobacco snus. Earlier the use of snus was a way to quit smoking, but now snus has become a pathway to tobacco addiction. We have to prevent that a new generation becomes addicted to tobacco, and plain packaging is an important step towards this, says Minister of Health and Care Services Bent Høie.
WHO is calling on its Member States to prepare for plain packaging with the slogan; “Get ready for plan packaging”. Australia, United Kingdom, France and Ireland have passed laws to implement plain packaging, and other countries are considering the same. The Norwegian government will present a bill to the Parliament on plain packaging in the first part of June.
– The objective of plain packaging is to prevent tobacco use among children and adolescents. I think most people support this goal. We know that young people are affected by the appearance and design of tobacco packaging, and it is time to stop this type of marketing to young people, says Høie.
Representatives from Australia and United Kingdom were present at the event, and gave a brief about their experiences with plain packaging. The tobacco industry has filed suits against several countries to stop plain packaging, but without success, most recently in United Kingdom.
– We cannot let the tobacco industry dictate our public health policy. Tobacco is legal, but it is not an ordinary product. Unlike other legal products, tobacco is harmful regardless of how people use it. Plain packaging will not affect people’s freedom of choice or their access to buy tobacco products. The objective of the bill is to protect new generations against tobacco addiction, says Høie.
New research from Australia shows that plain packaging works. Fewer young people are starting to smoke cigarettes, and unlike claims from the tobacco industry, there has not been a growth in illegal import of cigarettes.

This week the world has gathered in New York during the UN’s Special Session on drugs (UNGASS2016), to discuss the way forward on drug policy.
– Norway’s priority during the negotiations is to strengthen the health perspective, so that persons addicted to drugs are given health care. We will work to ensure that human rights are respected and show clear opposition to the use of the death penalty, says the Minister of Health and Care Services, Bent Høie.
During UNGASS2016, an outcome document will be adopted on the status of the world drug problem and the remaining challenges leading up to 2019, when a new plan of action will be negotiated.
– This is an important meeting for the development of world drug policy. Norway will work to improve the balance between control and care by strengthening the health perspective in world drug policy, where the main objective will be to safeguard health and welfare, says Minister of Health and Care Services, Bent Høie.
There are currently many countries that disproportionately emphasize control and strict punishment for drug-related crimes, including the death penalty.
– Norway will emphasize that human rights must be respected in drug policy and show clear opposition to the use of the death penalty, says Høie.
Some countries have considerable challenges related to illicit drug production and smuggling, involving violent cartels, corruption and money-laundering. Norway will support measures to streamline the cooperation against organized drug crime.
– At the same time, we will work to promote the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals with an emphasis on good governance. We know that this is an important prerequisite for development, health, rights, alternatives to illicit drug production and efforts against organized crime, says Høie.
Another important issue for Norway is to ensure that patients have access to medications that contain controlled substances. In many countries, patients do not have access to such medications. This may be important for treatment, for example as pain relief for cancer patients. Norway is organizing a side-event on this topic during UNGASS and the Minister will make a statement and chair the debate.

