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UTØYA

Utøya memorial has been completed

Workmen on Tuesday completed the memorial on the island of Utøya to those who died in Anders Behring Breivik’s brutal gun massacre four years ago this month.

Utøya memorial has been completed
Lysingen or The Clearing by 3RW architects. Photo: Jørgen Watne Frydnes

The memorial, a metal ring weighing half a ton suspended from the surrounding pines, has the names of all 69 of the people killed in the attack engraved on it.



Called Lysningen or ‘The Clearing’, it has been designed by the Bergen-based architects 3RW.



“This memorial is for survivors who lost their loved ones on Utøya, but also for all other visitors,” Kolbein Fridtun, whose daughter Hanne Kristine was killed in Breivik’s attack, told Norway’s state broadcaster NRK.



“I get a lump in my throat when I stand here. It is perhaps not surprising, because my daughter's name is hanging here on the ring,” he said.



Fridtun has was a key member of the group of bereaved who selected the memorial from a shortlist of four.



“The other options were also very nice, but this was what we ended up with. I think we have made a good choice,” he said.



Jørgen Watne Frydnes, the general manager of Utøya, said the memorial looked better now it has been completed than he had expected from the design drawing.



“It is actually much better than I had thought,.” he said. “The frame around the woods and the silence of nature, makes it feel like a well.”



An open day is being held on July 8 for people who want to visit the island. 



The memorial will officially open on July 22, the fourth anniversary of Breivik’s attack, when the island will be opened for a memorial day.

Breivik  attacked a Labour party youth camp on the island, mercilessly shooting dead the mainly teenaged participants, many of them with shots to the head at near point black range. 

He was sentenced in 2012 to 21 years in prison, the longest sentence possible under Norwegian law.  

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TRAVEL

Today in Norway: A roundup of the latest news on Tuesday 

Find out what's going on in Norway on Tuesday with The Local's short roundup of important news.

Today in Norway: A roundup of the latest news on Tuesday 
Oslo Operahus .Photo by Arvid Malde on Unsplash

Only one in ten Norwegians plan to travel abroad this summer 

Around ten percent of people in Norway are planning to take a holiday abroad this summer, according to a survey carried out by tourism organisation NHO Reiseliv.

Seven out of ten respondents said they still plan to holiday in Norway this year, even if they receive a vaccination before the holidays start.

READ MORE: ‘My arguments didn’t matter’: How I ended up in a hotel quarantine in Norway 

Viken and Vestland are this year’s most popular travel destinations for Norwegians planning a “staycation”. Young people were the most likely to want to remain in Norway this summer. Just under half of those aged between 18 and 29 said they wished to stay in Norway this summer. 

Third of Utøya survivors have received abuse or threats

A third of Utøya survivors have been victims of hate speech or received threats, according to a new survey. 

Three-quarters of respondents said that the reason they received the abuse was linked directly to the Utøya terror attack, the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Studies (NKVTS) found. 

The massacre on Utøya was the second of two terror attacks carried out by Anders Breivik on July 22nd, 2011. Of the 69 people who died in the attack, 32 were under the age of 18. 

Fewer in Oslo willing to ditch cars 

A climate survey carried out by the city of Oslo has shown that fewer people than before are willing to cut back on using their cars. The proportion of those who think that Oslo city centre should be car-free has fallen to 45 percent from 52 percent last year. 

READ ALSO: Could Norway introduce mandatory inbuilt car breathalysers 

When asked whether Oslo City Council had gone too far in removing cars from the city centre, almost half said that they believed that this was the case. 

“A change in the attitude around these measures may be due to more people feeling dependent on cars during the pandemic. There has been a lot of debate about measures that have been introduced or are planned to be introduced,” Heidi Sørensen, Director of the Climate Agency, told the Dagsavisen newspaper

Tighter Coronavirus measures in Trondheim 

Gyms, museums and swimming pools have been closed, and alcohol service in hospitality has been stopped in Trondheim. The new measures come barely a week after restrictions were last tightened. 

“We need to shut down most of Trondheim to get control. It is only days since we last tightened measures, but we are in a situation where we must take even stronger action,” Morten Wolden, the municipal director for Trondheim, told state broadcaster NRK.

Norway reports 292 new Covid-19 cases

On Monday, 292 new coronavirus infections were registered in Norway. This is a drop of 52 compared to the seven-day average of 344. 

In Oslo, 48 cases were recorded, an increase of two on the capital’s seven day average of 46. 

The R-number or reproduction rate in Norway is currently 1.0. This means that every ten people that are infected, will, on average, only infect another ten people, indicating that the infection level is stable. 

Total number of Covid-19 cases so far. Source: NIPH
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