In the face of geopolitical uncertainty and US hostility, “momentum for EU enlargement appears to be growing”, said Politico.

Iceland and Norway, founding members of Nato, have access to the EU’s single market via its European Economic Area, but are the only Nordic countries outside the bloc. Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats to Nato ally Greenland have, however, significantly increased support for joining the EU in both countries.

Last year, Reykjavík’s new governing coalition promised a referendum by 2027 on whether to restart frozen membership talks. That’s “being sped up”. Reykjavík will announce the date of the ballot within the next few weeks, sources told Politico.

What did the commentators say?

Iceland applied to join the EU in 2009 after its financial crisis. But when the economy stabilised and flourished, an incoming centre-right government froze membership talks in 2013. But the EU “has changed a lot” since then, Iceland’s foreign minister told Bloomberg. The world is also a “different place now”, said Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir. In that context, she will submit a bill on the referendum “before the summer”.

Iceland would benefit from expanding its access to free trade agreements, said Bloomberg. Its economy, reliant on fishing and tourism, is “prone to booms and busts”.

But shockwaves caused by the US president’s threats to neighbouring Greenland are pushing Iceland “closer to the EU”, said Xenia Heiberg on Euractiv. Icelanders are being forced to evaluate bloc membership “not as an economic choice”, but as a “question of long-term defence and geopolitical alignment”.

“All of the arguments that the US is bringing forth as reasons for why they must acquire Greenland, would apply to Iceland as well,” said Eirikur Bergmann, politics professor at Iceland’s Bifrost University.

Iceland is the only Nato member without an army, relying on a defence agreement with the US for security. That, more than the economic benefits, is “warming public attitudes” about joining the bloc, said Politico. Trump mentioned Iceland four times in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which “focused minds”, as one anonymous EU official told Politico. His nominee for ambassador to Iceland also joked that the strategically important Arctic country would “become the 52nd US state”. That “increased the urgency”.

There has since been a “flurry of visits” from EU politicians to Iceland and vice versa. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hosted Iceland’s Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir in Brussels last month, saying their partnership “offers stability and predictability in a volatile world”.

Norway, the “closest non-member country to the EU”, has voted no in two referendums on joining the bloc, said the Financial Times. But Trump’s tariffs and the war in Ukraine mean Norway is suffering by staying out of the EU, according to its foreign minister. “We are acutely aware that the delta between EU membership and EEA membership is increasing,” said Espen Barth Eide last year.

Its security had long been “based on the assumption” that the US would “guarantee its safety”, said Minna Ålander, associate fellow of Chatham House’s Europe Programme. But Trump’s threats to the territory of neighbouring Denmark clarified that “previously close relations” guarantee nothing. Support for EU membership has since “risen considerably”. The majority of the public still opposes it, but now supports holding a new referendum on it. In a multipolar world order, EU membership is “crucial for any small European state, including Norway”.

The “common thread” between Iceland and Norway is a pivot away from “domestic considerations” toward the framing of the EU as an “existential geopolitical and security anchor, should Nato reliability erode”, said Daniel Hegedüs, Central Europe director for The German Marshall Fund of the United States (a Berlin-based think-tank). The EU should use the Greenland crisis to “go on the geopolitical offensive” and “reinvigorate the Nordic enlargement” of the bloc, he wrote on EUobserver.

What next?

Iceland’s path to EU membership “isn’t straightforward”, said Politico. Even if Icelanders vote yes in a referendum on restarting talks, there would be another on membership. That could be a “high bar to clear”.

Norway’s leadership has, for now, “ruled out a renewed EU debate”, said Ålander in Chatham House. But it is watching Iceland’s referendum closely. The eight Nordic-Baltic countries have emerged as a “new centre of gravity in northern Europe”; six are EU members. Adding Norway and Iceland would help “boost regional cohesion”.

A new European security architecture is “beginning to take shape”. Inclusion may no longer be “delineated by Nato membership, but rather along the borders of the EU”.

The upcoming trial of the son of Norway’s crown princess has rocked the already beleaguered royal family.

Marius Borg Høiby, stepson of the Crown Prince (and future king) Haakon, is facing charges including the alleged rape of four women, abuse of two women, and threat to kill a man. His lawyer says Høiby “denies all charges of sexual abuse, as well as the majority of the charges regarding violence”. If convicted, the 29-year-old faces up to 10 years in prison.

The trial, much of which will be open to the public, begins in Oslo on Tuesday. The “extraordinary” case adds to the “already considerable woes of the Norwegian royal house”, said The Sunday Times.

‘Horrific’ attack

Crown Princess Mette-Marit, a single mother from a non-aristocratic background, married Crown Prince Haakon in 2001. Her son Høiby, whose father was in prison for drug offences at the time of his birth, was four when his mother married the heir to the throne. Høiby was raised as part of the royal family but without any claim to the throne.

In August 2024, police were called to a flat in an “upmarket district of western Oslo” over a case of suspected domestic violence. They found “a knife embedded in the wall and the chandelier shattered into fragments”. The victim said she had been hit, pinned to the bed and “repeatedly choked so that she could not breathe”, according to prosecutors.

“The ferocity of the attack, thought to have been the culmination of months of abuse, made it especially horrific,” said The Sunday Times. “But it shocked Norwegians for another reason” – the alleged perpetrator was Høiby; the victim his then girlfriend.

In a statement, he said he had acted “under the influence of alcohol and cocaine after an argument”, having suffered from "mental troubles” and been struggling “for a long time with substance abuse”.

Another ex-girlfriend claimed that she had also been abused “physically and psychologically” – claims “echoed by Høiby’s next partner”. “Even more serious” revelations followed Høiby’s second arrest in September that year, and third in November.

Høiby was charged last August with 32 offences; this week, the public prosecutor’s office added six more. The “most serious” of the new charges occurred in 2020, said Vanity Fair. Høiby is “said to have received and transported at least 3.5kg of marijuana” to a location an hour and a half away by car. Høiby, “once seen as a symbol of the openness of the monarchy, has acknowledged those allegations as true”.

Tarnished reputation

The case is just “one of the challenges” facing Norway’s royals. Harald V, who has been king since 1991, is 88 and “in delicate health”. Last month, the royal palace announced that Mette-Marit will probably need a lung transplant after “years of chronic illness” that forced her to withdraw from royal duties.

And just weeks after Høiby’s first arrest, the king’s eldest daughter, Princess Märtha Louise – whose “money-making antics have been a constant source of embarrassment” – married Durek Verrett, “an American conspiracy theorist and self-professed shaman”, said The Sunday Times.

Last year, a Netflix documentary about the couple “premiered to immediate controversy in Norway”, said Royal Central. The royal family was “rocked by the revelations” in “Rebel Royals: an Unlikely Love Story”, which, among other things, “established that the couple had broken their agreement with the royal family to not use their titles in connection with business ventures”.

Membership of the republican association Norge som republikk has “more than tripled in the last two years”, according to its leader Craig Aaen-Stockdale, said The Guardian. The royal family “has traditionally seen high levels of support”, he said. They were “viewed as a relatively harmless bunch”. But many Norwegians “are now reconsidering their position”. The “ongoing omniscandal” has “really tarnished the reputation of the younger royals”.

You spend enough time on land. For your next vacation, consider heading under the sea. Swap your shoes for fins and clothes for swimsuits, then embark on an aquatic escapade. Here are eight options, which include exploring an underwater art museum, dining in a submerged restaurant and even sleeping with the fishes (in a very alive way).

Eat at Under in Lindesnes, Norway

Halfway submerged in the icy waters of the North Sea is Under, a “striking” restaurant with a focus on just-caught seafood and seasonal ingredients, said The Michelin Guide. Under calls itself a “living periscope,” and diners are seated in front of a 36-foot panoramic window that looks out into the water and doubles as a "marine-themed art installation.” Its innovative menus and delightful ambiance earned the restaurant a Michelin star.

Explore the Museum of Underwater Art in Australia 

Snorkelers and scuba divers glide by dozens of underwater art installations at this museum filled with sunken treasures. The Museum of Underwater Art is in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and features work by eco-sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor, whose “fascinating” art brings “greater awareness to our threatened oceans,” said Afar. Highlights include “Coral Greenhouse,” the world’s largest underwater art structure, and “Ocean Sentinels,” a series of “hybrid-human figure sculptures” of marine scientists and conservationists who protect the Great Barrier Reef.

Go to an underwater winery in Hvar, Croatia

Winemaking has been a vital part of sunny Hvar’s heritage for thousands of years. The grapes may grow above ground, but sometimes the final product can be found underwater. Edivo winery keeps a few bottles of its Navis Mysterium wine inside a shipwreck near the coast of Drace and organizes dives for visitors who want to explore this unusual cellar. Zlatan Otok provides a similar opportunity, offering wine tastings inside its “stone cellar under the sea,” said Travel and Leisure.

Imbibe at Sip ’N Dip in Great Falls, Montana

Mermaids are real, and they can be found in the middle of Montana. The Sip ’N Dip lounge opened inside the O’Haire Inn in 1962 and quickly became a “national curiosity,” due to its large glass windows that looked into the swimming pool, said KRTV. During those early days, swimmers entertained patrons before being replaced by mermaids with shiny tails. Every night, they splash around in front of excited crowds enjoying classic tiki sips, offering a kitschy throwback to the days of funky roadside attractions.

Splash around at Atlantis’ Aquaventure in the Bahamas

There are plenty of fun things to do at the massive Atlantis resort, and tackling Aquaventure is at the “top of the list,” said The Boston Globe. The behemoth 20-million-gallon water park covers 141 acres and has 14 pools, a rapid river and some of the most exhilarating water slides anywhere. Several plunge thrillseekers deep underwater, like the Leap of Faith, which includes a vertical drop into a “clear tunnel submerged in a shark-filled lagoon,” and the corkscrew Serpent Slide that ends with a leisurely ride in a tunnel surrounded by marine life.

Stay in Manta Resort Pemba Island’s Underwater Room in Tanzania

It doesn’t get more immersive than this. The “one-of-a-kind” Underwater Room at Manta Resort Pemba Island is a three-level floating suite about 800 feet from shore, with the bedroom below the surface of the Indian Ocean, said Travel and Leisure. The bed is surrounded by almost 360 degrees of glass, and schools of fish, octopus and squid regularly travel by (at night, dim lights are activated to attract nocturnal marine life). There’s also a sunbathing deck and shaded lounge area, and guests are given snorkeling gear and curated meals delivered by boat. All profits from stays in the Underwater Room go back into local marine conservation projects.

Swim with humpbacks off the island of Mo’orea

Whales are respected in French Polynesia, and Mo’orea is a “prime destination for swimming with the gentle giants,” said the BBC. Guided tours are available for small groups, with strict protections in place for the safety of the whales; boats and swimmers must keep their distance. The peak season is July through November, and those lucky enough to come across a majestic humpback on their tour can expect an “otherworldly” and “humbling” opportunity to “witness the magnificence of nature.”

Visit Reefline in Miami Beach, Florida

Art and sustainability collide at Reefline. Stretching seven miles off the shore of Miami Beach, it’s an “art installation, a restoration of the island’s coral habitat and an underwater tourist attraction,” said NPR. The sculptures are made to support fish, marine life and corals, and the plan is to plant thousands of corals here over the next decade. Because it’s only about 600 feet from shore, Reefline is easily accessible without a boat, and divers can paddle out or swim. The project launched in late 2025, and the inaugural installation is Leandro Etrlich’s “Concrete Coral,” featuring 22 cars made of marine-grade concrete.

Chances are you think of Norway as being in western Europe, since that’s where the bulk of it lies. But in its far north, it arcs eastwards over the top of Sweden and Finland, says Kat Hill in The Observer, until it teeters high above Russia, at the same longitude as St Petersburg and Kyiv. There, at the country’s furthest tip, lies the Varanger Peninsula, much of which falls in the Varangerhalvøya National Park. A single road curls around this low-lying Arctic wilderness, following its southern shore along the vast Varangerfjord, out to the Barents Sea, and back over the peninsula to Hamningberg, on the roof of Europe. It’s a magnificent 100-mile drive, worth doing over several days.

Promoted as the Norwegian Scenic Route Varanger, the road around the peninsula is particularly popular with bird lovers. The Varangerfjord’s shallow waters, kept ice-free by the Gulf Stream, are rich in fish, supporting an “astounding” diversity of avian life. Seabirds rarely seen elsewhere in Europe come here in sometimes “staggering” numbers, with stars including the Steller’s eider, and there are several beautiful bird hides, built by the nature-architect firm Biotope, from which to watch the show. But birds are not Varanger’s only draw. There are also ancient sites such as Mortensnes, a large neolithic settlement set on a “narrow” clifftop, with rock circles, spirals and enclosures that are thousands of years old. And perched along the coast are fishing villages and small towns of “colourful” wooden houses.

There are some lovely places to stay, such as the Varangertunet guesthouse and the self-catering cabins of the Ekker Island Arctic Lodge. Visitors can take part in cultural experiences with the indigenous Sámi people, including dogsledding and cooking reindeer stew in lavvu tents. From October to March, the northern lights often appear. And there’s fabulous hiking and skiing on offer in the national park, a huge expanse of tundra and boulder fields laced with silver rivers over which sea eagles can often be seen, swooping low.

Venezuelan pro-democracy campaigner María Corina Machado has won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.

Despite an unprecedented – and public – campaign for the accolade by Donald Trump, the Norway-based prize committee chose Machado, in recognition of her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela”.

Who is María Corina Machado?

Now living in hiding and blocked from running for office, Machado is Venezuela’s main opposition leader and has, over two decades of resistance to authoritarianism, “hiked overpasses, walked highways, ridden motorcycles, sought shelter in supporters’ homes” and “seen her closest collaborators detained and persecuted”, said The Associated Press.

Born in Caracas in 1967, she studied engineering and finance and spent a short time working in business before, in 1992, establishing a charity to help street children. A decade later, she co-founded Súmate, an organisation that promotes free and fair elections, and carries out training and election monitoring.

In 2010, she was elected to Venezuela’s National Assembly but was expelled four years later after being accused of plotting to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro – charges the International Foundation for Electoral Systems called “unfounded”. She hoped to run for president in 2024 but was banned from doing so by Venezuela’s Supreme Court. Her subsequent support for Edmundo González Urrutia was widely believed to have won him the vote but Maduro declared victory for himself.

Since Maduro’s widely condemned re-election, Machado “has barely felt the sun on her skin”, said Elle in a profile published last month. She has made only a few, brief public appearances, and her three adult children live outside the country, along with her mother, sisters and ex-husband, due to the threats to their safety posed by the Maduro regime.

Who chooses the Nobel Peace Prize winner?

The Norwegian Nobel Committee chooses the winner of the Peace Prize and the five committee members are elected by Norway’s parliament, the Storting. Each member is elected for a six-year term, and can be re-elected.

Nobel rules mean committee members must “represent the strength of the different political parties in Norway’s parliament, but cannot be sitting members of the parliament”, said Al Jazeera.

The director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute acts as committee secretary, while the members themselves pick their chair and deputy chair.

This committee then accepts submissions for nominations for the award from “qualified nominators”, who include members of national governments, heads of state, and members of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Other nominators include officials with international peace organisations, and university professors of history, social sciences, law, philosophy and religion. Former recipients can also submit nominations – but nobody can nominate themselves.

The committee says the large number of potential nominators ensures a “great variety of candidates”, although the lack of clear criteria for a successful nomination means “the process has sometimes been taken advantage of, for nakedly political reasons”, said The New York Times. Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini were both nominated twice.

How do they decide on a winner?

This year, there were 338 nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize by the January deadline and, in March, the committee prepared a shortlist.

On Monday, the committee convened beneath a portrait of founder Alfred Nobel to share “coffee and pleasantries”, said the BBC, which this year, for the first time, was allowed a “behind-the-scenes glimpse of the process”. Proceedings always begin with a “reading of the criteria for the prize enshrined in Nobel’s will from 1895”, before debate gets underway behind closed doors.

“We discuss, we argue; there is a high temperature,” committee chair Jorgen Watne Frydnes told the broadcaster. “But also, of course, we are civilised, and we try to make a consensus-based decision every year.”

Have there been controversial winners?

The Nobel Peace Prize is “rarely awarded to the most humble, modest or compassionate nominee”, said political communications lecturer Colin Alexander on The Conversation. “Instead, it all-too often ends up in the hands of high-profile figures who want it.”

The institution “might want to claim it is fully independent and works on the principle of group consensus” but “the reality is that its decision is often a political one”.

One of the “most controversial decisions” was to award the 1973 prize to Henry Kissinger, then-US secretary of state. He had been “instrumental” in withdrawing of US troops from Vietnam but his background “advocating for the proliferation of nuclear weapons” means the committee’s decision “still divides opinion today”.