“Technology represents opportunities. We must exploit these opportunities to provide Norway with good public services and to create new jobs,” says Jan Tore Sanner, Minister of Local Government and Modernisation.
In the white paper Digital Agenda for Norway the Government announces its intention to enable Norway to exploit the opportunities ICT usage offers for value creation and innovation. Norway has been experiencing low productivity growth since 2005. Half of the productivity growth that has been achieved can be attributed to digitisation.
“There is little doubt about what technology and digitisation mean for welfare, value creation and the competitiveness of our economy. We therefore regard ICT and digitisation as a strategic competitive advantage for Norway,” says Sanner.
The white paper describes how better access to ICT competence in the public and private sectors, regulation better adapted to a digital society, and a public sector as a demanding customer will serve as policy instruments to achieve these goals. The Government will also facilitate Norwegian enterprises’ participation in the digital single market in Europe.
Better education
In Norway the proportion of ICT specialists and graduates in the field of mathematics, the natural sciences and technology is low compared with many other countries.
“The supply of ICT expertise is vital to our ability to restructure and strengthen competitive ability in business and industry and to establishing startups and creating new jobs. The Government will therefore strengthen its investment in ICT educational programmes in Norway,” says Sanner.
The Government is considering: establishing more study places in advanced ICT expertise; facilitating fewer, larger and stronger scientific ICT communities; strengthening ICT research through the Long-term Plan for Research and Higher Education; and including a clearly defined technology perspective in basic education. Already from next autumn, the Government will be launching programming as an optional subject in several lower secondary schools.
Data-driven innovation
Public registers and databases contain vast amounts of valuable data. The Government will develop strategies to make data from important sectors, such as publicly funded research, cultural activities, transport and communication, government expenditure, and maps and properties, more accessible.
“Access to open public data leads to new services, entrepreneurship, business development and a more open and democratic society. Giving others access to these data can create added value for the whole society,” says Sanner.
Big data is an area in the data-driven economy that can stimulate development of new services, solutions and jobs. The Government will encourage Norwegian industry and research institutions to use the EU’s research programmes and funding opportunities for big data projects and to consider whether big data can be applied in the public sector.
“We must make use of the market and cooperate with industry to increase our innovative strength. Innovation partnership will make it possible for the public sector to contribute to innovation and new thinking,” says Sanner.
The Government will strengthen innovation and business development in the area of care technology by adopting open standards and through increased use of innovative procurement procedures. The Government will also present a white paper on the framework conditions for industry that will include automation and digitisation.
Norway part of a European digital single market
The Government will pursue an active policy that will enable Norway to benefit from the digital single market in Europe.
“The Government will continue to pursue an active policy towards the EU in the digital area so that Norwegian enterprises can participate in the European single market. At the same time we will protect vital Norwegian interests related to consumer rights, copyright law, electronic communications, data protection and use of cloud services,” says Sanner.
Last year the European Commission launched its strategy for developing the digital single market (DSM). The goal is to enable public enterprises, business and industry and private individuals to interact easily and effectively across borders by digital means. This could provide access to a digital market with more than 500 million people and offer significant gains for industry and the public sector.

The Government has decided that the national memorial site to commemorate the victims of the terrorist acts of 22 July 2011 will be completed at Sørbråten in the municipality of Hole in 2017.
“We will never forget the attacks on the government building complex and at Utøya on 22 July 2011. The attacks were a tragedy for everybody who was affected, and touched us as a community and nation. National memorial sites are important places where we as a nation can grieve, mourn those we lost, and unite in support of the values that came under attack and were put to the test on that day,” says Minister of Local Government and Modernisation Jan Tore Sanner.
In June 2012, the Stoltenberg Government decided to create two permanent national memorial sites, one at the government building complex in Oslo and a second in the municipality of Hole. In March 2013, the Stoltenberg Government specified that the national memorial in Hole would be located at Sørbråten.
The Storting approved costs for building a national memorial at Sørbråten in December 2013, and in February 2014 Jonas Dahlberg, from Sweden, won an international competition for the design of the memorial sites. Initially, completion of the Hole memorial was scheduled for 22 July 2015.
In response to the strong and divergent views expressed by those affected by the terrorist acts, the Government decided to delay creation of the memorial site. The National Support Group for Victims of the 22 July Attacks favours construction of the memorial site as planned; the neighbours at Sørbråten, however, do not want the memorial in their local environment.
“The local residents should have been involved more actively from the start. That is why we have met many times with the groups involved, both together and separately, as well as with the municipality of Hole and with individuals. Throughout, our overriding objective has been to find a solution that everybody is willing to support,” Sanner says.
Over the winter a new process was undertaken to try to find a solution agreeable to all parties. Important participants included the National Support Group for Victims of the 22 July Attacks and the local residents’ association Utstranda Velforening. Meetings have been held with the various parties, both separately and together. In addition, alternative locations for the monument have been considered at the request of local residents and their association.
“The uncertainty surrounding the creation of the memorial site is an extra weight for everyone involved. The Government has had a strong desire to arrive at a solution that unites everybody, but has now come to realise that this will be impossible. At the same time, everyone wants a decision to be made now,” Sanner says.
“We will therefore adopt the central governmental zoning plan for the area and plan for an opening of the memorial site in the summer of 2017.”
“We are intent on putting mitigation measures in place to minimise the burden on the local community. For road safety purposes the central government will fund street lighting along the county road that runs past Sørbråten. We will also discuss other road safety measures with the municipality and the county,” Sanner adds.
The Ministry of Culture is in dialogue with the artist to consider minor adjustments in the design of the artwork.
“The artist fully understands that there may be a need to adjust the design of the memorial site, and we are in touch with him via KORO (Public Art Norway). Together with KORO we will also look into the possibility of designing an expression of gratitude and recognition to the local community in connection with the national memorial site,” says Minister of Culture Linda Hofstad Helleland.
A memorial site will also be created at the government building complex in Oslo. The two art projects, in Hole and Oslo, are linked artistically, so that further planning of the Oslo memorial monument will depend on progress and clarifications regarding the memorial site in Hole as well as on the continuing work of planning the new government building complex.

