xury cars capsized
and sank after colliding with the Bahamas-registered Kariba cargo
ship in the English Channel. Tricolor carried 2,862 cars, high-end
BMWs, Volvos and Saabs, and 77 other items, mainly tractors and
large crane parts.
2003 Jan 28, US and Afghan
forces battled rebels aligned with renegade leader Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar in the largest-scale fighting in 10 months. 18 enemy
fighters were killed in 2 days of fighting. Norwegian F-16s
participated in bombing enemy targets.
(AP, 1/28/03)(WSJ, 1/29/03, p.A1)(SFC, 1/29/03,
2003 Mar 20, Norwegian police
arrested Mullah Krekar, the leader of a Kurdish guerrilla group
suspected of links to al-Qaida, on kidnapping charges. After
settling in Norway in 1991, Krekar founded the Kurdish Ansar
al-Islam during visits to Iraq.
(AP, 3/20/03)(AP, 2/14/12)
2003 Aug 22, Oslo, Norway, was
ranked the world's most expensive city by Swiss banking giant UBS.
It was followed by New York, Zurich, Switzerland; Copenhagen,
Denmark; London; Basel, Switzerland; Chicago; and Geneva.
2003 Sep 30, Norway's national
film board lifted a ban on hundreds of films that were deemed too
sexually explicit or violent, including 1994's "On Deadly Ground"
starring Steven Seagal and the 1990 gangster epic "Miller's
2003 Dec 10, The Nobel Prize
awards ceremony were held in Sweden and Norway. Iranian democracy
activist Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace
Prize, accepted the award in Oslo, Norway.
(AP, 12/10/03)(AP, 12/10/08)
2003 Dec 12, Keiko the killer
whale (27), whose early life inspired the film "Free Willy," died in
Norway of apparent pneumonia.
(SFC, 12/13/03, p.A1)
2004 Jan 1, In Norway a new law
went into effect to allow foreign hunters to hunt seals. The
legislation raised the seal kill quota to 2,000.
(SFC, 11/27/04, p.A10)
2004 Jan 2, Norwegian police
arrested Mullah Krekar, Muslim Kurd leader of Ansar al-Islam, on
charges connected to 2 suicide bombings in Iraq 2 years ago. Norway
ordered Krekar deported in 2005 after declaring him a national
security threat, but postponed the move because of worries he could
face execution or torture in Iraq.
(SFC, 1/2/04, p.A3)(AP, 2/14/12)
2004 Jan 19, The freighter MS
Rocknes capsized in a narrow inlet between the island of Bjoroey and
Norway's western coast, less than 200 yards from land after it put
out a distress call. The 30 crew members included 24 Filipinos,
three Dutch, two Norwegians and one German. 12 crew members were
rescued. The death toll was put at 18.
(AP, 1/20/04)(WSJ, 1/21/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 25, A Norwegian
Academy awarded the Abel Prize in Mathematics to Isadore M. Singer
of MIT and Sir Michael F. Atiyah of the Univ. of Edinburgh for
discovering and proving the mathematical concept called the "index
(SFC, 3/26/04, p.A15)
2004 Jul 2, A Norwegian strike
began targeting the oil exploration sector. It incidentally affected
two mobile production units, the Petrojarl I, which ceased
operations in early September, and the Petrojarl Varg.
2004 Aug 22, In Oslo, Norway,
armed men stormed into the Munch Museum, threatened staff at
gunpoint and stole 2 of Edvard Munch's famous paintings, "The
Scream" and "Madonna" before the eyes of stunned museum-goers.
Another of 4 versions of “The Scream" was stolen in 1994. Police
recovered both paintings in 2006. In 2007 3 men were sentenced to
prison for their roles in the heist. The 3 were ordered to pay a
total of $262 million in compensation.
(AP, 8/22/04)(WSJ, 8/24/04, p.A1)(SFC, 9/1/06,
p.A2)(SFC, 4/24/07, p.D6)
2004 Sep 29, An Algerian asylum
seeker on a commuter plane in northern Norway attacked both pilots
and a passenger with an ax as the aircraft was landing.
2004 Oct 11, Edward C. Prescott
(63), an American, and Finn E. Kydland (60), a Norwegian, won the
2004 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics for shedding light on how
government policies and actions affect economies around the world.
2004 Oct 25, The Norwegian
Shipowners Association threatened to lock out more oil and gas rig
workers, a move analysts said could result in a near shutdown of the
third-largest petroleum exporter's p