Along with Mussolini’s and Stalin’s nominations, Adolf Hitler was once nominated for the prize – albeit satirically by an anti-fascist Swedish lawmaker in 1939. None of them won – and in the year that Hitler was nominated, the prize wasn’t awarded at all. Meanwhile, Mahatma Gandhi was nominated five times but never won – an omission that is often remarked upon.

Why didn’t Donald Trump win?

This year, the selection process took place with Trump looming large over the whole affair. The US president made no secret of his ambition to win the prize and has repeatedly reeled off a list of the seven wars he says he has solved, claiming that “everyone says I should get it”.

He has “piled intense pressure” on the committee, said The Telegraph, even raising the issue in a phone call with Norway’s minister of finance. But insiders said the president “does not align with the ideals of the Nobel Peace Prize and his divisive leadership style will harm his quest for the award”. His “military posturing, US Aid cuts and worldwide tariffs conflict with the spirit of international harmony” that Nobel sought to promote.

Trump’s public campaigning was “very strange”, Henrik Syse, who previously sat on the prize committee, told the paper. But Kristian Berg Harpviken, secretary of the committee, said Trump’s overtures would not impact the process. The procedure is “set up to insulate the actual deliberations” from possible outside influences, he said.

Asle Toje, one of the sitting judges, warned that such campaigns are received poorly. “Some candidates push for it really hard,” he said, “and we do not like it.”

Heatwaves have hit Norway, Sweden, Finland and even the Arctic Circle this summer, with Finland recording a record run of 22 days above 30C.

Effects of this year's heatwave include toxic algal blooms in lakes and the Baltic Sea, overheated hospitals cancelling surgeries, and a spate of wildfires. "Tropical nights" are a particular threat to an ageing population and anyone with underlying health conditions. The last major heatwave in the Nordic region, in 2018, was linked to 750 deaths in Sweden alone and the data, once processed, is likely to reveal a similar toll for 2025.

"Even relatively cold Scandinavian countries are facing dangerous heatwaves today with 1.3C of warming," Professor Friederike Otto, a climatologist at Imperial College London, told The Guardian. "No country is safe from climate change."

Air-con alternatives

Climate change, caused by burning fossil fuels, made the heatwave at least 10 times more likely and 2C hotter, according to a World Weather Attribution (WWA) report. Every incremental rise matters: scientists say that even the relatively small 0.2C rise in global temperature since 2018 has doubled the chance of such heatwaves.

That's a problem for Scandinavian homes, which are designed to keep warmth in. Air-conditioning is rare, but locals manage the summer heat in low-tech ways, such as keeping blinds drawn all day before opening up windows in the evenings.

They also take to the water: clean coastlines, shorter working hours, less body-consciousness and prudishness about nudity, and a culture that's built around community beach clubs mean that it's commonplace for Danes and Swedes to go for a quick dip on their way to work or with their children after leaving the office at 4pm.

Less picturesque but equally effective, ice hockey rinks in Finland have been opened up for use as emergency cooling stations.

Santa's sweltering reindeer

Animals are also impacted by the heat, both directly and because their altered migration patterns in search of shade and water bring them dangerously close to human settlements.

Drivers have been asked to be alert for reindeer attracted to cool, dark tunnels. "I watched a reindeer stay in the same patch of shade for three days straight without grazing, a quiet sign of the strain the heat was causing," Maja Vahlberg, a Swedish expert at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, told The Guardian.

In Lapland, home to Santa's sleigh-pullers, a heat-driven increase in the insect population has driven reindeer from their natural grazing grounds and towards towns and roads.

The Arctic is warming four to five times faster than the rest of the Earth and there is no relief at night, when it stays light for up 20 hours per day in the summer. To protect the reindeer in future, herds may have to be housed in barns, with a knock-on effect on the livelihood and semi-nomadic lifestyle of Indigenous Sámi herders.

Some countries, like Greece and Indonesia, are known for their islands, but for every Santorini and Bali, there is a lesser-known haven like Kastellorizo or Lombok. These quieter islands are as stunning as their famous kin — but without the crowds. Here are eight of the finest.

Isla Robinson Crusoe, Chile

There is no place like Isla Robinson Crusoe. This island is remote, taking two hours to fly there from Santiago. It is covered in "unique flora, two-thirds of which is found nowhere else on Earth," Lonely Planet said, and it is "not uncommon to experience four seasons in one day." There is one town to visit, San Juan Bautista, and ample opportunity to go swimming, diving, hiking and learn about the castaways who inspired Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe."

Kastellorizo, Greece

Kastellorizo sits one mile from the Turkish coast, "where Europe ends and Asia begins," said Condé Nast Traveler. Because of this, the island "packs in a heady cocktail of cultures," with travelers able to visit ancient churches, tombs, monasteries and the Kastellorizo Historical Collection, housed in a mosque. There is "no nightlife to speak of" but plenty of natural beauty, including the Blue Grotto sea cave where you float "inside a dome of liquified blue light."

Lombok, Indonesia

Tranquil Lombok "feels like what Bali was three decades ago," said the Observer. Because it is "relatively undeveloped," visitors can settle in on their "own stretch of beach" and enjoy a day of looking at Lombok's "untouched beauty." Serious hikers should plan on climbing to the top of Mount Rinjani, an active volcano. While the trek is "not for the faint of heart," you will be rewarded with "beautiful panoramas."

Lummi Island, United States

Washington's Lummi Island is a "bucolic" slice of the Puget Sound, where creatives and nature lovers live in harmony, said Afar. Artists "find inspiration in the serenity," offering workshops and putting their wares on display during open studio tours held three times a year. Those who prefer being outside can hop in a kayak and forage for kelp or take a hike through the island's nature preserves.

Mafia Island, Tanzania

Often described as Tanzania's "best-kept secret," Mafia Island is the quintessential tropical destination, with "powdery white sand and diamond-clear waters," said Lonely Planet. Mafia Island Marine Park draws visitors who want to look at pristine mangroves, dive and snorkel by coral reefs and hopefully spot a whale shark (aka the world's biggest fish). You can try to see these "harmless giants" off the shores of Utende, Juani, Kitoni and Bweni beaches.

Sado Island, Japan

Once an isle for political exiles, Sado Island is now known for the annual Earth Celebration music festival, hosted by the Kodo taiko drumming group. It is also home to the Sado Island Gold Mines, one of UNESCO's newest World Heritage Sites. Dating back 400 years to the Edo period, these were "once Japan's largest gold and silver producers," said Afar, and visitors can explore two tunnels with displays on what life was like at the mine and different mining techniques.

Senja, Norway

Senja is the second-largest island in Norway, where "mountains plunge vertically into fjords" and "picturesque" fishing villages dot the coastline, CNN said. Depending on the season, visitors can hike, fish, ski and cycle, with the Northern Lights often appearing between September and April and the midnight sun shining through the summer. For the best views of Senja, hike to the top of Husfjellet mountain and soak up the stunning scenery.

Taveuni, Fiji

They call Taveuni the Garden Island for a reason. This is the "prettiest" of Fiji's isles and an "eco-tourist's wildest dream," said the Sydney Morning Herald, filled with waterfalls, tropical flowers and verdant vegetation. Surfers flock here for the waves, and scuba fans enjoy exploring the soft coral reefs and some of the "best dive sites" in the South Pacific.

"Are we a nation of money-grubbers and war profiteers?" That's what we must look like to our European neighbours, said Asbjørn Svarstad in Nettavisen (Oslo).

Norway is sitting on a huge war windfall that could solve the continent's problems in an instant. Our sovereign wealth fund is now worth €1.7 trillion – and €109 billion of that came straight from our neighbours' pockets. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin cut off Russian gas supplies, sending energy prices skyrocketing and leaving Norway to lap up the profits as the continent's biggest gas supplier. And given that our European allies are pushing their budgets to the limit to help fund Ukraine's fight for survival, we owe it to them to plough that money back into rearmament. Yet until last week, when, under significant pressure, the government more than doubled its contribution to €7 billion – we were the "Uncle Scrooge" of Europe: shamefully, we've donated less to Ukraine as a share of GDP than our Scandinavian neighbours.

Even €7 billion is a "pathetic" amount, said Peter Wolodarski and Christian Jensen, the editors (respectively) of a Swedish and a Danish newspaper, in Aftenposten (Oslo). We used to view the home of the Nobel Peace Prize as a generous and globally orientated country. Now we "don't recognise our Norwegian brothers and sisters".

But Norway's government has stood its ground, said Håvard Halland in the FT (London). Even the finance minister, Jens Stoltenberg, who previously as head of Nato pushed countries to give more, argues against donating more to Ukraine. The wealth fund is governed by strict fiscal rules, he argues: it's specifically designed "for future generations of Norwegians".

And he's not alone in flatly rejecting the idea that Norway has a "special responsibility" to help Ukraine, said Eirik Røsvik in Verdens Gang (Oslo). Norway's former finance minister, Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, argues that Norway has no need to penalise itself for being a perfectly legitimate energy exporter. And besides, he says, "if Norway were suddenly to give three times as much as, let's say, Germany has done, other countries will soon give less". Far better, he believes, that Norway just remains a "stable" ally of Ukraine.

Alas, my country is drunk on "the illusion of wealth", said Knut N. Kjær in Aftenposten. Oil riches aren't the same as power, and we're still a small vulnerable country on the border of Vladimir Putin's imperialism. "More than ever, we need predictability and security in our relationship with Europe", and we won't get that by being "opportunistic egoists". In fact, donating the windfall would be an investment in our future. Ukrainian soldiers are battling an "existential threat to freedom and democracy" – not just to their own country but to ours, too.

Norway has cemented its reign as a leader in electric vehicle purchases with nine out of 10 new cars sold in Norway last year being powered by electricity.

The Scandinavian nation is "leagues ahead" in the “electric car race", said Quartz, and has "become the poster child" for the transition to EVs, said DW.

Green and robust

As far back as the 1990s, Norway set out to manufacture EVs and, although "early attempts" had "limited commercial success", they "fostered public awareness and acceptance of electromobility", said the outlet.

Norway's "remarkable commitment" to fighting climate change has been "driven by strong government policies, robust infrastructure, and a supportive public". Its "wealth and size" played a part in its "EV success" – it has a population of 5.5 million and is one of the world's richest nations, thanks to substantial oil and gas reserves, ironically.

Norway "penalises" petrol and diesel cars with "high taxes", said Reuters, and exempts EVs from import and value-added taxes to "make them more attractive", although "some levies" were reintroduced in 2023. EVs have been exempt from road tolls and parking fees and were allowed to use bus lanes in and around the capital, Oslo.

The approach has worked because it has been "consistent over time" and maintained by governments of "various political persuasion", said the outlet, in contrast to other countries where "someone puts tax incentives or exemptions and then they pull back again," said Christina Bu, head of the Norwegian EV association.

Offering incentives, rather than banning petrol and diesel cars, has also helped, said the outlet, and another advantage is that Norway "does not have an automaker lobby". Norway's power grid is "one of the greenest and most robust in the world", said DW, and usually produces a "surplus of energy", which helped ease the home charging of EVs.

Ambitious goal

Norway has set a target for all cars sold to be zero-emission vehicles by the end of 2025, a milestone that would put it a decade ahead of the European Union, of which it is not a member.

But "reaching that ambitious goal" will "likely be a difficult task", said Quartz. Øyvind Solberg Thorsen, from the Norwegian Road Federation, said that "the figures and the increase in share show that the last few percentages" to meet the 2025 target may be "difficult to achieve".

While nearly all new buyers of cars in Norway have gone electric, "some hold-outs remain", noted Reuters, particularly among rental companies, which prefer to use cars that are familiar for tourists.

If the thought of scorching beaches and sweaty crowds is enough to put you off booking a holiday altogether this summer, a "coolcation" could be exactly what you need.

As heatwaves intensify and wildfires blaze, shade seekers are eschewing Europe's sunniest spots for breezier alternatives. According to a new survey from the European Travel Commission reported in The Guardian, 76% of European travellers are adapting their behaviour to the climate crisis, and 17.3% are avoiding destinations with extreme temperatures.

But escaping the heat doesn't have to be dull. From windswept archipelagos to secluded beaches, these are the very best cooler, quieter destinations in Europe for a memorable summer break.

Edinburgh, Scotland

"Scots may grumble about the cold, wet weather over winter," said Amelia Stout in Time Out, but come summer, Scotland is the "perfect oasis" for those seeking a cooler holiday destination. Head to Edinburgh in August and "you won't get too sweaty legging it from one show to the next" during the world-renowned Fringe festival. From the capital, "outdoorsier types" could consider heading north for a weekend of hiking in the Highlands.

Haarlem, Netherlands

Amsterdam's quieter neighbour serves "a slice of Dutch cool without the sweaty shoulder brushes of strangers", said Natalie Wilson in The Independent. Known for its hofjes (enclosed courtyard gardens) and pretty cobblestone streets, there are plenty of shady spots to escape the midday sun – and temperatures in August rarely go above 19C anyway. Haarlem is also famed for its beautiful tulip fields (visit between late March and mid-May for peak bloom).

Sylt, Germany

A favoured spot among the "German elite", this affluent island in the Frisian archipelago lures travellers with its "pristine pale sands", pinstriped strandkorbs (hooded wicker seats) and "mild microclimate", said The Independent. Add to the mix its "lighthouse scattered peninsulas" and burgeoning collection of gourmet restaurants, and it becomes clear why this "balmy under-the-radar beach break" should be added to your list.

Vilnius, Lithuania

Vilnius has been "cool for a while now", said Laura Chubb in Conde Nast Traveller, but the addition of its MO modern art museum six years ago really "etched it on the map for design nerds". Despite its burgeoning cultural and foodie scene, Lithuania's capital is still "mercifully off radar" – and doesn't get too hot over summer, either.

Stockholm, Sweden

"Why have you never thought of this before?" asked Conde Nast Traveller. Stockholm is a "hip" European city that's "neither too hot nor crowded come August" – and has plenty of beaches to explore. While temperatures rarely climb above 22C, the light-filled days bring out the locals, who are "picnicking and boating en masse". The cooler summer temperatures are also ideal for cycling, which, "in true Scandi-style, is the best way to get around town".

Oslo, Norway

"No Norway coolcation is complete without exploring Oslo, the home of Scandi-cool," said Time Out. From outdoor saunas to open-air sculpture parks, there is plenty to keep you busy. Combine a visit to the capital with a trip to the Norwegian fjords, where you can hike, fish and kayak among the long sea inlets "scattered along Norway's northwest coast".

Aland, Finland

This Swedish-speaking autonomous region of Finland has "long been established" as a favourite destination among Swedish and Finnish holiday makers, said Miranda Bryant in The Guardian. But in recent years increasing numbers of tourists from further afield are starting to arrive as they seek to avoid the sweltering temperatures of southern Europe. Visitors can go island hopping by boat or kayak, and explore the charming towns by bike.

Bodø has proven it has more to offer than majestic scenery. Situated on a peninsula in the Norwegian Sea, the remote town has been designated a European Capital of Culture for 2024, becoming the first destination above the Arctic Circle to receive the accolade. 

A decade ago, said John Henderson on BBC Travel, the "sleepy" town was known among Norwegians as "Boring Bodø", and its biggest "claim to fame" was its military base. Now, Bodø (pronounced "buddha") has transformed itself into "one of the fastest growing places in Norway", dotted with high-end restaurants and galleries. 

This is no accident. After its Nato airbase moved elsewhere, the town had to "create a new identity" through tourism, said Andrew Eames on the i news site. Without a historic downtown (much of Bodø was "obliterated" by the Luftwaffe during the Second World War) this wasn't easy. But the town has gradually developed into a vibrant cultural hub, a journey that was kickstarted by the construction of the gleaming white Stormen Concert Hall and library on the waterfront in 2014. 

The winning combination of nature and culture certainly set Bodø apart. Throughout the year, the town and surrounding region will host more than 1,000 exhibitions, concerts and events, including Nordland's first-ever light festival in November. If you're lucky, you might even catch the northern lights.

What to do

Consider taking a tour boat out to Saltstraumen – one of the world's strongest tidal currents. A few minutes after leaving the harbour things get "seriously swirly", said Susan d'Arcy in The Times, as up to 400 million cubic metres of seawater forces its way through the strait every six hours. "Hydrotherapy pools will seem awfully tame" after the experience, but don't worry: "It's mesmerising rather than scary."

It's also well worth visiting Beddingen Culture House. The former boat showroom has been transformed into an outstanding live music and theatre venue, and attracts a "trendy crowd that looks like the call back audition for a Nordic noir thriller". 

Be sure to try one of Bodø's saunas (ideally at sunset). The "architecturally striking" Pust and more "rustic" Fauna Sauna are the best options, said Ben Olsen in Conde Nast Traveller. Both have wood-burning stoves and windows that look out over the harbour. 

The "heavy-weight contender" of Bodø's museum scene is the Norwegian Aviation Museum, said the i news site. Among the "remarkable collection" of military aircraft is a famous U2 spy plane that once "almost caused Bodø to be obliterated by Russia".