Danish-Norwegian aviation company Air Service Vamdrup with workshop facilities in Vamdrup, Denmark, and at Eggemoen, Norway, has been appointed as an Authorized Piper Service Center in Norway. The appointment means better service to Northern European and especially Norwegian Piper aircraft owners.

Air Service Vamdrup ApS, headquartered in Vamdrup, Denmark, and since May 2014 with a Norwegian ‘branch’ of the company at Eggemoen, aka ‘Air Service Eggemoen’, has just been appointed as an authorized Piper Service Center in Norway. The appointment means that the company is now closer to the US aircraft manufacturer Piper – and may now perform warranty work on Piper aircraft, has a hotline directly to Piper if help is needed, for e.g. troubleshooting, and that spare parts can be purchased directly from Piper etc.

– Basically, our new status as an authorized service center means that Piper owners can expect an even better service, Torben Biehl Jensen, Business Development Director of Air Service Vamdrup, explains. – There are many Piper aircraft in Norway, old as well as new, so we are pleased to be able to offer owners of these aircraft an additional service. Also, Piper is of course a good, solid product, one of the large, well-established manufacturers that have been active in the GA-market since people began building airplanes – so it’s nice to get even closer to them, Torben Biehl Jensen says.

Air Service Vamdrup and Eggemoen work closely with the Danish aircraft sales company European Aircraft Sales, the official Piper dealer throughout Scandinavia, owned and operated by Katja Nielsen and Bjarne Jorsal. – European Aircraft Sales has identified us as the preferred workshop in Norway, and this in combination with our expertise and experience has made it clear for Piper to appoint us, Torben Biehl Jensen explains.

Piper aircraft, however, are by no means new in an Air Service Vamdrup context. – We have performed maintenance on Piper aircraft since our company was established in 1988 – for roughly 30 years, so we know these planes in and out and always follow up on the newest developments. The fact that warranty work and even better access to and closer co-operation with Piper is added to our services only strengthen our skills and dedication, he concludes.

Piper’s small Archer DX diesel version, launched in 2014 and equipped with a Continental 2.0 S engine, is also one of Air Service Vamdrup’s specific areas of competence. The company is in fact – in addition to now being an authorized Piper Service Center – also an authorized Continental Diesel Engine Distributor & Installation Center in Scandinavia.

An employee of IBM’s research laboratory in Rueschlikon in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland, works on a scanning tunneling microscope, pictured on July 31, 2008. Since 1962 IBM conducts research in Rueschlikon, where today it employs around 300 collaborators. (KEYSTONE/Alessandro Della Bella)
Eine Mitarbeiterin des IBM-Forschungslabors in Rueschlikon im Kanton Zuerich arbeitet am 31. Juli 2008 an einem Rastertunnelmikroskop. Seit 1962 forscht IBM in Rueschlikon, wo heute ungefaehr 300 Mitarbeiter fuer das Unternehmen taetig sind. (KEYSTONE/Alessandro Della Bella)

Two scientists working in Switzerland have won the prestigious Kavli prize for nanoscience, bestowed every two years by Norwegian and American institutions.

Gerd Binnig of the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory and the University of Basel’s Christoph Gerber, as well as their colleague Calvin Quate of Stanford University, were awarded $1 million (CHF990,000) in total for their work on atomic force microscopy. That technology allows scientists to observe how individual atoms are arranged on a surface and manipulate them.

It is the first time Swiss scientists have been honoured with the Kavli prize, which has been given every two years since 2008 by the The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, The Kavli Foundation and The Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. In addition to nanoscience, Kavli prizes are also given for astrophysics and neuroscience.

This year, the astrophysics prize went to scientists from the California and Massachusetts Institutes of Technology for the direct detection of gravitational waves. The neuroscience award was given to researchers from Brandeis University, the Univresity of California at San Francisco and Stanford University “for the discovery of mechanisms that allow experience and neural activity to remodel brain function,” according to the prize committee.
Prize winners will be honoured at a ceremony in Oslo at the same venue that hosts the Nobel prizes.

(swissinfo)