The ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev is bad for both Russia and Ukraine, as well as “the whole world,” Budapest believes | Hungary’s government supports Beijing’s peace plan for the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told parliament on Monday. The 12-point plan released by China last week calls for resuming peace talks and respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations while condemning unilateral sanctions. 💬 “We also consider China’s peace plan important and support it,” Orban told the lawmakers. In his half-hour-long speech, Orban insisted that the ongoing conflict was “bad for Ukrainians, Russians, Hungarians, Europe, and it is becoming increasingly clear [that] it is bad for the whole world.” The prime minister then maintained that Budapest should stay out of the conflict, as was decided through a “national consultation.”

■ China urges Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, offers path to peace in position paper, shows sincerity in global governance

Campaigners from Nature and Youth and Norwegian Samirs Riksforbund Nuorat
have been protesting against the Ministry of Oil and Energy in Oslo since Feb. 23,
2023. The reason for the action is that the wind turbines at Fosen, which the
Supreme Court has said are illegal, have not been demolished. The picture shows
Sami artist Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen being removed by Norwegian police the night
before Monday Feb. 27. Photo: Rasmus Madsen Berg, Natur og ungdom

In October 2021, Norway’s Supreme Court ruled that two wind plants at Fosen are violating Sami rights. However, the wind farm is still operating. | On 11 October 2021, Norway’s Supreme Court unanimously found this to be in violation of Article 27 of the Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and considered the wind power plants to «deny the right to cultural exercise». The permit for the wind power plant was thus declared invalid by the court. The Supreme Court did not determine what should be done with the invalid power plant. The government says it is working to make the invalid permit compliant with SP Art 27, which is why it has not yet been dismantled or moved. The continuous violation of human rights has now lasted for 500 days with no sign of resolution. ● The business model of the wind power industry has taken a shortcut through laws and regulations to obtain permits to build and produce wind power plants. The number and size of offenses this entails varies from area to area. The Sami community should have been contacted by the developer in advance to obtain their consent, but the process was ignored, along with the information of the neighbors and other people with rights in the planning area. The municipalities should have checked in advance which laws and regulations could come into conflict with permission in this planning area, but this was not properly done due to an unclear division of com-petence. ● Norwegian energy authorities should have made sure that all rights, laws and regulations were properly managed either by themselves or by the municipality. Instead, neither the municipality nor the energy authorities have carried out the coordination obligation of the legislation, and several breaches of the law have occurred. ● As a result, the wind power plants at Fosen were built illegally, they are too big with too much noise and with too much negative impact on the grazing areas, on the reindeer and the opportunity to run reindeer herding. Reindeer herding and wind power plants are incompatible, and cannot exist together.

■ Aktivistene møtte Aasland: – Tåler ikke at du sitter og prater den samme tompraten (NRK) (DeepL.com)

■ 500 days of human rights violations are enough! | NSR Nuorat, the youth organisation of the Norwegian Sami National Association (NSR), and Nature and Youth are now marking 500 days of human rights violations. In protest against the Norwegian authorities' delay of the Fosen verdict, they have been staying in the premises of the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy since 23 February. Eleven Supreme Court judges support the unanimous Fosen ruling that Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was violated when Fosen Vind destroyed the last winter grazing areas of the Sør-Fosen Sijte and Nord-Fosen Siida.

Having launched the world’s first floating nuclear power plant, the Sturgis, in the 1960s, the US currently has no active floating NPPs, only projects to bring them to the market. As of now, Russia is in the lead in the practical development of floating NPPs, having launched one in 2019, which has since served in the Chukchi Sea. | A group of Norwegian businesses are in dialogue with US companies that lease out floating nuclear power plants, managing director of the Federation of Norwegian Industries Stein Lier-Hansen said during a power conference in the city of Stavanger. ● The back-ground to these plans is a possibly strained power situation in several places across the Nordic country, which, according to Lier-Hansen, must be remedied by "exploring all possibilities." ● Across the entire country, companies are queuing to connect to the power grid in a recent push for sustainability. Businesses ranging from fish farms and seafood production to electric car chargers, slaughterhouses, hydrogen production, charging facilities and data centers need huge amounts of electricity. Many of them are located in northern Norway. In this region alone, an additional 1,400 megawatts of power is needed.

■ Opnar for å bruke amerikanske atomskip som kraftverk langs norskekysten (NRK) (yandex.ru & DeepL.com)

Could Sweden’s ‘unique’ Gripen fighters help Ukraine? | Earlier this month Volodymyr Zelensky said that, after tanks, fighter planes are “the next level of our cooperation.” Some commentators have said that Sweden’s own fighters are the best option, since they are tougher and easier to operate than other western jets. Two proponents of sending Swedish fighters to Ukraine include British MP Bob Seely and analyst Justin Bronk from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), who both argued that Swedish JAS Gripen fighter jets would be better than British Typhoon jets. ● Air power expert at Sweden’s Defence University, Arash Heydarian Pashakhanlou, agreed that the Gripen is simple to maintain and only needs a few people to be refuelled and armed with advanced missiles, and that it can use short runways. The jets can also be dispersed out over a wider area to make them less vulnerable to attacks, he told The Local. He added that the Gripen is “developed with Russia in mind and is therefore very suitable for the situation that Ukraine finds itself in today.”