Where to dine and drink

Head to Bjork to try northern Norway's traditional dish of stockfish (cod that's been dried in the open air on giant wooden racks). Served with "bacon lardons dripping in oil" and "roast potatoes slathered in aioli", it's the "sink-in sofa of comfort food", said The Times. 

If it's killer views you're after, you can't go wrong with Roast. Located on the 17th floor of the Scandic Havet Hotel, the restaurant offers sweeping vistas of Bodø along with "culinary fireworks". Expect "wickedly rich" dishes; the cod with a beurre blanc is "well worth the digestive workout". 

For something a bit more casual, said Conde Nast Traveller, drop by at Bryggerikaia for a hearty bowl of fish soup washed down with locally brewed beer. Situated within a former brewery, the "stylish spot" has become a "local institution" thanks to its tasty seafood-focused menu and prime waterfront location. Over the summer months there's also an outdoor terrace and barbecue: one of the best spots for soaking up Bodø's "lively harbour-side atmosphere".

Where to stay

Manshausen consists of a "spectacular" collection of sea cabins that promise a "secluded sanctuary" in the midst of the Grøtøyleia strait, said Conde Nast Traveller. You'll need to take a scenic ferry ride or drive for four hours to get here but the journey is well worth it. Days are easy to fill; activities nearby span everything from kayaking and scuba diving to hiking and fishing.

"Hands down the best place to stay" in Bodø is the Wood Hotel, said The Times. Less than a 10-minute drive from the city centre, the hillside property features "clean-lined minimalist" rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows revealing panoramic views across Bodø, Vestfjorden and the Børvasstindene mountains.

Dozens of stone circles discovered by chance have been identified as grave markers used to indicate the remains of children in Bronze Age and Iron Age Norway.

Archaeologists from Norway's Museum of Cultural History were utterly "mystified" when they first came across the stone circles at a site in Fredrikstad, around 50 south of Oslo last autumn, said Live Science.

'Meticulously crafted'

A series of intricate stone circles, which measure up to six feet across, were placed together like street cobblestones but were buried a few inches below the surface. The circles were placed around a large, central stone.

The graves at the "unique burial site" were "meticulously crafted", said Popular Science, with each stone "sourced from a different location and precisely placed".

"They've lain here as a secret until we found them", museum archaeologist Guro Fossum told Science Norway, adding that the team "uncovered one after another" and ultimately found 41 of the round stone formations.

New analysis has revealed that almost all of the burials contained children who died between 800 and 200 BC, during the transition from the Nordic Bronze Age and Iron Age. Many of the children were babies, and others ranged from three to six years old. Experts are now trying to piece together the wider story behind the discoveries.

'Burnt bones'

The area surrounding the ancient graveyard is dotted with rock carvings that describe voyages and sun worship, according to the museum.

It was common to cremate the dead on pyres and either bury or scatter any bones that remained. A flat layer of stones in a spiral or wheel pattern was often built over the cremation site, but the site at Fredrikstad is unusual because the graves "are very close together", Fossum said.

"They must have been in an open landscape, with thoroughfares nearby", so "everyone would have known about them". Cooking pits and fireplaces around the site "suggest that gatherings and ceremonies were held in connection with burials".

How the children met their deaths is also still open to question, but the evidence shows that the burial site was "used over a long period", said Fossum, "so they couldn't all have died in the same natural disaster or outbreak of disease or epidemic".

Infant mortality was "undoubtedly high at the time", said Indy100 but the experts have no firm explanation for how this mass grave site came to be.

Archaeologists plan to analyse the artefacts from the site, including pieces of pottery. This "can tell us a lot", Fossum said, because "it doesn't appear that all the vessels were containers for burnt bones" as some were placed between the graves: "We are very curious about what was inside them".

Perched above the Arctic Circle in northern Norway, the Lofoten Islands are one of the great "end-of-the-world archipelagos", known for their towering, serrated mountains, wild seas and lonely white-sand beaches. 

My husband and I visited in March, following a health scare, said Sophy Roberts in the FT, and found the trip restorative. That was partly thanks to the islands' vast silences and the "awesome scale" of the landscape – and partly because we stayed at an excellent hotel. Holmen Lofoten is set beside the sea in the village of Sørvågen, where its owner, Ingunn Rasmussen, grew up. She is the daughter of a local fisherman, and the hotel is largely made of refurbished fishermen's cabins. They are "close to perfect" – "simple" but "cosy", with wood burners and soft wool blankets. 

Between late August and April, you might see the Northern Lights swooshing past your cabin's big windows. During the day, you can go hiking – we climbed well above the treeline for a picnic beside a frozen lake, guided by Ingunn's brother, Audun, who recalled hunting for hare and ptarmigan there as a child. And when the seas are calm, there are fishing trips to enjoy. We sailed out past the village of Å, at the archipelago's furthest end, into the sea channel known as Moskstraumen. Some guests spot orca there – we didn't, but we did pass close to one of the world's strongest whirlpools, which is said to have inspired Edgar Allen Poe's 1841 short story A Descent into the Maelström. 

Back at Holmen, we ate "delicious" dinners, "delicately put together" by the head chef, Richard Cox, a Briton whose passion is "hyperlocal ingredients", from ceps and lingonberries to cod and lamb. His pantry shelves are crowded with jars of fermented vegetables and flower syrups (including wild camomile, fireweed, and meadowsweet), about which you can learn more on one of the hotel's regular, five-day gastronomic retreats, co-created by the chef Valentine Warner. 

A three-night stay costs from £780 per person, b&b (holmenlofoten.no).

The fjords of Norway — all 1,000 of them — are majestic. That is the simplest, most straightforward way to put it. The long, narrow sea inlets are surrounded by dramatically steep cliffs, often best viewed from the water while gliding by on a ferry or kayak. Fjords can be found in all corners of the country, but to see some of the most stunning examples, visit the western part of the nation, known as Fjord Norway.

Geirangerfjord

All you have to do is see a photo of Geirangerfjord to understand why this is among the most visited spots in Norway. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the natural wonder "inspires with its deep, blue water ringed by sky-grazing snow-capped peaks, gushing waterfalls and green vegetation," Travel + Leisure said. For spectacular views, take a ferry ride past the Seven Sisters and Suitor waterfalls and drive up the windy road to Mt. Dalsnibba. There, you will find the Geiranger Skywalk, where visitors can take in unobstructed views of the fjord. 

Hardangerfjord

Often referred to as the Kingdom of Waterfalls, Hardangerfjord is home to Norway's crown jewel, the mighty Voringsfossen. This is the country's most famous waterfall, and after witnessing its power, be sure to also visit Steinsdalsfossen, where you can walk on a pathway behind the water, and Latefossen, a twin waterfall that plunges toward an old stone bridge. Hardangerfjord has another claim to fame: apples. Orchards thrive here because of the region's comparatively mild winters, and visitors can stop by farms on the Fruit and Cider Route in Ulvik to pick up produce, juice and ciders. 

Lysefjord

Lysefjord is a playground for mountain hikers. Opportunities abound, from the strenuous climb up to Kjerag, the highest peak in Lysefjord, to the popular trek to Preikestolen (The Pulpit Rock). From here, you can gaze down at the Lysefjord below, a view made even more special when hiking in for sunrise. If that is not enough to get your heart pumping, take a ferry to the village of Florli and ascend the world's longest wooden stairway — a 4,444 step journey up a mountain. There is also a wood-fired hot tub, filled with fresh fjord water, in Florli that visitors can rent.

Naeroyfjord

Another UNESCO World Heritage Site, Naeroyfjord is often included in the "Norway in a Nutshell" itinerary for travelers on a time crunch who want to see as many fjords as possible. This narrow fjord — at some points, it is only about 820 feet wide —  can be traversed on electric boats, which stop at some of the tiny villages that dot the landscape. Bakka is one of those remote communities, where visitors often become enchanted by the serene views and historic wooden buildings. The centerpiece is the Bakka Church, built in 1859 and still hosting services during the summer.

Sognefjord

As the longest and deepest fjord in Norway, Sognefjord reigns supreme. Known as The King of the Fjords, it has several side branches (like Naeroyfjord) and is home to more than 19 tiny, charming villages. Sognefjord "offers Norway's best combination of scenic wonder and accessibility," legendary travel writer Rick Steves said, and is in a "relative sun belt, with only two feet of rain a year." Hikers should plan to spend a day or two in the Aurlandsdalen Valley, a scenic region often described as Norway's answer to the Grand Canyon. For a quick side trip, visit Fjaerland on Fjaerlandsfjord. This is a book town, where tomes can be encountered or purchased everywhere from banks to bus stops.

Anders Breivik, the man responsible for Norway's worst peacetime atrocity, is due to testify in court today in an attempt to end his prison isolation.

The far-right fanatic, who killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting spree in 2011, received Norway's "most severe sentence at the time", reported The Associated Press: detention for 21 years, with a provision to hold him indefinitely if he is still considered dangerous.

His lawyers told the court on Monday that Breivik's isolation for more than a decade has left him in a "locked world", suicidal and dependent on the anti-depression medication Prozac. They argued that Norway is breaching the European Convention on Human Rights, including sections saying no one should be subject to "torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".

Breivik, 44, who has changed his name to Fjotolf Hansen, is also asking the court to lift restrictions on his correspondence with the outside world.

He failed in a similar attempt in 2016 and 2017 to lift his isolation, when his appeal was ultimately rejected by the European Court of Justice.

Lawyers representing the ministry of justice maintain he must be kept apart from the rest of the prison population because of the continuing security threat he poses, and have argued his prison conditions are "significantly better" than they were.

Pictures from a visit last month by news agency NTB showed how he spends his time in a dedicated section of Ringerike prison. It includes a kitchen, a TV room and a bathroom. He is allowed to keep three parakeets as pets and let them fly freely in the area, NTB reported.

Reuters reported that some journalists had asked Judge Birgitte Kolrud to let them broadcast Breivik's testimony, "but she ruled against that last week saying there was a risk his statement could become a platform for his views rather than testimony about his jail conditions".

Secret negotiations in Norway led to a deal, made public as "the Oslo Accords", signed in September 1993 by the Palestine Liberation Organisation's Yasser Arafat and Israel's Labour Prime Pinister Yitzhak Rabin in Washington.

Often deemed a historic breakthrough, the deal meant that the PLO recognised the State of Israel for the first time, and Israel recognised the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians. It allowed for the self-administration of major Palestinian population areas by a new Palestinian Authority, led by Arafat, although the majority of the West Bank remained under joint or sole Israeli control. 

Ongoing negotiations were supposed to resolve the difficult "final status" issues by 1999: the exact borders of a new Palestinian state; the status of Jerusalem; the fate of Palestinian refugees and their descendants (by then numbering more than three million); Israel's settlements; and Israel's security arrangements. The interim period was supposed to build both mutual trust and Palestinian institutions.

Why did the Oslo process fail?

The pro-Israeli answer is that Arafat flatly rejected the best offer of peace, made by Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the Camp David Summit in 2000, and did little to quell the Second Intifada, with its Hamas suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, that erupted soon after.

The pro-Palestinian answer is that the offer fell well short of what Arafat could accept and survive politically. He had made a historic compromise in conceding that the Palestinian state should exist on only the occupied territories, 22% of mandate Palestine; but Israel wanted still more (it proposed to annex 9% of the West Bank, in return for a smaller amount of Israeli land elsewhere; there would be compensation for refugees, but no right of return).

And even while the peace process was under way, the number of Jewish settlers in the occupied territories continued to grow: from 250,000 in 1993 to 400,000 in 2003.

Is a two-state solution possible?

At times, negotiators came very close to a deal. But major stumbling blocks remained, primarily the issues of land and refugee return – and there is little room for manoeuvre, in a state not much larger than Wales. 

There are also sizeable constituencies on both sides that want no compromise –particularly on the Palestinian side, embodied in Hamas, but also in the form of 471,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and 229,000 in East Jerusalem, and their political allies. 

Both sides have their rival narratives and grievances. The Palestinians point to the loss of their land since 1948, the repression and the suffering they have endured; Israel to the constant attacks it has faced throughout its history. Now, with both sides more distrustful and traumatised than ever, a solution seems very far away.

After the peace process fell apart, the same right-wing Likud Israeli leaders who had helped to derail it – Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu – moved to a unilateral process of "disengagement".

A barrier was built in the West Bank, roughly along the pre-1967 border, to keep terrorists out, but also to annex Palestinian land. In 2005, Sharon withdrew from Gaza, and removed Jewish settlements (while still controlling its borders). 

In 2006, Hamas won an election in the Palestinian Territories, and took control in Gaza after a short civil war with Arafat's party, Fatah. Netanyahu, "Mr Security", responded by building a billion-dollar security barrier around Gaza. He boasted that Israel had never been more peaceful than under his rule.

Many Israelis accepted his view that the Palestinians could be managed in this way; wrongly, as 7 October showed. It also left fundamental problems. Without a two-state solution, there is only one state, within which most Palestinians are second-class citizens. But if theIsraelis give full rights to Palestinians in the occupied territories, Jewish people are likely to be a minority. 

As Ehud Barak said: "As long as in this territory west of the Jordan there is only one political entity called Israel, it is going to be either non-Jewish or non-democratic."

As cruise aficionados know, sailing is as much about the journey as the destination. One of the best ways of experiencing this is sailing in the fjords of Norway. You get 360-degrees of scenery, from waterfalls and clear water to mountains that almost touch the heavens.

Wildlife watchers have the chance to spot whales and dolphins as you learn about the legends that fill these calm waters, such as waterfalls where Vikings would drink to feel young and fertile.

The Viking boats may have gone but there was plenty of life on board the Ambience ship as my family and I took part in a week-long summer Fjordland sailing with British cruise line Ambassador.

Making waves

Ambassador has quickly navigated into a well-recognised brand just two years after launch, winning bronze in the best no-fly cruise category at the British Travel Awards in 2022 and two Cruise Critic Awards for best value for money and best mid-sized cruise.

It is hard to imagine that this gem of a ship, with its purple funnels brightening the waters of London Tilbury on embarkation day, was once set for the scrapheap. It was previously owned by Princess Cruises as Regal Princess in the 1990s before being sold to P&O Cruises Australia where it was renamed Pacific Dawn – the country’s first superliner.

The vessel was due to be retired in 2020 but was instead sold to a company called Ocean Builders that named the ship Satoshi and planned to create a floating cryptocurrency community in the Gulf of Panama. Insurance and licensing issues meant the company gave up and planned to send the ship to the scrapyard – that was until May 2021 when Ambassador stepped in. There are no signs of cryptocurrencies or the old brands since a refit in October 2021, but there is plenty of character both on board and at the various destinations.

The Ambassador brand is usually aimed at the adult-only over-50s market. However, it has opened some sailings to kids during school holidays so families, or “multi-generations” as it calls it, can experience what Ambassador means by its “enjoy yourself” tagline.

Tours and activities

As an adult-only ship, there is no kids club where sun-starved parents usually stick their children while they relax by the pool. But the typically rainy Norwegian summer meant there was little point trying to sunbathe during our sailing. There were plenty of on-board activities to keep us busy though such as quizzes, treasure hunts and discos. All were geared towards families and all generations rather than just adult-focused events that you may usually find on larger ships.

Ambassador has also partnered with marine conservation charity Orca to teach guests about looking after sea life. Rather than a dull lecture about stopping whaling, kids took part in Guess Who?-style games to learn about different types of whales and dolphins and the sights and sounds to watch out for to spot one in the water. I was particularly proud when my daughter correctly identified the image of a common dolphin.

Once in port, guests can arrange excursions either independently or with Ambassador in advance. We donned our raincoats for a closer look at the waterfalls in Geiranger on a rib (rigid inflatable boat). It was worth moving from a sturdy ship to a more windswept dinghy to get a sense of how large the mountains really are and to see the shapes of the waterfalls – one even cascades round the rocks to leave the pattern of a wine bottle.

On another stop in Bergen we took a funicular 1,050ft to the top of Mount Floyen. Unfortunately, the clouds meant there wasn’t much of a view but our daughters enjoyed exploring the troll forest and running around on what is probably the highest playground they have ever got wet in.

Luckily the clouds cleared for us on another day in Voss, western Norway for a trip in a cable car to the top of Hangurstoppen mountain, where views of the valley 2,600ft below made it easy to forget about the lack of sun over the past week.

Cabins

For a mid-sized ship, Ambience has big ideas when it comes to accommodation. Its capacity is usually 1,400, but with around 400 kids on board for our multi-generational sailing, that meant more space needed for beds and of course clothes. This didn’t seem to be a problem. We counted around 16 large drawers across two bedside tables and a large wooden dresser before you even consider the walk-in wardrobe-style hanging space and another chest of drawers in our junior suite.

The double bed was well positioned opposite the large balcony doors, meaning you can wake up and look straight at the view, as long as you persuade a child on the nearby sofa bed to open the curtains.

