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Today in Norway: A roundup of the news on Monday

The Local (news@thelocal.com)
The Local ([email protected])
Today in Norway: A roundup of the news on Monday
A Norwegian nature advocacy organisation wants playgrounds to be built without rubber flooring. Illustration photo by Loegunn Lai on Unsplash

Additional crossings at the Russian border, municipalities encouraged to build wind turbines and other news in Norway on Monday.

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Two-hour queue at Norwegian border 

The queue of cars waiting to enter Norway at its northern border with Russia grew significantly on Sunday, news wire NTB reports.

While there are no signs that Russia has restricted its citizens from leaving for Norway, Finland closed its border to tourists with Russian visas on Friday.

A total number of 295 people entered Norway from Russia at the Storskog border crossing in northern county Finnmark, according to police figures reported by NTB. 174 crossed in the opposite direction.

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Norway said on Friday it was considering closing its border to Russians with Schengen visas.

“We will close the border quickly if necessary, and changes can come at short notice,” Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl said.

READ ALSO: Norway to boost security along border with Russia

Municipalities could reconsider wind turbine plans

Municipalities that have previously decided against installing wind turbines could reverse their stance if a government proposal to incentivise the turbines is adopted, NTB writes.

The government wants to reward municipalities for on-land wind turbines more than is currently the case.

“Norway will need more energy in the coming years. That must come from hydropower in the short term and wind on land. If municipalities are be given more in return for allowing wind power plants, this will be a completely different discussion than we have had up to now,” the elected spokesperson for the Lindesnes municipality, Even Tronstad Sagebakken, told newspaper Fædrelandsvennen.

Nature organisation wants ban on rubber underlay at playgrounds

Nature advocacy group Friends of the Earth Norway (Naturvernforbundet) says playgrounds should be built without the soft rubber underlays and other plastic elements because of the amount of small plastic pieces that escape from them into the environment.

“A good number of plastic playgrounds are based on reprocessed car tyres which contain harmful substances for the environment. Others aren’t made from tyres but still contain plastic substances and completely unneccessarry amounts of plastic that can spread in nature,” the organisation’s leader Truls Gulowsen told broadcaster NRK.

Norway to send howitzers to Ukraine

Norway, along with Germany and Denmark, will supply Ukraine with 16 armoured howitzer artillery systems from next year, Berlin said yesterday. Kyiv has sought heavier weapons to boost its fightback against Russia.

The weapons will be produced in Slovakia, with delivery to Ukraine to begin in 2023.

The three countries agreed to jointly finance the procurement of the Slovakian Zuzana-2 guns at a cost of 92 million euros, the defence ministry in Berlin said.

You can read more on this story here.

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