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CORRUPTION

NGO sues to expel Norway TV from Egypt

The Egyptian ally of a Norwegian NGO charged with money-laundering has asked a court in Egypt to expel a journalist working for state broadcaster NRK.

Published: 18 September 2015 21:12 CEST
NGO sues to expel Norway TV from Egypt
Loai Deeb speaking at GNRD's International Conference on Terrorism and Human Rights. Photo: GNRD

Egypt's Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights has asked the court to revoke NRK's licence to do journalism in Egypt and expel its correspondent, the Cairo-based Sigurd Falkenberg Mikkelsen. 

The basis for their case is related to the fact NRK earlier this year revealed that Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD), an NGO registered in Norway which has close links to Maat Foundation, has been involved in corruption and money laundering.

“We are aware that there will be a civil lawsuit against NRK, but it is difficult to clarify what the concrete charges are and where in the Egyptian legal system the case is to be tried,” Per Arne Kalbakk, NRK's news director, told Norway's Dagens Naeringsliv newspaper. “We have the impression that the matter is at an early stage in the system.” 

GNRD, based in Stavanger, and its leader, the Palestinian-born Loai Deeb, were charged with laundering more than 100m Norwegian kroner ($13 million) in May this year.

Since, then GNRD has mounted a powerful campaign against the Norwegian state. Representatives of NGOs linked to GNRD claimed that Norway was acting like “a totalitarian regime” during the 29th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The organisation has also said that they plan to sue the Norwegian government for 20bn kroner in damages. 

“We are aware that GNRD are trying to misrepresent The Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim)'s investigation of the organisation internationally,” Frode Overland Andersen, from Norway's Foreign Ministry,  told Dagens Naeringsliv.  “That is unfortunate. I don't want to speculate on what GNRD are trying to achieve with the misinformation.”

The Maat foundation claim that NRK's reporting of the case against GNRD was partial and unfair, and that NRK should therefore not be allowed to operate in Egypt.



Kalbakk said that NRK did not intend to let the lawsuit affect its work in Egypt.



“We don't believe we have been biased, and we will continue to engage in investigative journalism. The safety of our employees will always be important, but we will not let an angry organisation stop us from doing normal journalism in Egypt,” he said. “Considering that they are a human rights organisation, it seems that GNRD are strikingly unconcerned about freedom of the press.” 

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WORKING IN NORWAY

Five things to know about wages in Norway

Norway is a great country to live and work in, and many point to the high salaries as a major pull factor. Here’s what you need to know about the wages in Norway. 

Published: 19 April 2024 13:04 CEST
Five things to know about wages in Norway

Norway doesn’t have a minimum wage 

Many wrongly assume that the high wages in Norway must be the result of a high minimum wage. 

However, the country doesn’t have a minimum wage which covers all sectors. Instead, wages are agreed upon through negotiations between trade unions and individual employers or employer organisations. 

This contributes to high levels of trade union membership in Norway. 

Those who aren’t in a union or sectors where membership isn’t widespread negotiate their own wages. 

Some industries, where workers are likely to be exploited or where there may be a large number of foreign workers, have minimum wages enforced by the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority.

READ MORE: Which industries in Norway have a minimum wage?

How Norwegian wages compare 

The average salary in Norway (more on that later) was 56,360 kroner per month in 2023. 

This equates to an annual salary of around 676,000 kroner. This is a salary equivalent to 49,000 pounds, 57,510 euros, or 61,266 dollars. 

The average annual salary in the US is 59,428, according to Forbes magazine.  Eurostat, the official statistics office of the European Union, measured the average annual salary for a single worker without children at 26,136 euros and 55,573 euros for a working couple with two children. 

However, wages vary greatly across the EU. In 2022, the net annual earnings of an average single worker without children were 47,640 euros in Luxembourg compared to 8,412 euros in Bulgaria. 

Meanwhile, the average Dane earns 46,972 Danish kroner before taxes, according to Statistics Denmark. This is around 73,981 Norwegian kroner. In Sweden, the average salary was around 38,300 Swedish krona or roughly 38,534 Norwegian kroner. 

Average wage versus median wage 

The average monthly wage of 56,360 kroner is pulled up by the very highest earners. The highest earners in Norway are found in the private sector. 

Statistics Norway used to keep data on the very highest earners, and around 41,600 people were in the top one percent in 2021 (the year Statistics Norway last kept data) 

To be in Norway’s top one percent required annual earnings of 1.8 million kroner or 150,000 kroner monthly. 

The median wage is a far more modest 50,660 kroner. 

Income tax 

Norway uses a mixture of progressive and flat taxation. The majority of wage earners in Norway, they will pay a flat income tax of 22 per cent, along with a bracketed tax based on earnings. 

The bracket tax ranges between 1.7 and 17.5 percent, depending on one’s earnings. This means that you can have income tax of up to 39.5 percent in Norway. 

Foreigner workers who are new to Norway will be sorted into the PAYE scheme. This is a flat tax rate of 25 percent, however there are no deductibles available. After a year, they will be sorted into Norway’s regular tax system. 

Norway’s gender and immigrant wage gap 

Foreigners in Norway typically make less money than their Norwegian counterparts. The average salary for a foreign resident in Norway is around 50,270 kroner per month, according to figures from the national data agency Statistics Norway.

Furthermore, when you take immigrants out of the wage statistics, the average wage rises to 58,190 kroner. 

The highest earners amongst foreigners in Norway were those  from North America and Oceania. They made 61,810 kroner on average. 

Africans, and those from countries that joined the EU after 2004, had the lowest earnings among all immigrant groups in Norway. 

While women’s wages increased more than men’s last year, a gender wage gap still exists in Norway. An average woman’s salary amounted to 88.3 percent of a man’s monthly pay packet.

A bigger gap existed between Norwegian men and foreign women. 

READ ALSO: How much money do Norway’s different foreigners make?

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