The suites are on deck 11, providing easy access to the hot tubs and pools for when the sun does come out as well as the buffet. The decks below have a range of inside, guest and ocean view cabins which are slightly smaller, and therefore cheaper than a suite, but other guests were still impressed with the level of storage.

Eating and drinking

The ship stays true to its British roots with many of its bars, restaurants and seating areas named after iconic London venues. The Wimbledon-inspired centre court is where you will find guest services as well as Dickens coffee and cake bar, while sailors spend the evening being entertained by shows in The Palladium theatre.

The buffet, open for breakfast, lunch, dinner and of course afternoon tea, is called Borough Market. It serves a range of dishes from fish and chips to a carvery as well as burgers, pizzas and vegetarian and vegan options.

A sit-down lunch and dinner is served in the Buckingham Restaurant, which is included in the cruise price, plus there is a specialty Indian restaurant called Saffron where guests can enjoy a range of delicious South Asian dishes for £16.95 per person.

You can relax with a beer, wine or cocktail in Raffles, the Botanical Garden or the pub-style Purple Turtle. At around £6 for a cocktail and £3 for a beer, the prices are much cheaper than usual for a cruise and even lower than what you would pay for a night out in London. This makes it well worth raising a toast to the view, whatever the weather.

Marc Shoffman and his family were guests of Ambassador Cruise Line. Prices vary depending on dates and destination. A seven-night Summertime Multi-Generational Fjordland sailing aboard the Ambience departing London Tilbury on 3 August 2024 starts from £689 per adult and children cost from £99. Other dates and destinations including Iceland and the Mediterranean as well as adult-only sailings are available throughout the year; ambassadorcruiseline.com

Orkney could leave the UK and become a territory of Norway under new proposals to explore “alternative forms of governance” for the archipelego.

A motion put forward by council leader James Stockan calls for elected representatives to explore Orkney’s “Nordic connections” during discussions this week about other governance models that could provide more economic opportunity.

Located off the north coast of Scotland, Orkney was under Norwegian and Danish control until 1472, when the islands were given to Scotland as security for Margaret of Denmark’s dowry on her marriage to King James III.

‘Orkney has been failed dreadfully’

There is “growing frustration” among Orkney’s 22,500-strong population that the archipelego “does not receive fair funding from Scotland and the UK” , according to Yahoo! News.

Council chief Stockan told BBC Radio Scotland that Orkney had been “failed dreadfully” by governments in Edinburgh and London, with funding less per capita than that received by Shetland and the Western Isles. The ferry fleet connecting the 20 inhabited islands in Orkney urgently need to be replaced, he said, and travel costs were high because “we are denied the things that other areas get like RET [Road Equivalent Tariff] for ferry fares”.

Orkney’s share of income from North Sea oil is also “far less” compared with the Shetland Islands, said The Times.

Stockan argued that a degree of independence could allow Orkney to profit from the renewal energy boom, however. “We’ve got a unique opportunity as we are right at the heart of all the wind projects around our waters,” he said.

The Orkney council voted in 2017 to look at whether the islands could have greater autonomy, but stopped short of demanding full independence.

Options now up for discussion include becoming a crown dependency, like the Channel Islands and Isle of Man, which would take Orkney out of the remit of the Scottish parliament. Alternatively, Orkney could become a British overseas territory, like the Falkland Islands, or pursue the status of the Faroe Islands, a self-governing territory of Denmark.

‘Dangers of putting up barriers’

Orkney’s capital, Kirkwall, is closer to Oslo than London, and the island chain was “part of the Norse kingdom for much longer than we were part of the United Kingdom”, Stockan told the BBC. A “huge affinity and a huge, deep cultural relationship” with Norway still exists, he added.

Responding to the proposals, the Liberal Democrat MSP for Orkney, Liam McArthur, said that empowering communities was “particularly important in our islands, where the effects of centralisation or a one size-fits-all approach by government can be most damaging, as we have seen over recent years”.

But “recent history also highlights the dangers from putting up barriers between or creating divisions within communities”, he warned.

Stockan’s motion “does not commit the council to any of the options” for alternative governance, said The Guardian, and acknowledged that “any constitutional change would probably require a combination of petitions, referendums and legislation at Holyrood and Westminster”.

The UK is reportedly on the brink of agreeing a natural-gas contract with Norway for up to 20 years in a bid to avoid gas shortages this winter.

Ministers are “still locked in negotiations with their Norwegian counterparts on price, the amount of gas and the length of the contract”, a source told Bloomberg, but “a deal is expected to be secured next week”.

Norway is already the UK’s largest supplier of gas – providing around half of Britain’s gas – but there is “growing competition for its output”, said The Telegraph, as countries across Europe respond to the loss of Russian supplies.

The energy regulator, Ofgem, warned on Monday that there’s a “significant risk” of gas shortages this winter that could see some power stations switched off. Just 24 hours later, energy bosses warned of risks to gas supplies next winter even if the continent manages to avoid a crisis this year.

Liz Truss told Sky News that ministers were “looking” at multi-year gas deals with Norway and elsewhere. “I have not signed any deal,” she said, “but what I’m saying is that Britain’s energy security is vital and what we will be doing is always looking for value for money”.

Earlier, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg told a fringe meeting at the Tory Party conference that he’d been in talks with a “friendly country” about energy supplies.

However, Treasury officials have privately warned that Britain could end up locked in expensive long-term energy deals under proposed arrangements to secure gas from Norway and elsewhere.

The UK would have to pay a “security premium” to foreign states in return for boosting the country’s future energy security, senior government figures have told the Financial Times. Therefore, said The Sun, a new deal with Norway “risks spooking nervous markets even more”.

The decision by Norwegian authorities to euthanise a “celebrity” walrus has triggered an outpouring of grief and anger.

Named after the Norse goddess of beauty and love, Freya the walrus had been sighted off the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden before making headlines after “she chose to spend part of the summer in Norway”, reported The Guardian.

CNN said the “beloved” 600kg walrus “became a social media sensation” after being filmed “clambering onto small boats to sunbathe”. Huge crowds came to see her lounging about in the Oslo Fjord, an inlet on Norway’s southeastern coast.

But following reports of visitors swimming with her and getting dangerously close to take photos, the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries warned last week that Freya might have to be put down if the risk to human safety was deemed too high.

The public “appeared to ignore the advice” to keep their distance, ITV News reported. According to local media, on one occasion, police blocked off a bathing area after the walrus chased a woman into the water.

The directorate told CNN that multiple solutions were being considered, including relocating Freya out of the fjord. But in a statement on Sunday, the department announced that a “decision to euthanise” had been “taken on the basis of a global evaluation of the persistent threat to human security”.

Although euthanising Freya “might cause reactions with the public”, it “was the right call”, said director general Frank Bakke-Jensen.

Critics were quick to disagree. The decision to kill Freya was “too hasty”, said a Facebook post by Rune Aae, a biologist at the University of South-Eastern Norway who had been tracking Freya’s movement on a Google map to help people know when to stay away from her.

According to The New York Times, “walruses are social animals and rarely venture somewhere alone, which may have been why Freya had spent time in a highly populated area” around the Norwegian capital.

A protected species, walruses normally live further north in the Arctic and “do not usually attack humans”, said the BBC, although “there have been some rare incidents”.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, a total of around 230,000 walruses live in the wild, predominantly in ice-covered waters in Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia and Alaska.

The walrus was “once threatened by commercial hunting, but today the biggest danger it faces is climate change”, with widespread loss of glaciers and sea ice, said the conservation organisation.

As a tourist attraction, Oslo has long existed “in the shadow” of Stockholm and Copenhagen, said Thomas Rogers in The New York Times. Yet where once the Norwegian capital was “derided” as “sleepy and overpriced”, it is now in the midst of a bona fide cultural renaissance that may put it on a par with its more traditionally glamorous Scandinavian neighbours. A major redevelopment project, dubbed “Fjord City”, is transforming Oslo’s waterfront into “a glossy district of high-rises and pedestrian plazas”, and a home for a clutch of world-class museums and art galleries.

Chief among these is Norway’s national museum, a “gargantuan” new institution that finally opened its doors to the public in June, after an 11-year gestation. Combining the collections of four pre-existing galleries and costing more than £500m, the Nasjonalmuseet is Europe’s third-largest museum; with 80 rooms and no less than three acres of display space, it will be able to showcase some 6,500 of the 400,000 objects in its inventory, as well as major temporary exhibitions to rival those at Tate Modern or Paris’s Centre Pompidou. Featuring everything from paintings by Edvard Munch (including The Scream, Madonna and other famous works) to 17th century Norwegian tapestries, to contemporary works of art, it takes an “assertive approach to showcasing Norwegian culture”.

This “long-anticipated” museum takes London’s V&A as a major “curatorial influence”, said Helen Barrett in the FT. This means that design will be displayed on an equal footing to art. Among its first big name exhibitions will be a solo show of Grayson Perry’s ceramics and textiles. On display are traditional arts and crafts and, as you might expect, exquisite examples of Norwegian furniture – a highlight is the studio of Terje Ekstrøm, designer of futuristic 1970s chairs, transplanted wholesale into the museum. But there is also industrial design from recent decades, when Nordic companies pioneered many technological advances. There are deep-sea robots, and displays of consumer tech by Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson. (In 2001, Nokia released a camera phone a full six years ahead of Apple’s first iPhone.) Elsewhere, we see a display devoted to “digital graphic design”, featuring curios such as the video for the Norwegian band A-ha’s 1985 hit Take on Me.

The museum’s holdings are fascinating, said Tim Abrahams in the Architectural Record. One moment, you’re looking at Eastern Orthodox icons that ended up in Norway following an 11th century schism with the Western Church; the next, you’re in a room filled with “simple furniture” dating from the 19th century. It’s a shame, then, that the building that houses all this is rather uninspired. The architects, German firm Kleihues + Schuwerk, strived to avoid sculptural elements and idiosyncrasy; the result is a “minimalist” design that underwhelms on almost every level. It is clad in a stone that is neither “attractive or versatile”, and from certain approaches, it looks “astonishingly drab”. Its interior spaces are better, but not by much: the exhibits, you feel, are under-served. Nevertheless, it is possible to spend “a full day immersed” in this “very expensive box”, perusing “vibrant medieval tapestries, remarkable collections of glass and silverware, or the more recent story of a nation told through its modern art”. It is proof that “content, mercifully, can still be everything”.

Now open to the public; nasjonalmuseet.no

Omicron will be the most dominant Covid-19 strain in Europe by mid-January, the European Commission president has predicted after Denmark and Norway reported infection surges driven by the new variant.

Ursula von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday that the arrival of the new strain means Christmas will “once again” be “overshadowed by the pandemic”. Spiralling cases in the Scandinavian countries and in the UK are “offering a warning to the rest of Europe”, said the Financial Times (FT).

Experts have said the nationwide outbreaks provide insights into “how infections and hospital admission rates could spike across Europe this winter”, the newspaper added, as well as showing “the need for effective booster programmes to be in place”.

Christmas surge

Since the Omicron variant was first detected in South Africa in November, cases have been reported in more than 25 countries in Europe. More than 10,000 Omicron cases have been recorded in the UK, according to latest government figures.

Amid pessimistic predictions about the UK outbreak, the strain is also spreading rapidly in Denmark and Norway, where health authorities have also “​​released grim projections for the coming wave”, The New York Times (NYT) reported.

While scientists “don’t yet know how often the variant causes severe disease”, the paper continued, they have warned that “its rapid rate of spread will lead to an explosion of cases and could potentially increase pressure on hospitals, even if it proves to be mild”.

Preliminary data indicates that “vaccines are providing little protection from infection”, although “scientists believe that the shots will still fend off severe disease and death”.

“European countries were among the first to report cases,” said euronews, “but the variant has yet to be detected everywhere on the continent.”

However, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said yesterday that “two new countries (Lithuania and Slovenia) have reported cases” and that “several countries have reported a number of probable cases”.

According to the EU agency, the total number of confirmed Omicron cases in Denmark had reached 310, while the tally is Norway had surged to almost 1,500.

Norway last week reported an outbreak linked to a Christmas party in Oslo that was believed to be Europe’s largest to date.

Authorities in the Norwegian capital said that without countermeasures, “Omicron could infect up to 300,000 people a day compared with the previous peak of about 1,000 cases”, the FT said. In neighbouring Denmark, health officials warned that “daily cases could soon exceed 10,000”.

“Denmark is a front runner here,” Soren Riis Paludan, professor of biomedicine at Aarhus University, told the paper. “We were one of the first countries to have initial spreading domestically, but other countries in Europe will see the same.”

Return to restrictions

On Monday, the Norwegian government announced what Reuters described as a “partial lockdown”. Frode Forland, Norway’s state epidemiologist, told the FT that “the strategy in Norway” was to try to prolong the time period until Omicron “takes over”. He added: The situation is very serious now so we have to take urgent measures.”

The introduction of those measures came days after Denmark “imposed new public health restrictions, including requiring restaurants and bars to close at midnight and switching some schools to virtual instruction before the winter holidays”, the NYT reported.

Like the UK, Denmark has also expanded its booster campaign. A statement from the Danish Health Authority on Monday said that any citizen aged 40 or older who was at least four-and-a-half months past their second shot was now eligible for a third dose.

Swathes of Europe that are yet to report major outbreaks are also introducing new restrictions.

Italy this week said that vaccinated visitors would have to show negative tests on arrival in the country, mirroring the approach introduced in Portugal on 1 December. And Dutch primary schools will “close early before the Christmas holiday”, France 24 said.

Greece, Italy, Spain and Hungary have “expanded their vaccination programmes to younger children”, with plans to give the jab to five- to 11-year-olds, the London Evening Standard reported.

Von der Leyen told the European Parliament earlier this week there are “enough vaccine doses for every European now”. And vaccination was more important than ever as Omicron spreads, the European Commission president said, because “if you look at the time it takes for new cases to double in number, it seems to be doubling every two or three days”.

Up to 120 people who attended a Christmas party in Oslo have tested positive for Covid-19 in what is believed to be the largest outbreak of the Omicron variant outside of South Africa.

Around half of the infected guests have screened positive for the new strain since the work bash in the Norwegian capital on 26 November, “the same day Omicron was named and designated a ‘variant of concern’”, said The Telegraph.

The party-going employees of solar power company Scatec reportedly spent most of the evening “isolated in their own room” at the Louise Restaurant and Bar, on the Oslo waterfront. But the restaurant owner told the newspaper that “they began to mingle with other guests” from about 11.30pm until the bar closed at 3am.

Two employees who tested positive the following day had recently returned from South Africa, where Omicron was first detected.

Test of vaccines

The infected guests have symptoms including “fever, cough, headache, muscle pain, fatigue, but for now, none of them has become severely ill”, Tine Ravlo, chief physician for the Oslo borough of Frogner, told The Telegraph.

According to latest Oxford University tracking, Norway’s Covid vaccination rates are similar to those of the UK. Just under 71% of people in the Scandinavian country had been fully vaccinated as of 5 December, compared with around 68% in the UK.

In South Africa, where Omicron appears to be spreading quickly, just under a quarter of the population had been fully vaccinated.

If most or all of the infected guests at the Oslo party “were confirmed to have been vaccinated”, said The Local, “it would raise questions about the effectiveness of the jabs against the new variant”.

Jorunn Thaulow, a researcher at the University of Oslo, told the news site that the high proportion of positive tests was “an indication that this is a contagious variant, no doubt about it”.

That warning was echoed by Norway's state epidemiologist Frode Forland. “We don’t know if it will be more transmissible, but we suspect that is the case after the first investigations we have from South Africa, and also the spread we've from this outbreak in Oslo,” Forland, director of infectious diseases at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), told The Telegraph.

One of his one of his agency's three scenarios for Omicron is that while very transmissible, the variant will also prove to be very mild. “That is the best scenario we can have, that it's getting milder, most people will get it, and they will get a natural immunity,” he said.

“It might be that it has now replicated and mutated so many times that this is the optimal position from the virus' point of view, to spread widely and not kill the hosts. That's what we've seen with other diseases beforehand. And of course, then it gets into more like an endemic phase.”

Return of restrictions

Sky News reported last week that efforts were “under way to trace contacts” of the Oslo party guests who tested positive, and that “visitors to two restaurants in the city being urged to get tested”.

New restrictions have also been introduced for Oslo, home to about 700,000 people, and surrounding districts. The measures include “working from home when possible, a 100-person attendance limit at private indoor events in public places or rented venues, and restaurants and bars having to register customers”, euronews reported.

And “anyone entering Norway must be tested within 24 hours, either at the border, at a public test station or by self-test”, the broadcaster added. “If a rapid test comes back positive, a traveller must take a PCR test within 24 hours.”

Announcing the new restrictions, which came into effect on Friday, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said it was “likely that the Omicron variant will spread in Norway”.

He continued: “That is why the government believes in stricter measures. We still have to keep our distance to get control of the spread of infection, but that does not mean that we cannot have good contact with each other.”

Londoners flocked to Trafalgar Square last night for the lighting up of the Christmas tree sent from Norway each year – but this year’s fir is failing to dazzle.

