Tag: norway

Tests Find Chinese Manufacturer Can Manipulate Electric Buses in Norway

Safety tests by a public transport operator in Oslo, Norway, conducted have raised grave concerns over Chinese electric buses.

The operator known as Ruter conducted secret trials a few months ago on an electric bus from a European manufacturer and one from China’s Yutong to determine if there were cybersecurity threats, MENAFN reported Wednesday.

The European bus remained secure but the Chinese-made one had the ability to be manipulated by its manufacturer.

The manufacturer has access to buses’ software, diagnostics, and battery control systems, therefore the manufacturer could stop or render the vehicle unusable, Ruter explained.

The article continued:

Arild Tjomsland, a special advisor at the University of South-Eastern Norway who assisted with the tests, emphasized the risks: “The Chinese bus can be stopped, turned off, or receive updates that can destroy the technology that the bus needs to operate normally.”

He noted that while hackers and suppliers cannot steer the buses, the ability to stop them could disrupt operations or serve as leverage during a crisis.

During former President Joe Biden’s (D) push for green energy, Chinese automakers were looking to flood the United States market with cheap electric vehicles (EVs), Breitbart News reported in 2023. The following year, Chinese companies were testing their autonomous vehicles on American roads, raising concerns about the data they were collecting as they mapped the nation.

In addition, Breitbart News reported in September 2024, “The British government’s open-doors approach to electric vehicles from Communist China threatens to undercut domestic manufacturing and expose the country to national security risks, with a think tank warning that EVs could be ‘weaponized’ by Beijing.”

In regard to the issue in Oslo, Ruter Director Bernt Reitan Jenssen said, “We’ve found that everything that is connected poses a risk — and that includes buses. There is a risk that for example suppliers could take control, but also that other players could break into this value chain and influence the buses,” the Economic Times reported Tuesday.

The MENAFN article said the test results were forwarded to officials at the Ministry of Transport and Communications in Norway.

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Three Germans arrested in Norway over drone incident

Three Germans have been arrested in Norway for allegedly launching a drone in a prohibited zone around an airport, Bild has reported. 

The outlet cited local media as saying the three men were detained on Tuesday and released shortly afterwards. It did not identify the men or the type of UAV involved in the incident near Rossvoll Airport. 

Separately, Norwegian police confirmed that a Chinese national was deported and fined 12,000 kroner ($1,200) after allegedly flying a drone near Svolvaer Airport in the north of the country. Authorities said they are continuing to investigate multiple reports of drone activity near airports, military facilities and other critical infrastructure.

The incidents come as Western Europe has been plagued by repeated drone sightings in recent weeks, forcing temporary shutdowns at several airports. In Belgium, authorities confirmed that 15 drones were detected above the Elsenborn military base in Liege Province. Munich Airport in Germany was temporarily closed on Friday after unidentified drones were reported in its airspace. Scandinavian airports have also reported incursions.

Western media and officials have suggested that Russia is behind the drone incidents. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson claimed it is “quite probable” Moscow is responsible, although he admitted this has not been proven. European leaders have cited the incidents as justification for boosting military spending and creating a so-called “drone wall.”

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Norwegian royal charged with rape; police say victim count in double digits

The eldest son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit and stepson of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon, Marius Borg Høiby is facing charges of multiple counts of rape, sexual assault and bodily harm.

The charges come after a month-long investigation following Høiby’s multiple arrests in 2024. Oslo Police Attorney Andreas Kruszewski confirmed that the number of victims is in the “double-digits.”

Kruszewski said the charges include one case of rape with intercourse, two cases of rape without intercourse, four cases of sexual assault and two cases of bodily harm, the Associated Press reported. Kruszewski also reportedly said that 28-year-old Høiby was cooperative during police questioning.

The Oslo Police District put out a statement saying that they carried out a “thorough investigation”, with a “large number of witness interviews, several searches and a review of extensive digital material,” according to a BBC translation.

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Norway Disavows Private Company Refusing to Fuel American Ships & Russia Attacks Supply Line

A private Norwegian fuel supplier Haltbakk Bunkers, has said after the way Zelensky was treated by Trump, they are cutting off all fuel for American Ships. The Norwegian government has disavowed that policy, assuring the United States this is not a government policy and that American ships will be refueled, contrary to the statement of Haltbakk Bunkers.

Meanwhile, since Zelensky has refused to accept any cease-fire, we should expect to see the fighting now escalate. Russia has now attacked a cargo ship, Swiss-owned MSC LEVANTE F, a Panama-flagged, with missiles to “sink” it after they received reliable information that the vessel carried British weapons to aid Ukraine that included drones and weaponry loaded in Turkey before being taken to the Ukrainian city of Odesa. This demonstrates that Zelensky’s refusal to accept any cease-fire warrants an escalation that will now target the Ukrainian supply line. This is a standard military tactic, and it is surprising that Russia has waited so long to take this step.

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Norwegian Defense Minister Forced to Intervene After Fuel Supplier Threatens to Cut Off U.S. Military Vessels

A Norwegian marine fuel supplier just learned a harsh lesson in geopolitics after its attempt to cut off the U.S. military backfired spectacularly.

Haltbakk Bunkers, one of Norway’s major fuel providers, announced it would no longer supply fuel to American military vessels in Norwegian ports. The reason? A temper tantrum over President Donald Trump’s unapologetic America First foreign policy.

