Norway

Norway is a country in northern Europe bordering the Atlantic Ocean on the west and Sweden on the east. It has one of the world's highest standards of living, due in large part to the discovery of offshore oil in the late 1960s. In 2002, Norway was the third largest exporter of oil.

Involvement in world affairs
Norway is a member of NATO. It is not a member of the European Union, the population having voted against membership in 1994, despite the government's urging of a "yes" vote. Norway has gotten involved in the Middle East by trying to mediate between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Norway is also trying to encourage contact between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil separatists.

Norway shuns ties to corporations making nuclear weapons
Norway has removed seven corporations from its pension fund because of the corporations' presumed involvement in the production of nuclear weapons. The corporations are BAE Systems of Britain, Boeing, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman, United Technologies, Finmeccanica of Italy, and Safran of France.

Most of the companies would not confirm to Norway's central bank the production of nuclear weapons components but Norway's Finance Ministry said verification was obtained by company news releases and sources like Jane's Information Group which publishes military information.

Philip Morris' "Nordic Plan"
A 1987 Philip Morris strategy report for the Nordic area outlines PM's comprehensive corporate plan to attack the secondhand smoke issue in northern Europe. Aimed at reversing the declining social acceptability of smoking in the Nordic area, the plan includes crafting a "second opinion" about the health effects of environmental tobacco smoke, or ETS, "building smokers' self-esteem," creating an "airline milieu" to use as a venue for offering their own information, putting on "healthy building seminars" using Gray Robertson's company, Air Conditioning and Ventilation Atlantic or ACVA Atlantic (which later became Healthy Buildings International, after Philip Morris took it over) and an extensive media plan aimed at assuring that PM's point of view stretched to reach virtually every citizen of northern Europe -- without anyone realizing the point of view emanated from PM. The entire document offers significant detail about PM's wide-ranging battle tactics to fight public health measures. Their plans even includes a diversionary "white-hat" proposal for currying favor among Nordic-area politicians while they clandestinely fight pro-health legislation: "Prepare plan for approaching other issues in society (AIDS, traffic, etc.), offering statistical material and helping them to get more funds for their projects."). One very telling line from the document is listed under "Tactics." It states, "4. Build IAQ [indoor air quality] industry and science without visible tobacco industry presence."

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Related SourceWatch articles

 * Norway's oil industry

External resources

 * Timeline: Norway, BBC, accessed February 2008.