Oslo has gifted an enormous pine tree, usually a Norwegian spruce, every year since 1947 in gratitude for Britain’s support during the Second World War. But the 24ft-tall tree shipped over to celebrate this festive season has left some social media users asking whether the UK has done something to “upset Norway”.

One side of the 80-year-old spruce looks “thinner and more sparse than normal”, said The Daily Telegraph. The tree’s patchy appearance was also noted by another Twitter user who asked: “Does anyone know what happened to the rest of it?”

According to the Mayor of London’s website, the annual gift is selected from the forests surrounding Oslo “with great care several months, even years, in advance”.

The chosen tree is transported to London by boat and then lorry, before being rigged up in Trafalgar Square using a hydraulic crane. Some critics have wondered whether alternative transport arrangements may have been made this time, however.

While the effort put into the gift is clear, other online commentators have suggested that the slightly less luxuriant condition of this year’s pine might be connected to Manchester United's sacking of Norwegian manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

The online criticisms have been dismissed by the British ambassador to Norway, Richard Wood, who tweeted that that the tree is “an amazing gesture from the people of Oslo” that was “appreciated by the vast majority”.

And even if this year’s gift is a little below par, said The Guardian, “is anything secretly more festive and fun than a disappointing fir?”

In many ways, Norway is exceptionally green. About 95% of its electricity comes from hydropower, and nearly all the rest from other renewables such as thermal and wind.

It has the highest per capita use of electric cars of any country in the world: in September, a whopping 77.5% of new cars sold there were electric. The capital Oslo has been redesigned to remove parking spaces and to encourage walking and cycling. Norway was one of the first nations to introduce a carbon tax, which is expected to raise over £500m in 2021.

It was also the world’s first industrialised nation to ratify the Paris Agreement aimed at keeping global warming well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and, in 2016, its parliament agreed on a goal to cut the country’s net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2030. Yet at the same time, paradoxically, Norway benefits from a big oil and gas industry.

How big exactly?

Huge, particularly relative to its population of only 5.4 million. Norway is Europe’s second-largest oil and gas producer, behind only Russia, producing four million “barrels of oil equivalent” per day. It provides about a quarter of the EU’s gas imports. The industry is the nation’s top moneymaker, accounting for around 14% of its GDP and 40% of its exports. It employs some 200,000 people (over 5% of the total workforce).

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, set up 30 years ago in order to invest North Sea oil profits, is now the world’s largest: it is worth $1.4trn, and owns on average 1.4% of every single listed company in the world. Norway is, Time magazine declared, “the most fossil fuel-dependent industrialised democracy in the world”.

Why is this in the news now?

Partly because, at this year’s general election, the issue dominated the agenda: smaller parties on the Left such as the Green party wanted an immediate halt to oil and gas exploration. And partly because of Cop26 – where Norway won the inaugural “Fossil of the Day” award from the Climate Action Network.

The group complained that the Norwegian government “likes to play the climate champion” while behind closed doors it is a“fossil fuel cheerleader”; that it lobbies for the oil and gas industry, arguing in favour of drilling in the Arctic; and that it has consistently failed to meet its climate targets. On current trends it will cut carbon emissions by, at best, only 21% on 1990 levels by 2030.

How does it justify its position?

Traditionally, Norway has dealt with its climate and oil policies separately. This was made easier since, conveniently, under the Paris Agreement, emissions are counted where fossil fuels are consumed, not where they are extracted. So even though the oil and gas exported from Norway last year would emit about 450 million tons of carbon dioxide if burnt (about nine times the nation’s total annual emissions), it could remain a carbon exporter on this scale and still technically cut its emissions to net zero.

Norway’s two main political parties, Labour and the Conservatives, both take the view that it would actually be bad for the global environment if Norway stopped producing oil and gas.

How does that argument work?

Norway’s drilling operations are said to be the cleanest in the world. If these are stopped, it’s argued, global demand would stay the same but Norway’s cleaner oil and gas would be replaced by dirtier products with higher emissions. In a punchy defence of the industry, the new Labour prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, said that a rapid end to Norwegian hydrocarbon production “would put a stop to an industrial transition that is needed” if Europe is to reach its green goals.

As the world cuts out coal and oil to reduce emissions it will have to rely more and more on natural gas; and geopolitically, without Norway, Europe would grow increasingly dependent on Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Is the oil industry controversial in Norway?

It is widely criticised. In Norway’s media, there are frequent references to oljeskam: “oil shame”, a concept derived from the Swedish idea of “flight shame”. Many Norwegians, particularly young people, would like to wean their country off oil. Campaigners have launched court cases against the government for failing to curtail exploration.

Yet polls show that just over half of people in Norway still support the industry. Fossil fuels, after all, have helped turn the country into one of the richest in the world (it has the 11th-highest global GDP per capita according to the World Bank). This year, the government expects to get more than $20bn from oil taxes, fees and dividends. Most of this goes into the national budget, supporting a lavish welfare state. The rest will go into the sovereign wealth fund, for a rainy day.

What will happen in the future?

After a dip at the beginning of the century, Norway has been ramping up oil production. In 2019, some 57 exploration wells were drilled, and a record-breaking 83 new production licences were issued. The new centre-left government has said that it will seek to grow the oil and gas industry while striving to cut carbon emissions by, for instance, electrifying oil platforms.

It also aims to use oil money to “finance a green transition”, notably by developing carbon capture and storage, and blue hydrogen (hydrogen produced from fossil fuels while capturing carbon emissions). Both technologies have great potential, but neither are remotely ready to be used at scale.

The world as a whole is facing a colossal “production gap”: a discrepancy between governments’ planned fossil fuel production, and the levels needed to keep global temperatures rises well below 2°C. And most nations have yet to align their green ambitions with reality. Norway, though, faces this contradiction in a particularly acute form.

The suspect in a bow and arrow attack that left five people dead in Norway was a recent convert to Islam who had been contacted by police over fears he was being radicalised.

A 37-year-old Danish man has been charged after admitting to carrying out the deadly attack, which also left two others seriously injured in the town of Kongsberg, according to prosecutor Ann Iren Svane Mathiassen. Norwegian security services said that it appears to have been an “act of terror”.

Police were alerted to the incident just after 6pm local time on Wednesday. The attacker then “managed to escape an initial confrontation” with police before being detained “35 minutes after the attack began”, during which time the victims “were most likely killed”, the BBC said.

‘Running for their lives’

The victims of the attack included four women and one man between the ages of 50 and 70. The two people wounded in the attack, one of which was an off-duty police officer, were being treated in intensive care for non-life-threatening injuries.

The attack began “in a Coop Extra supermarket on the western side” of the town, The Telegraph said. “Residents were ordered to stay indoors and large areas were cordoned off” as the suspect then left the store and “walked around downtown Kongsberg shooting arrows”.

A witness told local station TV2 that she saw a “man standing on the corner with arrows in a quiver on his shoulder and a bow in his hand”, adding: “Afterwards, I saw people running for their lives. One of them was a woman holding a child by the hand.”

Police chief Oeyving Aas “confirmed there was a confrontation with the suspect when he tried to run away before he was arrested”, The Independent said.

The “suspect moved over a large area” during the attack, the BBC said, meaning residents were “ordered to stay indoors so authorities could examine the scene and gather evidence”. Gardens and garages in the vicinity were also searched by sniffer dogs.

Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten cited regional police chief Ole Bredrup Sæverud as saying that all of the victims were likely killed “after the police were in contact with the perpetrator for the first time” and that the suspect is co-operating with the police’s investigation.

‘Concern about radicalisation’

The police said that the unnamed man had been interrogated overnight and had “confessed”, according to Deutsche Welle (DW).

In a statement, the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST), the country’s intelligence service, said the events “currently appear to be an act of terror, but the investigation... will determine in closer detail what the acts were motivated by”. The suspect was “known to PST from before”, the statement added.

The suspect, who lives in Kongsberg and had a Danish mother and Norwegian father, “was taken to the nearby town of Drammen” where he is being held in police custody, The Telegraph added. Authorities have confirmed that “they are not searching for other people in relation to the attack”.

Aftenposten said Sæverud did not “say anything about what the man had explained” to police, but did confirm that he had recently converted to Islam and that there had previously “been a concern about radicalisation, which the police had followed up”.

“The police are said to have received a report of concern about the man in 2020”, the paper added. “There have been no reports relating to the man in 2021.”

Norway’s public broadcaster, NRK, reported that the suspect has previous criminal convictions and was “last year sentenced to a six-month restraining order against two close family members after he threatened to kill one of them”.

He was also “convicted of burglary and the purchase of small quantities of hashish” in 2012, the broadcaster added. The verdict following those crimes stated that he had been “convicted of similar offences before”.

‘Cruel and brutal act’

Responding in the immediate aftermath of the violence, Norway’s acting prime minister, Erna Solberg, described the attack as “gruesome” and “horrifying”, adding: “I understand that many people are afraid, but it’s important to emphasise that the police are now in control.”

Prime minister-designate Jonas Gahr Store, who is expected to take office on Thursday, called the assault “a cruel and brutal act”.

Kongsberg’s mayor, Kari Anne Sand, described the town as “a completely ordinary community with completely ordinary people”, adding that it was a “very tragic situation”.

Officials in the town, which lies 41 miles southwest of the capital Oslo, have “invited people who were affected by the attack and their relatives to gather for support at a local hotel”, ITV said.

The Norwegian Police Directorate has also “ordered officers to carry weapons following the attack”, according to DW. Officers in the Scandinavian country are not usually armed.

The attack is the deadliest in Norway since far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 people, most of them at a children’s Labour Party summer camp on the island of Utoya, in July 2011.

Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum under Norwegian law, following the attack that “stunned” the country, ITV said. This term can, however, “be extended as long as he’s considered a danger to society”.

1. Ignoring ventilation is the great unspoken error of our government’s Covid-19 strategy

Ian Dunt for the i

on ‘rudimentary mistakes’

Every day you see staff putting on visors, wiping down tables and asking customers to sanitise their hands – before “closing the doors and windows”, says Ian Dunt for the i. “It’s an act of epidemiological insanity.” It’s “extraordinary”, says Dunt, that 18 months into this pandemic “we are still making these rudimentary mistakes”. Back in March 2020, we had little understanding of how Covid-19 spread, but we now know that “people very rarely get Covid by touching an infected surface”. Even so, the initial message of hand-washing and face-touching “just kind of stuck”. On the other hand, ventilation “is recognised as being vitally important” but this is something No. 10 “has consistently failed to communicate”. “Ventilation is the great unspoken error of our pandemic strategy,” concludes Dunt. “One of the main factors in Covid transmission has been largely ignored. And there are few signs the Government has learned its lesson.”

Read more

2. What has Norway learned from the Utoya attack 10 years ago? Not what I hoped

Sindre Bangstad for The Guardian

on lessons missed

Any visitor who arrives on the island of Utoya, 20 miles from Oslo, is “immediately struck by the smallness of it”, writes Norwegian social anthropologist and author Sindre Bangstad in The Guardian. It was here ten years ago today that terrorist and right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik massacred 69 young Labour Party activists while dressed in a fake police uniform. “It is not difficult to imagine the sheer horror of it all, as teenagers, full of life, joy and laughter, suddenly realised that the shots being fired in the distance were not firecrackers,” says Bangstad. As Norway approaches this milestone anniversary, it is worth “looking back at the lessons learned and those missed from this dark chapter in my country’s history”, he adds. At the time, Bangstad was among those who argued “for a national reckoning with the far-right, racist and Islamophobic ideology” that had motivated Breivik – ideas “much more common among Norwegians than many were willing to let on”. But instead, Norway’s Labour Party cast the massacre as “attacks on all Norwegians” and “any talk of the undeniable links between the conspiratorial and anti-Muslim world views of Breivik and the wider populist right” became “taboo”. The consequences of this rhetoric have shaped the Norway we know today.

Read more

3. Law change will treat journalists like spies

Sean O’Neill for The Times

on the threat to press freedom

Last week, officials from the Information Commissioner’s Office raided two homes in their search for the person – or people – who leaked the security camera footage of Matt Hancock and his lover in his ministerial office. The investigation “is looking at potential breaches of data protection laws under which there are exemptions for journalism and matters of public interest”, writes Sean O’Neill in The Times. But such exemptions would not exist “were Priti Patel to get her way over radical changes to the Official Secrets Act and what the government calls ‘unauthorised disclosures’”. The home secretary is proposing to “widen enormously the scope of the legislation” which would “impose harsher penalties for breaches and equate journalism which exposes failure and scandal in public bodies with hostile state espionage”. These proposals are styled as a response to the threat of “cyberattacks” and “social media destabilisation” but they “would also severely restrict the ability of journalists to report on misconduct and wrongdoing in the police, the military, the NHS, the intelligence services and Whitehall departments”, argues O’Neill. “This is a precarious moment for press freedom in Britain.”

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4. An amnesty will lock the Troubles in a box – for now

Mick Mulvaney for the Irish Times

on an opportunity for understanding

Former US special envoy for Northern Ireland Mick Mulvaney was “more than a little” disappointed by the UK government’s intention to offer proposals “on a blanket amnesty on violence during the Troubles”, he writes in The Irish Times. “My country is still wrestling with having, in many ways, ignored issues of race, slavery, reconstruction, segregation and the like from our past,” says Mulvaney. This is largely because “what were once facts” have “morphed into mythology”. Years on, America is paying “a price for the lack of a common understanding of our own history” – with society unable to agree on, for example, the true cause of the American civil war. “I encourage the Johnson government not to head down that same path,” writes Mulvaney. “There is an opportunity to address the violence of the Troubles while the people who lived it are still able to stand up in public and talk about it. Still able to write it down. Still able to have their say, and their day… There is a chance to at least agree on what actually happened. But that chance will not continue forever.”

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5. I may be a grandmother – but nothing will stop me dancing at ‘Radio 4 in a field’

Jan Etherington for The Telegraph

on the return of Latitude Festival

When grandmother-of-four Jan Etherington and her husband Gavin announced they were moving to coastal Suffolk nine years ago, their family was “thrilled” – because their new home was just up the road from Henham Park, home of Latitude Festival. “As a Senior Railcard holder”, Etherington assumed she’d “simply be the B&B for the family while they partied in the park”, she writes in The Telegraph. But as former music journalists, the pair thought it would be “rude” not to “support our very local festival”. Nearly a decade on, Etherington has been to Latitude Festival every year since (except for 2020) “because I discovered there are few things that make me happier than watching a great band play on a summer night – in the company of others who feel the same”. She feels “enormous gratitude” towards Melvin Benn, managing director of Festival Republic, who “persuaded the Government to include the festival in its Events Research Programme”. “His heroics mean there’ll be swingin’, swayin’ and music playing – not in the streets, but in the fields of Suffolk this weekend.”

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“Much as we Scandinavians are famous for our love of hygge – that cosy hunkering down in our woollen socks, with our candles lit, sheltered from the elements – we are just as passionate about going outdoors in rain, sleet or snow,” writes happiness researcher Meik Wiking in The Sunday Times. This love of outdoor living is known as friluftsliv (pronounced free-loofts-liew; literally “free-air life”).

Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen popularised the term in the 1850s, and Scandinavians today use it to refer to everything from a woodland run during their lunch break to joining friends for a lakeside sauna. And “as the nights draw in and coronavirus restrictions limit indoor socialising for so many people in Britain, it is not hygge but friluftsliv that will get you through the winter months”, says Wiking.

The secret to happiness

“Friluftsliv is more than just an activity, it’s a kind of lifestyle,” Lasse Heimdal, secretary general of Norsk Friluftsliv, an organisation representing 5,000 outdoors groups in Norway, tells Jen Rose Smith of National Geographic. “It’s very tied to our culture and what it means to be a Norwegian.” That might go some way towards explaining why Norwegians are such a happy bunch, says Smith – they ranked fifth in this year’s UN World Happiness Report. And it’s not as if they have it easy with the weather, either. Even in summer, days of rain can drench the Norwegian countryside, while “up north, winter hides the sun for a long, polar night”. But you’ll seldom hear a Norwegian complain: they enjoy their country’s great natural beauty whatever the weather.

Norwegians in the northern city of Tromsø, for example, “see the winter as a special time of year full of opportunities for enjoyment and fulfilment, rather than a limiting time of year to dread”, writes psychologist Kari Leibowitz in The New York Times. “Embracing winter is a hallmark of Scandinavian family life”, with members of all generations simply dressing for the weather and heading outdoors.

“You feel refreshed, you feel maybe a little bit robust and vital, and you feel the benefits of being in contact with the elements,” Ida Solhaug, a psychology researcher at the University of Tromsø, tells Leibowitz. Coming together to “celebrate the darkness” by sitting around a socially distanced bonfire is “not only a Covid-19 friendly way to gather, it can be deeply meaningful”, says Leibowitz. It is a “mindful moment, an opportunity to pause and enjoy”.