This stunt came after a heated exchange between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Trump, standing firm with Vice President J.D. Vance by his side, reprimanded Zelensky for his entitled attitude toward U.S. aid, calling him out for refusing to engage in meaningful peace negotiations with Russia.

Trump went so far as to accuse Zelensky of “gambling with World War Three” before abruptly ending the meeting.

Enraged by Trump’s unwavering stance, Haltbakk Bunkers released an unhinged statement on social media, declaring, “No Fuel to Americans!” and urging other European companies to follow suit.

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Stats Show Almost One in Two Young Somali Men in Oslo Commit Violent Crime

Official statistics out of Norway reveal that almost one in two young Somali men aged between 15-24 living in Oslo have been charged with a violent crime.

According to figures from the Norwegian Central Statistics Office, 483 ethnic Somali men in that age bracket have been prosecuted for violent crimes.

That compares with 32 out of 1,000 ethnic Norwegians who have been charged with assault.

As we previously highlighted, a 2019 study out of Norway found that children of migrants commit more crimes than their parents.

According to the data, Norwegian born men aged 15-35 with a Somali family background were 4.6 times more likely to have committed a violent crime.

Men in the same age group with Iraqi backgrounds were 4 times more likely to have committed a violent crime, while the same pattern is observed in Moroccan Norwegians (3.2), Turkish Norwegians (2.8), and Pakistani Norwegians (2.4).

Chronic problems caused by mass migration have again been in focus over the last week as Elon Musk takes Keir Starmer’s Labour government to task over its refusal to approve a new inquiry into Muslim grooming gangs.

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BIG WIN: Dairy Producer STOPS Using Bovaer After Boycott

I have some very big and very good news for you today.

One of the largest dairy producers in Norway has now STOPPED giving their cows the methane suppressant Bovaer.

This is a major development.

The two largest dairy producers in Norway, Tine and Q-Meieriene began using Bovaer already in 2023 to make their cows fart less and reduce climate emissions.

They began to sell this as ”climate milk” in the stores. However, this was not popular at all with consumers. So guess what happened?

The dairy producer Tine stopped selling their climate milk, and instead just put it together with the normal milk without telling anyone. So people are now getting milk from cows being fed a TOXIC chemical without even knowing.

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Sabotage Confirmed At Norwegian Air Base

Norway has revealed that one of its most strategic air bases has been the target of sabotage. The announcement comes as other European NATO air bases — namely in Germany — report incidents, one of which remains unexplained, as well as troubling drone activity over critical infrastructure. These incidents come amid increasing warnings about nefarious Russian activity on the continent, part of an apparent wave of ‘hybrid warfare’ as the conflict in Ukraine further stokes East-West tensions.

Reports emerged today from The Barents Observer that a critical communications cable associated with Evenes Air Station, in northern Norway, had been severed. The incident occurred in April and was reported to the police, but has only now been announced, as state prosecutors investigate what happened.

The precise function of the cable has not been disclosed, but reports describe it as being “part of the air base’s critical infrastructure,” and that it was cut outside the airfield’s perimeter. The Norwegian Police have confirmed that it was severed in a deliberate action but that, so far, no one has been charged, and no suspects have been identified at this point.

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Mysterious 2,500-Year-Old Graveyard Found Filled With Young Children

Ancient archaeological discoveries can be confusing, exciting, intriguing, educational – and occasionally just a little creepy, as a new excavation of a 2,500-year-old graveyard site in Norway has proved.

Here’s the creepy part: the main cluster of graves, comprising 39 individual bodies, were all for children under the age of six – based on a close study of the fragments of bones that had escaped being cremated.

There were two other graves containing adult bodies but these were separate from the main group.

However, it’s not certain that anything sinister has gone on. This would’ve been a time when the infant mortality rate was relatively high – though questions remain about why the graves were separate, rather than communal.

“There was something special about the whole site,” excavation leader Guro Fossum, an archaeologist from the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, told Mette Estep of Science Norway.

“Cooking pits and fireplaces around the site suggest that gatherings and ceremonies were held in connection with burials.”

The graves span a long time in history, across the transition between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.

When the excavation in Østfold county first began – to clear the ground for the expansion of a local quarry – archaeologists were expecting to find artifacts from the Stone Age, rather than graves from two millennia later.

Most of the burials would’ve happened between 800 and 200 BCE, the researchers say, and were placed close to thoroughfares in terms of their location – so it’s something the whole community would’ve known about. It doesn’t look like these were secret burials.

“Additionally, all the graves were so nice and meticulously crafted,” Fossum told Science Norway. “Each stone was sourced from a different location and placed precisely in the formation. We wondered who put in so much effort.”

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Can US prisons take a page from Norway? Five questions.

Earlier this year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a new vision for the San Quentin State Penitentiary, centered on rehabilitation and job training, inspired by another prison system that has halved its recidivism rate – in Norway.

The re-imagining of California’s most notorious prison, infamous for housing the nation’s largest death row population, could prove pivotal in how the United States rethinks rehabilitation and staff wellness within prisons. 

About 2 out of 3 Americans released from jails and prisons per year are arrested again, and 50% are re-incarcerated, according to the Harvard Political Review. In Norway, that rate is as low as 20%. 

As more U.S. states seek to improve their correctional systems, the Norwegian model could prove key. It aims to create a less hostile environment, both for people serving time and for prison staff, with the goal of more successfully helping incarcerated people reintegrate into society.

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