Inflation and food prices down, Nobel Peace Prize winner to miss ceremony and more news from Norway this Wednesday.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who lives in hiding, will not attend Wednesday’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and the award will be accepted by her daughter, organisers say.
Machado has only been seen once in public since going underground in August last year amidst a tense showdown with President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela’s attorney general has said the 58-year-old would be considered a “fugitive” if she left the country to accept the award.
It was not known in the hours before the ceremony whether Machado was in the country for the event due to start at 1pm but Nobel Institute spokesperson Erik Aasheim finally confirmed to news agency AFP that she would not be there.
“It will be her daughter Ana Corina Machado who will receive the prize in her mother’s name,” Nobel Institute director Kristian Berg Harpviken told Norway’s NRK radio. “Her daughter will give the speech that Maria Corina herself wrote.”
Harpviken said he “simply” did not know where Machado was.
Inflation was down last month with a fall in food prices a considerable factor in this, finance media E24 reports based on new national statistics.
Food prices and Black Friday discounts alike helped to drive the inflation figure for November downwards, according to Statistics Norway.
Inflation in Norway went from 3.1 percent in October to 3.0 percent in November.
The ‘core inflation’, which separates energy costs and taxes from the inflation number, also fell to slightly over 3 percent. This figure can reveal underlying factors pushing inflation upwards and the fact that it largely matches the general inflation can be considered a positive sign.
Core inflation is the primary consideration of the central bank, Norges Bank, when it sets interest rates.
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A marked drop in price growth for food and non-alcoholic drinks from October to November assisted the stable inflation rate.
Inflation for food and drinks was at 4.7 percent, which means prices are still going up considerably, but by a lower rate than the 6.2 percent registered at the same time last year.
“Price growth has come down a long way from its peak, but it is still somewhat higher than what has normally been the case over the long term,” Bendik Solum Whist, director for groceries at the employers’ organisation Virke, said in a press statement.
“This is an international trend linked to rising costs throughout the entire supply chain,” he added.
Young people in Norway are increasingly in favour of restricting immigration, a new survey has revealed.
The 2025 Youth Barometer found that 24 percent of young people said they favour limiting immigration to Norway “to a large extent”, while 23 percent supported it “to some extent.”
When these groups are combined, the overall skepticism towards immigration has returned to levels observed in 2017 around the time of the European refugee crisis.