Wild about Britain

As beautiful as Norway is, for most of us visiting is currently off-limits owing to travel restrictions. The Nordic nation is currently on the UK government’s “safe list”, but visitors from Britain have to quarantine for ten days on arrival.

No matter – friluftsliv is an approach to life that can be just as easily practised at home. You might choose to “spend your days scrambling [along] coastal and woodland paths” in the Scottish Highlands, going “seal and squirrel spotting” and taking “bracing dips in the loch, with evenings relaxing by the fire pit”, says Hannah Summers in The Times.

Eilean Shona (pictured above) is a car-free private island with wild moors, open hills and secluded paths, right by Loch Moidart on the west coast. The Timber Cottage is a “stylish space for two”, with a Victorian roll-top bath, rugs from Marrakesh and Egyptian cotton bed linen (seven nights’ self-catering costs from £900).

Crofter’s Cabin, on a rural farm in Northumberland, is also “ideal for couples”, says Laura Hampson in the London Evening Standard. “The sunshine hits the veranda perfectly during the day” and there’s a wood-fired hot tub for relaxing in after a day out and about (from £160 a night).

“Gazing out at a wild wintery sea can be a more exhilarating return to nature,” says Gemma Bowes in The Guardian. In Devon, Carswell Farm Holiday Cottages’ new beach hut occupies an “incredible” spot, right by its own private cove – “perfect for some winter skinny-dipping, with a wood-fired hot tub on the deck to warm up in afterwards” (from £358 for a two-night weekend or four nights midweek).

Top image ©Thomas Rasmus Skaug/VisitNorway.com

This article was originally published in MoneyWeek

Russia has denied claims that an increase in radiation over northern Europe is the result of a leak at one of its power stations.

Nuclear watchdogs in Finland, Norway and Sweden last week reported “higher-than-usual” quantities of radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere across Scandinavia and in some Arctic regions, the BBC says.

Dutch researchers who analysed data from their Nordic neighbours said that the radiation appeared to originate “from the direction of western Russia” and could indicate “damage to a fuel element”.

But Russian nuclear power operator Rosenergoatom insists there are no problems at its two power plants in the country’s northwest.

Russian news agency Tass quoted a Rosenergoatom spokesperson who said that both plants - one near St Petersburg, and the other near the port city of Murmansk - were “working in normal regime”.

Radiation levels around the two power stations “have remained unchanged in June”, the spokesperson added.

The denial came after Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), tweeted on Friday that its Stockholm monitoring station had detected three isotopes - Cs-134, Cs-137 and Ru-103 - at higher than usual levels.

“These isotopes are most likely from a civil source,” he added.

The Independent reports that “the low levels and particular isotopes detected in Scandinavia are not harmful either to humans or the environment”.

All the same, Deutsche Welle (DW) notes that painful “memories remain of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster”.

The explosion of the fourth reactor at a Soviet plant north of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv “polluted swathes of Europe and prompted control attempts by thousands of Soviet emergency personnel”, many of whom suffered fatal long-term illness as a result of radiation explosure, says the German newspaper.

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Norway is to delete all of the information collected by its coronavirus track-and-trace app after data protection watchdogs raised concerns over privacy.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) announced yesterday that the app was being suspended over claims that “it was too invasive”, The Guardian says.

But NIPH director Camilla Stoltenberg said that she disagreed with the Datatilsynet data agency’s assessment, and warned that shutting down the app would weaken Norway’s response to the outbreak. “The pandemic is not over,” she added.

The app - known as Smittestopp (“Infection Stop”) - was one of the first released by Western governments and relies on “both Bluetooth connections and a centralised database of users’ GPS locations”, Sky News reports.

Similar centralised storage systems are planned for contract-tracing apps to be used in France and the UK, adds The Guardian.

The data is stored for 30 days and used to track transmissions and warn people who may have come into contact with anyone infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus.

But the Norwegian data protection authority says health chiefs have failed to demonstrated that it is “strictly necessary” to collect location data.

The app has been downloaded by around 1.6 million people across Norway, but was being used on a daily basis by just 600,000 of the country’s 5.3 million inhabitants.

The BBC reports that Norway is now considering a “switch to a rival design backed by Apple and Google”.

The two tech firms’ “decentralised model” gives users a higher degree of anonymity, but also provides less data to model the spread of the virus, according to the broadcaster.

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One of Norway’s most senior public health officials has claimed the Nordic country could have controlled the coronavirus outbreak without a lockdown.

Camille Stoltenberg, head of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), says that analysis suggests less restrictive measures would have been sufficient - and has urged the authorities to avoid taking such a heavy-handed approach in the event of a second wave of infections.

In an interview with state broadcaster NRK, Stoltenberg said that Norway “could possibly have achieved the same effects and avoided some of the unfortunate impacts” by not pursuing a full lockdown.

Instead, the reproductive number, or R value, of the virus could have been kept low by “keeping open, but with infection control measures”, she argued.

Latest figures show that as of Thursday morning, Norway had recorded 8,401 cases and just 235 deaths in a population of 5.4 million people.

But according to The Local, the NIPH published a report at the start of May stating that the country’s outbreak was already slowing when the nationwide lockdown was announced.

“It looks as if the effective reproduction rate had already dropped to around 1.1 when the most comprehensive measures were implemented on 12 March, and that there would not be much to push it down below 1... We have seen in retrospect that the infection was on its way down,” the report says.

Reflecting on the decision to shut Norway’s schools, which began reopening last month, Stoltenberg has concluded that “the scientific backing was not good enough”.

The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson notes that Norway’s statistics agency was “the first in the world to calculate the permanent damage inflicted by school closures”.

“Every week of classroom education denied to students, it found, stymies life chances and permanently lowers earnings potential,” Nelson writes.

Stoltenberg told NRK that if her country is hit by a second wave of the virus, “what is needed is a commitment from the entire population to follow the infection prevention advice”.

In neighbouring Sweden, where no lockdown measures were implemented, the death toll was last week briefly the world’s highest per capita. However, the country’s state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, said that it is misleading to focus on the death toll over a single week.

One of the richest men in Norway has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife.

Anne-Elisabeth Falkevik Hagen, 69, wife of millionaire property and energy magnate Tom Hagen, vanished from their home in Lorenskog, east of Oslo, in October 2018. They had been married for 49 years, having been childhood sweethearts.

Police first thought she had been abducted and in January 2019 said a ransom demand had been received for her release.

The BBC reports that the case has “gripped Norway, where kidnappings and murders are relatively rare”.

What happened?

In 2019, shortly after Falkevik Hagen disappeared, police said a ransom had been issued for her return.

Police did not disclose the amount demanded, but according to the BBC, Norwegian media revealed that it was for $10m (£8m) to be paid in the cryptocurrency monero.

Then, in June last year, police changed tack, saying that the case could in fact be murder.

Officers said there was “no sign that Ms Falkevik Hagen was still alive and no contact with the alleged kidnappers”. They added that they could not exclude a “staged kidnapping to hide [the murder]”, Sky News says.

Police arrested Falkevik Hagen’s husband Tom yesterday on his way to work, The Times reports.

Tommy Broeske, who is leading the police investigation, said: “The case is characterised by a clearly planned deception. As other hypotheses have been weakened, suspicions against Tom Hagen have gradually been strengthened.

“There was no kidnapping, no real negotiating counterpart or real negotiations. There are indications of a will to sidetrack [investigators].”

Prosecutor Aase Kjustad Eriksson added: “After now 18 months of investigation, police have come to a point where it has reason to suspect Tom Hagen of murder or conspiracy for murder.”

Hagen’s lawyer, Svein Holden, said his client “strongly maintains that he has nothing to do with this”.

The 70-year-old will appear in court later today but may not be charged until later in the legal process, a normal procedure in Norway.

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Who is Tom Hagen?

According to Norwegian business magazine Kapital, Hagen’s fortune is about 1.9bn kroner (£150m), making him Norway’s 164th richest man.

He made his money from Elkraft AS, an electricity supplier he co-founded in 1992, and property development. The Daily Mail reports that he currently holds a 70% stake in the firm, which operates throughout Scandinavia.

The paper adds that a pre-nuptial agreement made in 1987 shows that Falkevik Hagen was entitled to just “£15,000 of his £156m fortune along with a plot of land and a Citroen car if the couple divorced”.

The agreement was also amended in 1993, the Mail notes, “to give Tom Hagen control over a property that Anne-Elisabeth had inherited from her parents”.

However, the contract may not have stood up in court, with lawyers telling the paper that the “agreement was so lopsided it might have been ‘ripped apart’”.

“I have seen many marriages through my practice, but rarely seen a marriage that appears so unbalanced,” one lawyer said. Another added: “If she had tried to challenge this marriage agreement as part of a request for divorce, her husband would have been ripped apart by a court.”

An Arctic bunker full of seeds dubbed the “doomsday vault” is set to receive thousands of additional samples this week, pushing the total number of seeds it holds to over 1 million.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV), buried deep in a mountainside on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic Circle, is designed to hold a huge variety of plant seed samples as back-up stock in case of a global catastrophe.

And with maintenance under way to prevent flooding, as climate change fuels the melting of permafrost around the vault, scientists have used the upgrade as an excuse to add another 60,000 crop varieties from across the world.

Stefan Schmitz, who manages the reserve as head of the Crop Trust, said: “As the pace of climate change and biodiversity loss increases, there is new urgency surrounding efforts to save food crops at risk of extinction.

“The large scope of today’s seed deposit reflects worldwide concern about the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss on food production.”

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What is the vault?

The SGSV is, according to the Crop Trust, a “long-term seed storage facility, built to stand the test of time - and the challenge of natural or man-made disasters”.

The stated intention of the vault, which now contains over 1 million samples, is to safeguard the seeds of the world’s food plants in the event of a global crisis.

It is situated on the island of Spitsbergen, part of Norway’s Svalbard archipelago; one of the most northerly inhabited places on Earth. The vault is around three miles from the island’s largest town, Longyearbyen, and just 600 miles from the North Pole.

Encyclopaedia Britannica says that the site was chosen for its “cold conditions and permafrost, which would help preserve the seeds in the event the vault’s cooling systems failed”.

Completed in 2008, the SGSV was built by the Norwegian government in collaboration with the Crop Trust, and reportedly has the capacity to hold around 4.5 million varieties of seeds, with individual countries providing the seed samples to be preserved.

Why is it being upgraded?

Despite being built to withstand a changing global landscape, three years ago it appeared that climate change had accelerated to a point at which the vault failed to keep up.

In spring 2017, unusually warm temperatures in Svalbard caused heavy rainfall and significant permafrost melt, causing a deluge of water which breached the entrance to the vault and flooded it.

According to The Verge, the water didn’t make it to the seeds, instead freezing in the entrance way before any damage could be done to the samples. But the incident has “raised questions over the durability of a seed bank that was supposed to operate without people’s intervention”.

The Guardian reports that a major upgrade this winter has seen the 130-metre entrance tunnel “fully waterproofed and the cooling equipment that keeps the vault at -18C moved to a new service building, so heat from the machinery can be released outside”.

“It is always dangerous to talk about something being completely failsafe and impregnable,” said Hannes Dempewolf, a scientist at Crop Trust. “In 20, 30, 40 years down the line, we will continue to monitor the situation to see whether any other upgrades are necessary.”

Why are new seeds being added?

The upgrade has prompted the introduction of 60,000 new samples into the vault, bringing the total of crop varieties to around 1.05 million – about two-fifths of the total number in the world.

As Stefan Schmitz, executive director of the Crop Trust, explains, this “demonstrates a growing global commitment – from the institutions and countries that have made deposits today and indeed the world – to the conservation and use of the crop diversity that is crucial for farmers in their efforts to adapt to changing growing conditions”.

The Japan Times reports that both common and rarer varieties of grains are being sent by institutions in countries such as Brazil, the US, Germany, Morocco, Mali, Israel and Mongolia.

The Hotel de Glace in Quebec, Canada, is rebuilt every year to new designs, says Sophie-Claire Hoeller on Insider. But as this year marks the hotel’s 20th anniversary, “the best designs from over the past two decades [are] on display”.Around half of the 42 rooms are intricately decorated to a theme, such as “Wild West”, “circus” or “underwater”. The hotel also has a bar, a lounge with a fireplace, a faux forest with snow trees, an indoor snow slide and a “stunning” ice chapel for weddings.

The bed frame is a giant block of ice, “covered by a thin slat of wood and a surprisingly comfy mattress”. With the lights turned off and trying to sleep, “the silence is deafening” – but “I was snug and warm in my sleeping bag”. The cold “truly wasn’t an issue”.

Stay from C$399 (£230), valcartier.com/en

An immersive art gallery

“It’s 1.30am and I’m lying on a king-size, reindeer-skin covered ice-block, trying to sleep,” says Laura Martin in The i. “Every part of my body – bar my nose – is tightly cocooned and warm in a hooded, heavy-duty sleeping bag, but the surrounding temperature is a teeth-chattering -4ºC.”

The Icehotel in the Swedish village of Jukkasjärvi is 30 years old this year. It is carved out of blocks of ice hewn from the nearby Torne River in the far north.

During the day, people can wander in what is effectively an immersive art gallery. “By night, guests live among the freezing art pieces.” With the light refracting off the icy chandeliers, this could be Elsa’s castle in Frozen.

“I gasp when I walk into the shimmering Golden Ice room, which is like stepping into a diamond ring. I shudder at the giant ants staring out of their burrows in the Subterranean room and take a pew by an entire theatre stage that’s been made out of frozen water.”

Stay from around SEK4,010 (£320), icehotel.com

On top of the world

Tucked up in northern Norway, not far from the town of Alta, is the northernmost ice hotel in the world, and the second oldest. The Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel has been rebuilt every year since 1999 to a specific theme, such as the Vikings, Nordic myths and legends and the wildlife of the Alta valley.

It had just six rooms when it started and has grown to around 30 today. There is also an ice bar and an “excellent” restaurant, says David Nikel on Forbes. But “one of the most intriguing features” is the chapel, which plays host to several weddings each year.

There is, however, much to do besides sit in your snow-clad chamber. Guests can participate in a range of activities from ice-sculpting, dog-sledding and ice fishing in the Arctic, or simply relaxing in the outdoor Jacuzzi to admire the Northern Lights dancing across the sky.

Stay from NOK 2,690 (£220), sorrisniva.no

This article was originally published in MoneyWeek

As I’m sitting down to dinner aboard the MS Nordnorge in the middle of the Norwegian Sea, I hear an announcement over the tannoy: “The Northern Lights are now visible.”

After five days aboard the ship, journeying up the side of the Norwegian coast in search of the elusive aurora borealis, this is the moment we have all been waiting for.

Crowds spill out onto the top deck of the ship and there they are, the ethereal lights dancing across the sky. They form a huge swirl overhead, green tinged with bands of yellow and red. They peek out from behind the surrounding mountains and cast a pale green sheen on the surrounding sea.

The Northern Lights have captured the human imagination for centuries. Norse mythology built tales around them, with some Viking legends describing the lights as reflections of the armour of Valkyries, who would lead chosen warriors to the Norse god Odin. Other stories suggested the lights were the Bifrost Bridge, the glowing arch which led fallen warriors to their final resting place in Valhalla.

The indigenous Sami people feared the lights, considering them as a bad omen. They believed that if you pointed or waved at the lights they could swoop down and whisk you away into the sky.

Seeing the lights firsthand, it’s easy to see why such fantastical explanations were created to explain them. To see the Northern Lights is to see the sky alive above you. The scientific explanation, that the lights are the result of charged particles from the sun disturbing the earth's magnetosphere, is a far less alluring concept than what the myths and legends offer.

Cruise company Hurtigruten guarantees that guests will see the lights while aboard the Northern Lights cruise, or get another trip for free.

I was skeptical of their confidence considering how common it is for people to venture to Scandinavia and return disappointed. Even if all the conditions are right, if the sky is too cloudy the lights will be obscured. It turned out that Hurtigruten had every right to be confident in their promises, as we were treated to two incredible light shows on our final two nights.

Although the lights were undoubtably the highlight, the cruise itself has so much to offer. This is especially true if you are an adventurer who wants to reach places that might ordinarily be unreachable and explore the region in a completely unique way.

When people think about cruises they often picture grey hair and placid evenings spent playing Scrabble. While it is true that the pace of cruise life is far more leisurely than a typical holiday, the periods of leisure are interspersed with action-packed adventure.

This particular cruise is more of an expedition ship than a cruise ship, with daily stops in various cities across the coast and a range of activities, from strolls around the city, to dogsledding, hikes, bird-watching and visiting glaciers, all on offer.

There is something magical about weaving through snow-capped fjords with nothing else but the open sea surrounding you. The ship isn’t very large by normal cruise standards, with a maximum capacity of 590 passengers. There are seven decks which include three restaurants, a bar and a bakery and ice cream parlour. There is also a fitness room, sauna and two outdoor hot tubs.

