Norway's Prime Minister to meet US President Trump on Thursday
OSLO (Reuters) -Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere and finance minister Jens Stoltenberg will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday, the prime minister's office said.
The meeting at the White House will, among other things, cover the security policy situation, NATO and the war in Ukraine as well as trade and business topics, the statement on Monday said.
"Norway and the US cooperate in a number of areas, and the US is an important trading partner for Norway. I look forward to talking about areas where we can cooperate even more closely in the future," Stoere said.
The Trump administration announced a 15% tariff on goods imported into the United States from Norway as part of a wider, global effort with trading partners around the world. In line with many other countries, the tariff has been lowered to 10% for a 90-day period.
(Reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
Germany's Ecosia proposes stewardship to run Google Chrome
FILE PHOTO: A logo is pictured at Google's European Engineering Center in Zurich, Switzerland July 19, 2018. Picture taken July 19, 2018. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo/File Photo STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Germany's Ecosia, a nonprofit search engine, said on Thursday it has submitted a proposal to assume a 10-year stewardship of Alphabet's Google Chrome web browser. According to the proposal, Google would legally separate Chrome into a foundation, retaining ultimate ownership and intellectual property rights and give Ecosia operational responsibility for 10 years, Ecosia said. Ecosia plans to reinvest part of Chrome's profits in climate action under Ecosia's governance, with the remainder returned to Google as compensation for the stewardship. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Earlier in August, Perplexity AI made a $34.5 billion unsolicited all-cash offer for Chrome, a bid far above its own valuation as the startup reaches for the browser's billions of users pivotal to the AI search race. (Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
Azerbaijan sounds the alarm over shallowing of Caspian Sea
BAKU (Reuters) -Rapid falls in the level of the Caspian Sea are affecting ports and oil shipments and threatening to inflict catastrophic damage on sturgeon and seal populations, according to Azerbaijani officials. The Caspian, the world's largest salt lake, holds significant offshore oil reserves and is bordered by five countries that are all major producers of oil or gas or both: Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan. Azerbaijan's Deputy Ecology Minister Rauf Hajiyev told Reuters that the sea had been getting shallower for decades, but figures showed that the trend was accelerating. Its level has fallen by 0.93 metres (3 ft) in the past five years, by 1.5 metres in the last 10, and 2.5 metres in the past 30, he said in an interview, estimating the current rate of decline at 20-30 cm per year. "The retreat of the coastline changes natural conditions, disrupts economic activity and creates new challenges for sustainable development," said Hajiyev, who represents Azerbaijan in a joint working group with Russia that met for the first time in April to discuss the problem. Despite worsening relations between the two countries, according to the protocol signed between the two countries the working group plans to approve a joint programme online in September for monitoring and responding to the issue. Russia links the problem mainly to climate change but Azerbaijan also blames Russia's construction of dams on the Volga River which provides 80% of the water entering the Caspian. Hajiyev said the falling water level was already affecting the lives of coastal populations and the work of ports. About 4 million people live on the coast of Azerbaijan, and about 15 million in the Caspian region as a whole. He said ships are facing increased difficulties when entering and manoeuvring in the port of Baku, Azerbaijan's capital. This is reducing cargo capacity and raising logistics costs, he added. REDUCED OIL CARGOES Transportation of oil and oil products through the Dubendi oil terminal, the largest in the Azerbaijani waters of the Caspian Sea, fell to 810,000 tons in the first half of 2025 from 880,000 in the same period of last year, according to Eldar Salakhov, director of the Baku International Sea Port. He linked the decline to the falling water level, which he said was making it necessary to carry out major dredging work to ensure stable and uninterrupted port operations. In 2024, more than 250,000 cubic meters of dredging were carried out at the Dubendi oil terminal to ensure that the largest tankers could enter without restrictions, he told Reuters. In April, the Baku Shipyard finished building a new dredging vessel, the Engineer Soltan Kazimov, which is due to enter service shortly. Salakhov said it would be able to deepen the bottom to 18 metres in order to help maintain the port's capacity. THREAT TO FISH AND SEALS Hajiyev, the deputy minister, said the retreat of the waters was destroying wetlands, lagoons, and reed beds and threatening the survival of some marine species. The biggest blow is to sturgeon, prized for their caviar, which are already under threat of extinction. They are losing up to 45% of their summer and autumn habitats and being cut off from their traditional spawning grounds in rivers. Caspian seals are also threatened by the shrinking sea area and disappearance of seasonal ice fields in the north, where they breed, he added. "With a 5-metre drop in the sea level, seals lose up to 81% of their breeding sites, and with a 10-metre drop, they are almost completely deprived of suitable sites," Hajiyev said. (Reporting by Nailia Bagirova, Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Alison Williams)
The Star
2 hours ago
- The Star
Polish president vetoes bill easing rules about building wind farms
FILE PHOTO: Polish President Karol Nawrocki speaks as he attends the ceremony of accepting the sovereignty over the Armed Forces for the five-year term, in Warsaw, Poland, August 6, 2025. REUTERS/Aleksandra Szmigiel/File Photo WARSAW (Reuters) -Polish President Karol Nawrocki vetoed a bill meant to ease rules for building onshore wind farms on Thursday, saying that a government decision to bundle it together with a freeze on energy prices amounted to "blackmail". The accusation is the latest salvo in a battle with the centrist government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, an arch rival of the president's allies in the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party. The bill would have cut the distance required between planned installations and residential locations, while keeping permitting more restrictive for projects close to protected natural areas. It included incentives for municipalities and homeowners in areas located close to new wind farms. It also included a clause that would have frozen energy prices for households until the end of the year. Nawrocki, who opposes easing the wind farm regulations but is in favour of an energy price freeze, objected to the two elements being combined in one bill. "There is one bill that I have ... unequivocally decided to veto," Nawrocki told a news conference. "The wind farm bill ... is a form of blackmail by the parliamentary majority and the government, not only against the President of the Republic of Poland, but also against society," he said. Nawrocki said he would propose a new bill that would copy the price freeze section of the vetoed legislation while dropping the wind farm elements. Energy Minister Milosz Motyka responded to the veto, writing on X that Poland needed to unlock "the potential offered by cheap energy sources." "President Nawrocki's veto of the law guaranteeing low energy prices is a blow to Polish families, industry, energy security, and the entire economy," he wrote. (Reporting by Alan Charlish, Anna Koper, and Karol Badohal; Editing by Joe Bavier)
