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| Norway Oil Fund Expels China Firm | |
| 13 March 2009 |
Norway has barred its oil fund from investing in China's Dongfeng Motor Group because the firm sell arms supplies to military-ruled Burma.
Norway's finance ministry says the Chinese company sells military trucks to Burma.
Finance Minster Kristin Halvorsen said Friday Norway cannot finance companies that support the military dictatorship in Burma through military sales.
Norway's oil fund, officially called the Government Pension Fund-Global, invests the country's oil and gas wealth in foreign stocks and bonds. The fund is meant to save money for the future when Norway's oil supply runs dry.
The fund is currently worth around $300 billion. Norway is a major exporter of oil and natural gas.
Some information for this report was provided by Bloomberg, AP and Reuters.
挪威禁主权基金投资中国公司
| Mar 13, 2009 |
挪威禁止其主权石油基金对中国的东风汽车集团公司进行投资，原因是该公司为军人统治的缅甸提供武器。挪威财政大臣哈尔沃森说，东风集团向缅甸出售了军用卡车。哈尔沃森星期五表示，挪威不能向以军售支持缅甸军人独裁统治的公司提供资金。
挪威石油基金的官方名称是“政府环球养老基金”，该基金负责把挪威的石油和天然气收入投资于外国股票和证券市场，以保证未来挪威石油资源枯竭后国家依然有储备资金。目前该基金有大约3000亿美元。挪威是世界石油和天然气出口大国。
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INFLAMED: A Muslim woman in Oslo burned a hijab on International Women's Day to protest the garment's symbolism. |
| AFP/Newscom/FILE |
Hijab debate lifts veil on limits of Norway's tolerance
A Muslim woman's request to wear a hijab with her police uniform has sparked national controversy.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0320/p07s03-wogn.html
OSLO - Norway's biggest headache right now is not the financial crisis. Rather, the predominantly Christian nation is plagued by a religious dilemma over the right of a Muslim woman to wear a hijab as part of her police uniform.
As the controversy has escalated, the country has seen the physical collapse of the justice minister, the public burning of a hijab, and a substantial rise in the popularity of Norway's anti-immigrant opposition party just six months before general elections.
This is odd for a country known for religious tolerance, generous international development aid, and peace efforts worldwide. But the controversy highlights the latent fears of a nonpluralistic society, where 91 percent belong to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Norway.
The dilemma began last fall when a Norwegian Muslim woman petitioned for permission to wear her hijab, the traditional head covering for Muslim women, as part of her police uniform. Norway's justice ministry originally decided in February to allow it, but revoked the permission a few weeks later after loud criticism from the police union, which argued it breached the neutrality of the uniform.
"A change of uniform regulations, with an allowance for covering hair, has never been a goal in itself. It has always been thought of as a possible means to increase the recruitment of police from minority groups in society," said Justice Minister Knut Storberget, in defense of his decision to revoke the initial permission.
Amid the heightened media attention and political backlash from his flip-flopping, the minister collapsed and subsequently announced a two-week sick leave, which was then extended.
The hijab debacle comes on the back of the minister's other religious-related political defeat over a now-defunct blasphemy law. Mr. Storberget initially tried to replace the law with a new paragraph that would have protected individuals from defamatory religious statements. But after much political opposition, the law was repealed and no paragraph introduced.
This has provided political fodder for the opposition Progress Party, which has stoked fears among Norwegians over "sneak Islamization." Progress Party leader Siv Jensen spoke out strongly at the party's national meeting last month against granting special permission for special groups. She pointed specifically to the case of a largely Muslim neighborhood in Malmö, which she claimed had been partly overrun by Islamic law.
A March poll by Norstat for Norway's national broadcasting station NRK showed that Progress Party soared 8.5 percentage points to 30.1 percent in the polls from a month earlier. Three government coalition partners, Labor, Socialist Left, and Center Party, all lost ground.
The center-left coalition holds 87 out of 169 parliamentary seats, while the Progress party holds 38 seats, the second largest after Labor. A continuing shift to the right could pose a threat to reelection chances in September for Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's Labor prime minister.
"If they continue to spin these irrational fears, I'm afraid it could lead to a lot of commotion," said Thorbjørn Jagland, Norway's parliamentary leader and former Labor prime minister, during a highly-attended religious debate in Oslo this week.
Some 500 people lined up around the block to hear Mr. Jagland, religious professor Torkel Brekke, the bishop of the Church of Norway, and leader of Norway's Muslim Student Society discuss why religion is suddenly a hot topic.
The panelists discussed the recent media focus surrounding the hijab debate and blasphemy paragraph, the provocation caused by the burning of a hijab on International Women's Day on March 8 by a Norwegian Muslim woman in protest of the garment, and fears among "religious nationalists" and "secular intellectuals" toward Norway's Muslim minority.
"We could very well live with the mosques because they stayed in them. But when this began to affect our cultural values, then it became a conflict, and then it became politicized," Jagland told the crowd. "But Islam is not a threat to Norway."
"I don't see Norway as a tolerant society at all, partly based on these debates and how they react to people coming to Norway," said Professor Brekke, from the University of Oslo. "It's tolerant in that you can practice any religion, but you have large sections of Norwegian society that react strongly to alien cultures."