My room is one of only 12 suites, which has a comfortable double bed, sizeable TV, desk area and en suite bathroom. It was lovely to have the extra amenities, but a regular room is perfectly adequate considering you don’t spend too much time couped up in your bedroom.

The entire cruise is 12 days long, six days northbound and then six days southbound, but passengers can choose to join for any stretch of the journey, with a cast of locals often hopping on for a night. We take the northbound journey, and I would recommend doing it this way around. There is something additionally exciting about venturing up the coast, entering colder climes while inching closer and closer towards the lights.

We start our journey in autumnal Bergen, where the streets are lined with orange and yellow leaved trees with red winter berries, perfectly matching the colour scheme of the wooden slatted houses. The further you venture north, the more wintery it becomes, with one of our final stops Honningsvåg featuring the same colourful wooden houses but peppered along pure white snowy hills. The appearance is that of a toy town.

Out of the many activities and excursions offered one of my favourites was visiting Norway’s largest husky farm in Tromsø. Although the snow wasn’t thick enough for us to go dogsledding, we were able to play with the puppies and hundreds of incredibly friendly dogs— truly a dog lover’s heaven.

Another unforgettable excursion was one of our last, visiting the North Cape, the northernmost point of mainland Europe. It is a sight to behold, with powdery white snow as far as the eye can see, and the appearance of a perpetual sunset (despite it being 1pm) due to the high latitude.

Aside from all the exciting excursions, the expedition team keep the time on the ship fun and entertaining, with many lighthearted ceremonies and games organised. As we enter the Arctic Circle on day four, we meet on the deck for the Arctic Circle ceremony, which involves guests volunteering to have a ladle of ice water poured down their back before being given a shot of cloudberry wine. Another fun evening was spent on the deck while passing through the steep Trollfjord while drinking “troll juice”, which resembled a hot toddy.

One of the most unexpectedly fun aspects of the trip is the “Norwegian way of life” talks held almost daily by the expedition team. These talks generally cover information about the next location we will dock at, as well as an insight into Norwegian art, music, language and culture. Not only are they genuinely informative, they are surprisingly hilarious.

The team also use the tannoy to make announcements about “points of interest” that we sail by, alerting you to head to a specific deck for the best view. This system is also used to alert guests when the lights are visible, and there is an option to turn them on in your room, so you never miss an announcement.

The lights, of course, are the main event. On our last evening we are treated to another light show, this one even more spectacular than the first, with much more of the sky painted green. After half an hour of watching the lights, I started to pack up my camera and tripod only to hear a chorus of “whoas”.

I looked up and saw the lights suddenly and swiftly dancing and swirling overhead. Although it’s easy to obsess over getting the perfect shot, the most important thing to remember is to stop and take it all in.

I put down my camera, sat on the floor and just gazed above at the breathtaking sight.

Hurtigruten Northern Lights Voyage - Prices start from £849pp for a classic voyage northbound from Bergen to Kirkenes. The full round-trip voyage of 12 days starts from £1249pp.

Costs for a full board in a polar outside cabin including flights start from £1,199pp and arctic superior cabins (the rooms in which The Week Portfolio stayed) start from £1,499. To book, visit hurtigruten.co.uk

The Week Travel has a special offer on 12-day Hurtigruten northern lights voyage, including flights from UK airports to Bergen. Click here for more details

Bergen is a reassuringly lovely city.

We arrived in a flower-filled park in the centre of Bergen after a 45-minute tram ride from the airport. Our hotel, Hotel Oleana, was a five-minute walk up a gentle incline in a cobbled square.

The decor of the hotel could be best be described as “quirky”, but in a fairly entertaining way. The corridor walls on every floor featured a motif of a different scantily clad person, often posing next to an instrument like a cello, against a purple velvet background. The glass lift doors on either side granted access to both wings of the hotel, with one wing sitting half a storey’s height higher than the other, making for some entertaining lift rides.

Bergen’s waterfront was, thankfully, much more traditional. We went for a very leisurely walk in the evening sunshine past the quintessential colourful wooden houses and a 13th-century tower that was once home to the delightfully Scandinavian-sounding King Eric Magnusson. Rubbing up against these historic buildings are the enormous cruise ships that famously dock in the harbour.

What was striking about this part of the city is just how peaceful it was, even at seven o’clock in the evening on a sunny day. Perhaps if we’d timed our walk to coincide with a cruise ship’s worth of people disembarking (though the local government has actually placed restrictions on the number of ships that can dock at any one time), we might have felt differently, but the contrast to London from that morning was stark.

The comparisons continued when we ordered a glass of wine at a waterfront bar - the cheapest glass of wine on the menu was about £15. On the plus side, this made London pubs look a bargain. Dinner that night was at a waterside restaurant a few doors down - perhaps a bit of a classic foreigner’s error to eat in such a touristy area, but the food was fantastic. Again, it certainly wasn’t cheap - £100 for a shared starter of scallops, two main courses of trout and cod, and two glasses of wine. But this is standard for Bergen and Norway in general, where wages are much higher than in the UK. And to have dinner outside, a short distance from the water while the sun shone into the evening, was truly lovely.

If you’re only in the city for a few days, a trip up the Floibanen funicular railway to see the city from above can be done in a morning - the views are incredible and remind you that there is more to see in Bergen than just the waterfront, and there are also some resident dozy goats to pose with.

Once you’ve found some time to try a local cinnamon bun, it’s also really worth doing a half-day boat trip to the fjords. (You can buy discount cards from the tourist information office right on the waterfront which get you a discount to trips like these, and at local restaurants). In pleasingly Norwegian fashion, our boat left exactly at 2pm. It then wound its way to the end of a blustery fjord, where a member of the crew entertainingly dangled a bucket on the end of a long stick so as to fetch fresh waterfall water for us all to drink.

As with Bergen’s town centre, the scenery was exactly as beautiful as we’d been led to believe it would be by cruise companies advertising during Sunday-afternoon murder mysteries. If you have more spare time in the city, you might want to visit one of Bergen’s many art galleries in the flower-filled gardens that surround lake Lungegårdsvannet, or - my personal favourite - the nearby leprosy museum.

Heading for the slopes, Myrkdalen was, thankfully, a fantastic choice of resort for tentative new skiers who had somehow avoided the seemingly obligatory university and family ski trips for the past 30 years. Having borrowed all the necessary gear at the resort's Ski School, we were welcomed by cheery instructors who patiently helped us build our confidence on the gentle slopes. On top of learning the basics of how to get vertical and stay that way, we made a valiant effort at ignoring the skilful seven-year-old skiers who deftly wove down the mountain behind us.

Myrkdalen has 21 slopes, and so is kitted out for both beginners and more adventurous skiers. Although we weren’t necessarily conquering the highest mountains on this particular trip, we took advantage of the resort’s range of ski lifts, which provide spectacular views for riders. We were also lucky in not having to spend hours waiting in line for the lifts, as the slopes weren’t overrun with skiers at this point in the season. And when we tired of trying to stay upright, we could always call in to the hotel's bar for a restorative hot chocolate.

For a couple of people who had been fairly nervous about skiing for the first time as 30-year-olds, and lacked the innate confidence of seven-year-olds, our days at Myrkdalen provided the perfect introduction to the activity.

The next day, we took an impromptu fjord trip, this time to the delightfully named town of Flam, which again sat at the very end of a fjord inland. While a lot of our fellow boat passengers chose to continue their journey to places with perhaps more than seven buildings, we stayed put, shoring up in the villlage’s only hotel, a beautiful white wooden building. Inside the hotel, where everything was also made of wood, we were greeted by extremely friendly staff who gave us our complimentary, Flam-branded reusable coffee mugs. Our room was cosy, and came with a balcony with views of the beautiful harbour and surrounding hills.

The appeal of staying in a village which you can walk around comfortably in five minutes is that you can see everything without having to expend much energy. But even so, we made sure to fit in a hot chocolate and pastry after our trip to the museum and gift shop (which was inexplicably filled with wild-looking model trolls of all sizes). We segued neatly from this into dinner at the hotel, which was a spread of Norwegian specialties, including fish and salads. We steered clear of the whale, despite the enthusiastic encouragement of a staff member.

The next morning, we boarded the Flam railway, to start our journey home. The railroad route between Flam and Myrdal is the steepest in northern Europe, and the old-fashioned carriages provide pretty spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. Without the keen iPhone photography of the other passengers, it would have been easy to think that we were travelling fifty years ago.

Ski Solutions offer a City and Ski trip to Bergen and Myrkdalen in Norway from £1,225 per person, including international flights, return transfer to Myrkdalen, two nights B&B in Bergen and five nights half board in Myrkdalen. skisolutions.com 020 3944 2077

An alternative Brexit plan championed by Tory backbencher Nick Boles is gaining traction with MPs from all parties amid growing fears that Theresa May will be unable to get her deal through Parliament.

Boles, MP for Grantham and Stamford, says he has been invited to discuss his proposal with four Cabinet members, as well as leading members of three opposition parties.

“Everyone in Westminster is looking for a Plan B... The makings of a parliamentary majority are there,” he told The Times.

Here is what you need to know.

Who is Boles?

Boles entered Parliament in 2010 and was known as a member of the “Notting Hill set” along with David Cameron and Michael Gove. Boles served as minister of skills under Cameron, and was also Gove’s campaign manager when the former Vote Leave chief briefly stood for leader of the Conservative Party in 2016.

Before entering Parliament, Boles was a Westminster City councillor and founded the influential think-tank Policy Exchange.

What is the plan?

Using the Norway model as the basis for his proposal, Boles wants the UK to scrap the planned transition period starting in March 2019 and instead enter the European Economic Area (EEA) - the common market binding Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein with the EU and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) - alongside a temporary customs union.

This would mean Britain “effectively remaining inside the single market and customs union until a relationship could be agreed that avoids a hard Irish border”, says The Times.

Boles’s original plan was for the membership of the EEA and EFTA to be temporary, but after listening to other members of the two groups he now says that it would be an indefinite commitment.

Who’s backing it?

In an an unlikely Cabinet alliance, Remainer Amber Rudd and Brexiteer Gove are both looking closely at Boles’s plan, and the DUP is hinting that it would also consider it, The Sun reports.

A senior minister told the newspaper: “EFTA will be our default option when all else fails. Amber and Michael are already on board, and quite a few of the others in Cabinet are not far behind them. We’ll need the help of Labour MPs, so they will need to be seen to have done their duty to their party first.”

The plan is also believed to have received a cautious welcome from Scottish MPs, including both the SNP and the Scottish Conservatives. “I’ve had discussions with Plaid Cymru MPs, with Labour MPs, with DUP MPs, and crucially with Scottish Conservatives, many of whom were not totally comfortable with the temporary idea in my original formulation,” Boles told The Scotsman.

“For many of them, going into the EEA before the end of the transition, before December 2020 is very attractive. You’d obviously get control of fisheries immediately,” he added.

Could it work?

Boles “believes that if May’s deal falls in a Commons vote then moderates of all sides may coalesce around his plan”, says The Times.

With the UK tumbling toward a no-deal Brexit and all other options blocked by a deadlocked parliament, “you can imagine increasingly desperate Remainery MPs joining forces to steer the country away from the clifftop”, agrees Politico’s Jack Blanchard.

The alternative plan would be opposed by Brexiteers and breaches most of the red lines set by May’s government, but “would match the objectives set out by Sturgeon and Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer”, says The Scotsman.

So far, though, “the Labour front bench is unenthusiastic”, says The Times.

Boles can, at least, count on the support of the London Evening Standard, edited by former chancellor George Osborne.

“It’s a course that May set herself vehemently against on entering Downing Street - but the backstop to the deal she’s done anyway mirrors an EEA-style arrangement,” says the paper. “If she wants to achieve some of that national unity she now seeks, the time is coming for her to ditch the last of the red lines with which she divided the nation in those early days of her premiership.”

As MPs look for a way out of the Brexit impasse, attention has turned to some of the options originally dismissed by Theresa May’s government.

The idea “that appears to have most chance of securing majority support” is the so-called Common Market 2.0 or Norway-plus model, which is the brainchild of the Tory MPs Nick Boles and Oliver Letwin and Labour’s Lucy Powell, says The Times.

The model’s chance of success has increased dramatically as reports suggested Jeremy Corbyn is preparing to whip his MPs to back the option during the indicative votes process.

Under this scenario Britain would retain membership of the single market by joining the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) while signing up to a new customs union with the EU.

The MPs promoting it “say it would go back to the sort of economic relationship the UK had with the European Economic Community in the 1970s and 80s, without having to be involved with closer political union or the direct involvement of the European Court of Justice”, reports the BBC. Its proponents add that it would solve the Irish border question and allow free trade in goods and services to continue.

The model has also gained the support of business leaders, with the Financial Times reporting that a new survey by the Institute of Directors found that “six out of 10 business leaders want MPs to back a Brexit deal that would see the UK closely aligned to the EU’s single market in goods and services”.

But critics say that, unlike in the original Common Market, the UK would have no votes on rules governing large swathes of the economy and all international trade. “Far from taking back control, Britain would be giving up control,” says The Times in an editorial condemning the option. “With the perception that Britain had insufficient say over EU rules as a member, it is hard to see how Common Market 2.0 could ever be a stable solution,” says the newspaper.

So what is the Norway-plus model?

Since the EU referendum in 2016, Norway’s deal has been discussed as one possible solution to the issue of Brexit. Norway is not a member of the European Union but is a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), which means that it is also part of the single market.

So “it’s about as close to the EU as you can get without being a member state”, explains the BBC. In practice, Norway has full access to the single market, and very limited barriers to trade with the EU.

However, in return, it has to make substantial contributions to the EU budget, and to follow most EU rules and laws including the four freedoms: the freedom of movement of goods, services, capital and people.

Under the model, while the European Court of Justice (ECJ) would have the deciding say on single-market matters that would still be relevant to the UK, the court “would no longer have direct powers to rule on matters of European law arising in the UK”, says the BBC.

Any legal action thereafter would be in the EFTA Court, where British judges are likely to make up a higher proportion of the bench than they do on the ECJ.

This means that “the caricature that Britain will be a mute rule-taker as a non-EU EEA member is thus simply inaccurate”, says Dakis Hagen QC in City AM. “The UK would enjoy within the EFTA pillar of the Single Market the majority of EU economic benefits, while witnessing a substantive repatriation of sovereignty”, he writes.

So will it happen?

Should Parliament coalesce around the model as the best Brexit option during the indicative votes process then it looks increasingly likely Theresa May will have to act on that decision.

But there remains a degree of uncertainty as to whether the plan is workable. According to a motion on the model laid by Boles after consultation with the Labour frontbench, under the Norway-plus plan the customs arrangement between the EU and the UK would be “comprehensive” and would only be superseded when “alternative arrangements that maintain frictionless trade with the EU” have been agreed with Brussels.

But having that sort of customs arrangement “would be against EFTA’s current rules”, says the BBC.

Any plan to join EFTA “would require the consent of its four members as well as the 27 EU members”, adds The Times.

In December, The Guardian reported that senior Norwegian politicians had attacked the idea as “neither in Norway nor the UK’s interest”. Iceland’s PM also said earlier this month: “We’re members of the four freedoms, people, movement, services and all that. I don’t know if that’s the right solution for the UK.”

But some EU leaders “have appeared to nudge Britain towards the model”, says The Independent. After celebrating the EEA’s 25-year anniversary, Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar tweeted: “Good to meet up with the Norwegian, Icelandic and Liechtenstein prime ministers. All in the single market for 25 years but not in the EU. Sensible solutions are possible once red lines don’t restrict them.”

Traces of a 65ft-long Viking ship have been found buried just 50cm beneath the ground near the Norwegian capital of Oslo.

Archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) made the discovery on farmland in the southeastern county of Ostfold. The ancient boat, detected with a ground-penetrating radar, may “shed light on the skilled navigators’ expeditions in the Middle Ages”, reports news agency AFP.

The find is all the more remarkable because the imposing burial mound that once covered it has long since been ploughed out.

“I think we could talk about a hundred-year find,” says archaeologist Jan Bill, curator of Viking ships at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. “It’s quite spectacular from an archaeology point of view.

“It would be very exciting to see if the burial is still intact. If it is, it could be holding some very interesting finds.”

Radar scans show clear outlines of the keel and floor timbers, Live Science says.

“The ship is part of a cemetery that has the remains of at least seven burial mounds, which are dome-shaped hills of dirt and stones piled on top of a grave, the scans indicate,” the news site continues. “The remains of five longhouses, where the Vikings would have lived, were also detected near the cemetery.”

According to National Geographic, the ship was probably covered over more than 1,000 years ago to serve as the final resting place of a prominent Viking king or queen. Intact Viking ship graves of this size are “vanishingly rare”, adds the site.

Archaeologists plan to use other forms of geophysical scans to uncover more details about the ship and the surrounding cemetery. However, they hope to avoid excavating the site, “as the ship may be damaged when exposed to the open air”, Live Science explains.

