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BBC News
30-05-2025
- Lifestyle
- BBC News
Norway calls time as school-leavers Russ bus partying gets out of hand
After 13 years of school, Selma Jenvin-Steinsvag and her classmate Aksel were running to catch the Oslo metro in red overalls. "After that all our written exams will be done," said Selma, sight of school-leavers, known here as russe, walking around in colourful overalls is something of a coming-of-age tradition that brightens up the weeks before Norway's national day on 17 marks the day the russe can finally relax after their exams and have one final party. But for increasing numbers of young Norwegians, the parties have been starting weeks earlier, well before their exams have finished. And there is one side to the celebrations that has increasingly alarmed parents and politicians alike - the russebuss. "It's a party bus! We go out every night for a month, we get drunk, we're partying with our friends and it's just fun!" says 19-year-old Edvard Aanestad, who is finishing school on the west side of fear is that all the weeks of partying as well as the peer pressure involved are having a detrimental effect on teenagers' overall wellbeing, as well as their grades.A small fortune is often spent renting the buses and decking them out and many school-leavers go into debt to pay for it all."A russebuss drives all night from around midnight until early morning. We play really, really loud music and party all night," says Edvard's friend, Henrik Wathne, who's all the fun, there have been complaints that the celebrations result in heavy drinking, drug use and little sleep. There are also concerns that many teenagers feel left out because they cannot afford the cost. And all of it currently coincides with the exam period. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said last year that he too had enjoyed his graduation, but the party bus culture had spun out of intervention followed years of public debate, with objections from authorities as well as many of the school-leavers and their parents."We are worried about some negative trends in our schools and neighbourhoods, and within Norwegian youth culture in general," says Solveig Haukenes Aase, whose eldest child is graduating this two younger children are yet to start high school and she complains that the culture affects younger teenagers too: "In recent years, it has also started to have an impact on middle school kids."Together with other parents she formed a group aimed at making the environment for young people safer."The attitude of school authorities previously was that it's a private matter, that the russe celebration is something that happens in your spare time," she told the BBC."But there has been a change in mentality among teachers, principals and school authorities, and it's now widely acknowledged that the new russe culture has a huge impact on the school environment." Norway's minister of education, Kari Nessa Nordtun, said it had been "a problem for many years that the celebrations and the exam period have been intertwined".She told the BBC that school-leavers had experienced difficulties in concentrating on exams because of the partying and that results had declined because of it."The celebration has also become highly commercialised and exclusionary, and we see that these negative effects are spreading all the way down to lower secondary school. "We want to put an end to social exclusion, peer pressure and high costs for many young people. We are now working to create a new and more inclusive graduation celebration."The plan now is to ensure that from next year celebrations are moved to the post-exam period. The party bus tradition dates back to Oslo in the early 1980s and tends to be more prevalent among some of the more elite it has now become national in scale and Ivar Brandvol, who has written about the tradition, believes the whole point of the bus has now changed, so that the bus celebrations no longer involve the whole school class but a more select group instead."Another change is the amount of money you need to be a part of a bus-group. Some of the bus-groups will have a budget up to 3m krone (£220,000) even if they choose to just rent it," he says."Sound-systems are shipped from all over Europe. To pay the bills, the groups will often sell toilet paper to friends, family and neighbours for a little profit. But the kids have to sell tons of toilet paper to earn enough, and usually end up using savings and getting into debt." There is a broad acceptance in Norway that the school-leavers' party bus culture has to be scaled government is also worried about potential risks to teenagers' safety, as they dance on buses that are driven around during the night."We want this year's graduating class to be the last class that is allowed to use converted buses with sideways-facing seats and standing room while driving," says Jon-Ivar Nygard, Norway's Minister of Transport. "We can no longer send our young people off in unsafe buses."For many prospective school-leavers in Norway the government's plan goes too far."The government wants to take away the sideways seating on the buses and just have group seating. I think it's the wrong way to go," complains Edvard when it comes to addressing problems of inclusivity on the buses, he and his friend Henrik believe the authorities are taking the wrong half of the 120 school-leavers in his year were part of a party-bus group, and they agree part of the reason was the high the two young men say they spent years planning their celebrations, even getting jobs on the side to pay for the whole experience."This isn't going to help tackle exclusion," warns Edvard, who points out that banning some of the buses will mean there will be fewer buses to go around. "If anything, it's the opposite, so it's the wrong way to go."
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First Post
29-04-2025
- Politics
- First Post
France says Russia carried out cyberattacks, names military intelligence unit GRU for first time
GRU 'has been deploying a cyber-offensive modus operandi called APT28 against France for several years. It has targeted around ten French entities since 2021,' Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in a message on social media platform X read more France has accused Russia's GRU of carrying out cyberattacks on the country in the past decade. Image Credit: Pexels France on Tuesday (April 29) accused Russian military intelligence of being behind cyberattacks against the nation over the last decade, including on President Emmanuel Macron's 2017 campaign and a TV network in 2015, the foreign ministry said. Russian military intelligence (GRU) 'has been deploying a cyber-offensive modus operandi called APT28 against France for several years. It has targeted around ten French entities since 2021,' Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in a message on social media platform X. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'In cyberspace, France observes, blocks and fights its adversaries,' he added. Le service de renseignement militaire russe (GRU) déploie depuis plusieurs années contre la France un mode opératoire cyber-offensif appelé APT28. Il a ciblé une dizaine d'entités françaises depuis 2021. Dans le cyberespace, la France observe, bloque et combat ses adversaires. — Jean-Noël Barrot (@jnbarrot) April 29, 2025 The accusations, labelled at GRU unit APT28, which officials said was located at Rostov-on-Don, are not the first by Western powers, but it is the first time Paris - referring to its own intelligence gathering - has laid the blame at the Russian state. Accusations of cyberwarfare on Russia APT28, also known as Fancy Bear, has been linked to dozens of global cyberattacks including the 2016 US election, where it was accused of aiding Donald Trump by leaking Democratic Party emails and those of the campaign of Hillary Clinton. A week ago, Netherlands' Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) had warned that Russia has ramped up hybrid attacks aimed at undermining Dutch society and its European allies. The agency disclosed that a Russian cyberattack attempted to gain control over an unspecified Dutch public service. 'It was thwarted, but it was the first time,' MIVD Director Peter Reesink had said. Last month, a report by the New York Times had suggested that over the course of the past two years, Russia had stepped up cyberattacks in Europe and on the United States in a bid to pressure them to curb their support for Ukraine. According to the report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, these cyberattacks had targeted undersea cables, warehouses and railways. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With inputs from agencies