Immigrants make up 9.7 percent of Norway's 4.8 million inhabitants. Norway has granted permission to about one-fourth of the 328,000 immigrants who arrived from non-Nordic countries between 1990 and 2007 to stay as refugees. The largest immigrant population is Polish, who are traditionally Catholic, followed by Pakistani. Islam accounts for 20 percent of the 9 percent of the population belonging to religious communities outside the Church of Norway.
Sweden has a more liberal policy in accepting refugees than Norway and allows hijabs in its police uniform, as does Britain. France has banned the use of hijabs and other ostensible religious items in its state schools since 2004.
The religious debate has overshadowed the economic one in Norway, which has been relatively shielded from the financial crisis thanks to its vast petroleum resources as the world's third largest gas exporter.
Norway has a large budget surplus to help fund its financial stimulus packages and relatively mild unemployment – 3 percent, compared to 8.1 percent in the US. Moreover, it has invested its oil revenues in a $329 billion Government Pension Fund.
盖头引起的挪威人情绪紧张
(编译者按语：本文译自2009年3月20日美国《基督教科学箴言报》专题报道，标题是“盖头的辩论揭开了挪威宽容 的极限”Hijab Debate Lifts Veil on Limits of Norway‘s Tolerance。 专题作者是瓦勒利亚·克雷斯科因。 全文很长，以下是节译。)
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奥斯陆消息：位于北欧的挪威，今日所担忧的问题不是席卷全球的金融危机，而是穆斯林妇女的盖头。这个以基督教为主流传统文化的国家，在讨论是否允许女警察制服戴盖头时，触动了挪威人对外来信仰容忍的极限。
在面临全国大选之前的六个月里，关于穆斯林妇女戴盖头问题不同派别的辩论不断升温，冲击加剧，出现了许多前所未闻的事件，例如司法部长累垮了身体﹑游行示 威的群众燃烧盖头表示愤怒﹑坚持反移民的在野党支持率直线上升。这些都是不同寻常的怪异现象，因为挪威人一直在外人印象中是最温和好客的民族，容忍国内出 现的各种宗教﹑对国际援助一向慷慨大方，在全世界致力于和平运动。在历史上，挪威人是一个信仰单一的民族，至今有91%的人口信奉路德宗的福音派基督教， 有挪威基督教的地方特色。
这场辩论是从去年秋季开始的，当时有一名穆斯林女警察向法庭提倡控诉，要求获得戴盖头值勤的法律权利。大法官在今年二月开庭时宣布判决，根据挪威宗教信仰 自由的原则，对穆斯林女警察的要求给予准许。 这个事件在几个星期之后爆发成全国大辩论，批评者们坚持说，警察属于公教职务，服饰应当表现中立，不应当表现个人信仰特色。司法部长克努特·斯托伯盖特在 袒护大法官判决中说：“警察制服稍有变通，允许增加一片头巾，不是改变警察体制。他说，这只不过是表现挪威政策的宽容，可以吸引更多的少数民族加入公共服 务系统。”在他的表态之后，社会反对势力加大了攻势，司法部长难以承受沉重的社会压力，积劳成疾，请病假两个星期，但根据医嘱，病假还将延续。司法部长原 有计划通过一项反宗教亵渎法，在这个民族主义膨涨的时机，他的提案遭到否决。后来他又设法在原有宗教信仰自由原则的基础上，增加一个附件说明，防止个别人 对不同信仰的公民有侮辱性的行为，再次遭到失败。
在全国形成大辩论的形势下，代表反对政治势力的进步党连连在国会辩论中获胜，支持率直线上升，进步党在各种宣传中向民众暗示，联合起来抵制“伊斯兰化的潜 入”挪威。进步党领袖丝福·杰森女士上月在国会做了慷慨激昂的发言，反对助长挪威穆斯林居民的社会影响。她举例说，在马尔默市是穆斯林居民最集中的城市， 那里进行伊斯兰化改造，开始实行伊斯兰法制，挪威的传统文化受到排挤。进步党利用排外情绪获得更多的支持，在今年九月的大选中有可能获胜，争取到国会中的 多数席位，取代执政的工党。在公共媒体上，已举行多场公开大辩论，许多宗教学者﹑教堂牧师和清真寺伊玛目应邀出席发表观点。 曾经担任工党前总理的现任国会议长索布吉恩·贾格兰说：“如此利用非正常的手段煽情，假如继续下去，我担心，我们的国民将变得更加激烈的情绪化，失去正常 的理智。”
奥斯陆大学的宗教学教授布赖克说：“法律上的定义承认各种信仰自由，但是挪威是一个传统的基督教文化国家，从感情上难以容忍外来宗教的迅速发展。”他说， 挪威人对穆斯林集中在清真寺中祈祷和礼拜，不表示反对，而他们走上街头表现信仰的文化，多数挪威人感受到是一种文化侵略，难以忍受，例如穆斯林妇女在三八 妇女节头戴盖头游行。穆斯林女警察戴盖头值勤，已在许多欧洲国家成为合法行为，如瑞典和英国，并没有出现什么冲突，而法国通过限制盖头的法律，激情穆斯林 广泛不满，他们说法国破坏了民主自由，压迫少数民族。他说：“这些辩论，暴露了挪威的宗教信仰自由不真实，是虚假的宽容，实际上，并不存在伊斯兰对挪威社 会的任何威胁。”
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