Norway’s minority coalition government is on the brink of a potential collapse as the country’s opposition seeks to remove anti-immigration Justice Minister Sylvi Listhaug from her role over a controversial Facebook post.

In a message posted on the social media site on 9 March, Listhaug, a member of the populist right-wing Progress Party (FrP), accused the opposition Labour Party of caring more about “the rights of terrorists” than the “security of the nation”.

The post, illustrated with a photo of militants from Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabaab, “sparked uproar”, not least because of the Labour Party’s tragic connection to Norway’s bloodiest act of terror, The Local reports. In July 2011, right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik staged twin attacks on government offices in Oslo and on a summer island camp for members of a socialist youth movement affiliated with the Labour Party. A total of 77 people were killed, many of them children.

Last week Listhaug apologised for the post, but opposition parties dismissed the gesture as “not sincere enough” and have continued to agitate for her removal, says Reuters.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg, of the Conservative Party, is bracing for turmoil ahead of a no-confidence motion on Tuesday.

The motion was tabled by the far-left Red Party, and has the backing of four centre-left parties, including Labour. This leaves the deciding vote to the Christian Democrats, a small party that supports the ruling coalition in parliamentary votes. It will meet today to decide whether to back the no-confidence motion against Listhaug.

“Any vote could put Norway’s minority administration in a bind because its centrists, who have always been critical of Listhaug, would be forced to pick a side,” says The Local.

If the Christian Democrats back the no-confidence vote, the minority government will resign, Norwegian newspaper VG reported on Sunday.

A vote of no confidence has not brought down a Norwegian government since 1963, when two separate cabinets were voted out within one month of each other following a scandal over a mining disaster.

More than 100 reindeer have been killed in four days on Norway’s railway tracks, in an “unprecedented” spate of collisions with high-speed freight trains.

Since Wednesday, 106 reindeer have died crossing a stretch of track in the Helgeland region of northern Norway during their annual migration from their summer habitat in the mountains to warmer pastures near the coast.

Saturday was the bloodiest day so far, with 65 reindeer killed in a single collision, district lead herder Torstein Appfjell told state broadcaster NRK.

Train operator Bane Nor had assured the landowner that trains would travel at a reduced speed when notified of reindeer on the line, Aftenposten reports, but a “technical failure” meant that drivers did not receive warnings sent on by herders.

“The message was added to the system. Unfortunately, this message never reached the train due to a technical failure,” Bane Nor regional director Thor Brækkan told NKR.

“When it was discovered that the message had disappeared, they tried to call the train. Unfortunately, it was too late.”

Bane Nor says it has now cut the speed of their trains in the area. However, for local herders, the damage has been done.

"This is a tragedy for me and the three other herders,” Appfjell told Aftenposten. “[The reindeer] mean almost everything to us.”

Dozens of reindeer are killed in collisions with trains every year, but Appfjell said the scale of the slaughter during the past four days had been “unprecedented”.

Another herder who has lost part of his herd, Ole Henrik Kappfjell, said he was “dizzy with anger”. The herders are calling for a fence to be erected along the deadly stretch of track to prevent further bloodbaths.

Norway’s $1tn sovereign wealth fund should be be divested of all interests in oil and gas companies, says the country’s central bank, “in a move that could have significant consequences for the sector”, says The Guardian.

Norges Bank, which manages the fund, said divestment would make the country less vulnerable to declining crude prices. Oil and gas companies currently make up around 6% of the fund’s benchmark equity index.

While the central bank said the view was not based on any prediction of future oil and gas commodity prices or the “sustainability” of the sector, “the move will be closely watched given the fund’s clout in global equity markets”, says the Financial Times.

The recommendation, which is being considered by the government, would mark a symbolic shift from fossil fuel investments and would be particularly pertinent given the fund has grown off the back of Norway’s north sea oil operation.

Green campaigners welcomed the news. “This is a victory for common sense. We have argued this for some time and there is no reason for Parliament not to approve this,” Martin Norman, of Greenpeace Nordic told Reuters.

Rachel Kennerley of Friends of the Earth said: “Bravo Norway, and let’s hope it gets through because the future of fossil fuel investment is looking shaky indeed.”

This is the second major victory for environmentalists in less than a day, after an alliance of 19 countries, meeting at the UN climate summit in Bonn, committed to quickly phasing out coal.

Mexico, New Zealand, Denmark and Angola signed up to the Powering Past Coal Alliance, led by the UK and Canada. The moment was hailed as a “political watershed” by campaigners. It is hoped more countries will sign up to phase out coal, which currently provides 40% of global electricity.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg has held on to power with a historic victory for her centre-right coalition in the country’s general election.

“With 95% of the votes counted on Monday, Solberg’s Conservatives, along with their anti-immigration junior coalition partner, the Progress Party, and two other centre-right allies, were projected to win 89 seats in the 169-seat parliament,” Al Jazeera says.

The win is the first time a centre-right government had been returned to power in Norway since 1985.

“We have received support for four new years because we have delivered on what we pledged,” Solberg said during her victory speech.

Despite losing the election, the Norwegian Labour Party looks set to remain the largest single party represented in the parliament.

“The five-party left-wing opposition grouping, led by Labour leader Jonas Gahr Store, was on target for 80 seats after a nail-biting campaign fought on the issues of taxation and the future of Norway’s giant energy sector,” the The Guardian reports.

Following yesterday’s result, Store said: “We knew it was going to be close, and it was close. But as it looks now it wasn’t enough to replace a Conservative-Progress Party government with a Labour government."

The Earth is more extraordinary than we could ever imagine. From the Northern lights to the Sea of Stars, nature can sometimes seem like magic.

If you are looking to turn your holiday into a once-in-a-lifetime experience, here are some of the world's most spectacular natural phenomena – and how to catch them in style:

The Great Blue Hole, Belize

Originally a limestone cave above sea level, the Great Blue Hole was formed thousands of years ago when water levels rose and flooded the chasm.

Known as a diver's paradise, the darker hue of blue within this circle of water indicates the great depth it holds in comparison to the surrounding shallows. This means divers can explore what is essentially a vertical underwater cave that's 412ft deep.

For a splash of splendour, rent a speedboat and ride the dark surface of this aquatic anomaly. There is also the option to dive into the crystal clear waters and explore the exceptional marine life.

Northern Lights

This nocturnal spectacle of aurora is a result of geomagnetic activity. When charged electrons in solar winds interact with the atmosphere of Earth's Northern Hemisphere, the night lights come out to play.

To catch this dazzling display in a luxurious setting, there are several Snow Hotels that have been set up specifically for Northern Light hunters. From the glamorous glass-cased igloo villages of the Finnish Laplands to the mountainous lava field hotels of Iceland, you can enjoy extravagant front row seats to Mother Nature's greatest show.

Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland

While many attribute its existence to that of a mythical giant, the science behind this phenomenon is just as grand. Around 60 million years ago, a volcanic eruption spewed lava onto the Earth's surface, which then hardened into the polygonal pattern of pillars that make up the causeway today.

For the best view, rent a helicopter and enjoy the 40,000 interlocked basalt columns from above, along with Northern Ireland's other gems, such as Rathlin Island and Binevenagh's cliffs.

Sea of Stars, Maldives

This surreal spectacle is found in the waters of Vaadhoo Island and owes its name – 'sea of stars' – to its breathtaking resemblance to a starry night sky.

Marine bioluminescence occurs when a luminous species of phytoplankton called Lingulodinium polyedrum are put under stress. They emit a blue light when affected and create a glow that resembles blue embers burning underwater.

The bioluminescent waves can be seen from other islands in the Maldives and experienced in myriad ways, ranging from glass-bottomed Jacuzzi tubs and night-time scuba diving to an underwater wine cellar.

Abraham Lake's frozen bubbles

Located in Alberta, Canada, these kaleidoscopic ice bubbles consist not of water, but the highly flammable gas methane.

Methane leaks into the water from organic matter and makes its way up to the surface to evaporate, but in the winter, the lake freezes the bubbles in their journey, trapping them until the ice melts.

To enjoy the ice bubbles up close, try ice skating over its frozen surface. Not only will you have the mountains around you, but those winter jewels will be just below your feet. However, adventurers be warned – the bubbles can be quite dangerous when cracked open near a spark.

Right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik has given a Nazi salute on the first day of his court case against the Norwegian authorities.

Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, claims his human rights have been violated because he has been kept in isolation for almost five years.

His lawyer, Oystein Storrvik, accused the state of "inhuman treatment" in his opening statement, claiming his client's plight was worse than the death penalty.

Before the hearing, Storrvik said Breivik had been "very stressed due to his isolation" in Skien prison, about 60 miles south-west of the capital Oslo.

"One of his main things to do [in prison] was to study and he has stopped that now and I feel that is a sign that isolation has been negative to his psychological health," he said.

Norway's attorney general's office has insisted that conditions are "well within the limits of what is permitted" under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court hearing, which is being held in the high security compounds of Skien prison's gymnasium, is expected to run until Friday.

Should it decide that prison conditions are so strict they violate Breivik's human rights, it could order an easing of restrictions.

However, doctors are expected to testify that he is not suffering, says The Guardian.

"There are limits to his contacts with the outside world, which are of course strict… but he is not totally excluded from all contact with other people," said state lawyer Marius Emberland. He pointed to Breivik's contact with professionals, albeit from behind a glass partition.

Breivik was given Norway's maximum 21-year sentence in August 2012 for killing eight people in a bomb attack outside a government building in Oslo and then murdering another 69, most of them teenagers, in a rampage at a political camp for young people on the island of Utoya.

During the initial trial Breivik said he would "do it all again because my actions were motivated by goodness not evil" and cited the "necessary war against the Islamisation of Europe" as one of his motives.

The British government is facing fresh criticism for failing to accept its fair share of refugees as the humanitarian crisis engulfing Europe continues to worsen.

At a meeting in Geneva today, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), charities and NGOs are calling on countries to collectively commit to resettling at least ten per cent of the refugee population – the equivalent of 481,220 people – by the end of 2016.

"We are here to address the biggest refugee and displacement crisis of our time," UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon told delegates. "This demands an exponential increase in global solidarity."

The UK has so far only agreed to accept 20,000 refugees from camps in the Middle East over the next five years.

Critics have long argued that the number is nothing compared with nearly five million refugees who have already fled Syria and the hundreds of thousands who will be accepted by other EU states.

How many people should the UK accept then?

Based on the size of the economy, Oxfam has calculated Britain's "fair share" of Syrian refugees to be 25,067 by the end of 2016. The country is on track to accept 5,571 by the end of the year, meaning it will have only contributed 22 per cent within the timescale.

Countries such as Germany, Norway and Canada have all contributed more than 100 per cent, showing "that where there is political will there is a way to offer this lifeline to desperate refugees," says the charity.

Migration expert Tim Finch argues that the number should be 50,000 based on the UK's population size. "Unlike some countries, Britain is certainly not over-burdened," he told The Guardian.

"The real issue, however, is not whether Britain should take 10, 20 or even 50,000 refugees now (though I'd favour the higher number), it is the need for a better long-term response," Finch adds.

However, Downing Street has long argued that accepting refugees from Europe would only encourage more people to make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.

It also points to the fact that the UK, already the second-largest bilateral donor in Syria, recently pledged to double funding to £2.3bn by 2020.

But after visiting refugees in Greece and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley earlier this month, UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie Pitt said such actions were not enough.

"Leadership in this situation is about doing more than simply protecting your borders or putting forward more aid," she said.

"My plea is that we need governments around the world to show leadership, to analyse the situation, to understand exactly what their countries can do, how many refugees they can assist and how."

Infographic by www.statista.com for TheWeek.co.uk

More than a week after the Norway atrocities, European far-right parties and Islamophobic websites on both sides of the Atlantic have embarked on a new attempt to regain what they clearly regard as the lost moral high ground.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the general tendency amongst these organisations and individuals was to dismiss Anders Breivik as a freakish aberration and a 'lone madman', in an attempt to deny any ideological or organisational connections to him.

Now a new narrative has begun to emerge: not only did these organisations bear no responsibility, but the real culprits are the left-dominated governments and media outlets that ignored the 'concerns' of people like Breivik and left them disenfranchised.

This shift was already evident in a video blog last Friday by Jean-Marie Le Pen, in which the founder of the French National Front attributed primary responsibility for Breivik's crimes to the Norwegian government and society, "which has not taken into account the global danger of massive immigration which is the main reason in this deadly crazy man's thinking".

A similar argument was made by the English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon aka Tommy Robinson in a Newsnight interview last week, in which Robinson initially described Breivik as a "sick individual" before warning Jeremy Paxman that a similar event might happen in the UK unless the public's "concerns against Islam" [sic] were addressed.

Now the EDL has posted an article on its website by the former UKIP parliamentary candidate Paul Weston which blamed the attacks - wait for it - on Jeremy Paxman and the BBC. How so? According to Weston, Breivik "felt he was no longer represented by the political process; that his opinions either counted for nothing or that he could be jailed for even voicing them".

Given that the strongly anti-immigrant Progress Party is now the second largest political formation in Norway, it is difficult to know why Breivik's opinions should have "counted for nothing", let alone that he faced imprisonment for voicing them.

Yet Weston goes on to argue that "the BBC is only too aware that Breivik's views on Cultural Marxism, mass immigration and multiculturalism are shared by millions of Europeans and Britons" and that its refusal to recognise these views means that "Paxman, the BBC and the entire political liberal/left have ensured the inevitability of potential carnage and thus have the blood of future innocents on their hands alongside those of the inevitable psychopathic perpetrator".

Got that? The BBC is an accessory to any act of mass murder that may take place in the future. Nowhere in this torrent of bitter, self-pitying drivel is there the slightest acknowledgement of the influence of organisations like the EDL on Breivik's agenda.

This influence is not just a question of shared ideas. Few 'counter-jihadists' advocate violent means, and many of them have explicitly condemned the use of violence as an instrument of their Islamophobic agenda. But there is often a discrepancy between the way these individuals and organisations present their message in public and the way their messages are understood by their core constituencies on websites and Facebook chatrooms.

Weston has written regularly for the anti-Muslim website Gates of Vienna. In April 2007 he wrote the second of two pieces on the subject of 'Is European Civil War inevitable by 2025?' in which he hypothesised that a "war" between Muslims and non-Muslims would break out somewhere between 2017 and 2030, that it would be fought "initially by civilians, armed not with tanks and machine guns, but with knives, bombs and terror".

This scenario was welcomed by some of Weston's commentators, such as 'Robert in England' who pointed out that "many Britons like myself have large collections of knives and know how to use them" and expressed his determination to "enjoy" what he called "a cleansing of our society". Another British commentator named 'Mission Impossible' described how he would "welcome a chance to kill Arab-Muslims" and see "Mecca flattened".

Mission Impossible's only "quibble" with Weston's civil war scenario is its failure to deal with the "Liberals/Socialists/Feminists who have brought our culture to this low ebb" and whose treachery requires that "the sooner we start neutralising the people MOST responsible (e.g., certain authors and university professors) for their pernicious influences, the better off we shall be".

Breivik was a frequent visitor to Gates of Vienna and other similar websites, and also recommended the targeting of "literature conferences and festivals" and "annual gatherings for journalists" where writers and academics he regarded as traitors could be found.

This loathing of the liberal left was shared by the millionaire EDL funder Alan Lake, who posted an article on his 4 Freedoms website in May 2010 which gleefully looked forward to the time when "liberal twits" would be forced to live in "Islamic enclaves" in which they and their families would be "executed or tortured to death".

This was the febrile atmosphere of bitterness, hatred and hysteria that Anders Breivik imbibed on a regular basis. The bloodthirsty fantasies of violence, annihilation and "cleansing" that percolate through some of these websites is not far removed from those of some of their jihadist counterparts. This world cannot be written off as the faceless venting of anonymous and angry internet commentators.

All the websites to which these commentators contributed had the power to remove such comments and chose not to do so - until it became convenient. Only last Sunday, Gates of Vienna (temporarily) closed its comments section and introduced new guidelines, which precluded "exhortations to commit violence or foment insurrection".

Robert Spencer's comrade-in-arms Pamela Geller, a leading light in the 'counter-jihadist' movement, has engaged in a similar process. On June 24, 2007, Geller published an email from an anonymous Norwegian - who may or may not have been Breivik - on her website Atlas Shrugged. The email warned of an imminent conflagration between Muslims and non-Muslims and included the information that "we are stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition and equipment. This is going to happen fast".

Since the Norway attacks, this sentence has been removed, but the original can still be found in Google cached versions.

Geller, Spencer and the Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips et al have presented themselves as persecuted "freedom fighters" and accused "the hard left" of "gloating" over the tragedy and trying to silence freedom of speech.

No one is gloating and noone is trying to silence anyone. Responsibility for the murders in Norway ultimately belongs to the murderer who carried them out, not those whose prejudices and hatreds he shared.

But we should not allow the bigots and racists who he cited as inspirations to play the victims - or put the blame on Paxman and the BBC.