Norway

Keiko, who gained fame starring in the "Free Willy" movies, has died in a Norwegian bay that he had made his home after a 10-year campaign failed to coax him back to the open seas. The whale, who was about 26 years old, died Friday after suddenly contracting pneumonia in the Taknes fjord in Norway. Caretaker Dane Richards said the illness struck the 25-foot mammal fairly quickly. In the wild, orcas, or killer whales, can live an average of 35 years.

On a day when Lena Larsen may slip on a headscarf and walk with humility toward the mosque, her nemesis across town, Shabana Rehman, may strip off her clothes, spray-paint her body and joke about her sex life to a room full of mystified Norwegians. Both women are Muslim with an edgy sense of humor, but their quests to integrate the Islamic and Norwegian communities are as different as their fashion tastes.

It was just moments after the conclusion of the men's team sprint, a relatively new cross-country race added to these 2006 Turin Games. Norwegian skier Tor Arne Hetland was asked if he would like to see any changes in the event. "To change it by 50 meters would have been great today," Hetland quipped. The 31-year-old racer had just lost by the narrowest of margins, out-sprinted in the final meters by Bjoern Lind of Sweden. Hetland knows something about close finishes. In the 1.

Any production of "Song of Norway" had better be well sung. The dramaturgy in this slab of aging shmaltz is primitive, and the spectacle--at least as designed for the Long Beach Civic Light Opera--is dull. However, Edvard Grieg's melodies still survive, despite the silly lyrics added by Robert Wright and George Forrest, so it's possible that interesting voices could make the thing worth sitting through. Only one of the Long Beach voices, Ann Blyth's, comes close to justifying the experience.

Norwegians turned to their churches Saturday to try to find comfort in the aftermath of twin attacks that took the lives of at least 92 people, many of them teenagers, and left citizens of this typically calm Scandinavian country in disbelief. Bishop Laila Riksaasen Dahl of the Church of Norway diocese in Tunsberg, along with other clergy, met with survivors and relatives of those slain when a gunman went on a rampage at a youth camp on Utoya Island. Riksaasen Dahl told the Norwegian daily Aftenposten that many of the young people had seen close friends gunned down, or had themselves been victims of the shooting.

He wanted to ignite "a revolution," one that would upend contemporary Norwegian and European society. The goal: to purge the continent of Muslims and punish the "indigenous Europeans" who had failed to protect their nations from "cultural suicide. " As Norway grieved for the 93 people cut down in twin terrorist attacks, the radical views of the accused killer came into clearer view Sunday and raised questions about the threat posed by far-right extremists in this country and the extent to which the authorities can control it. The threat reflects a bitter resentment toward demographic changes that reaches beyond Norway to neighbors such as Sweden, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands, where far-right and anti-immigrant parties have made major political gains in recent years.

Norway has overtaken Canada to head a U.N. list of the world's best places to live, the Norwegian daily Verdens Gang reported. The U.N. list, to be published next week, shows for the first time Norway ranking No. 1 on indicators such as life expectancy, education and per capita gross domestic product, the paper said. Norway received 939 points, followed by Australia, Canada and Sweden, each with 936 points. The U.S. ranked sixth, and Britain came in at 14.

Re "So, This Is Heaven: Norway," Nov. 8: I am a 41-year-old man living in Norway. We do not experience "the perfect life" in Norway all the time. For example, we do not have eight weeks of vacation. Starting next year we will have five weeks of vacation. A woman's leave when she sets a new child into this world is one year. She is paid 80% of her salary. If I want to buy a new car it will cost about $30,000. There are spas in about 10% of Norway's homes. (I am in that business.) I am a sales manager and earn $33,330 each year, minus 35% taxes.

Record oil output last month pushed Norway past Britain and made it Europe's largest oil producer for the first time, according to a published report today. Norway pumped a record 1.57 million barrels a day in May, contrasted with an estimated 1.43 million barrels produced by Britain, which closed several North Sea fields due to accidents and maintenance problems, the business newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv said. Official figures are to be released in July. Oil Ministry spokesman Egil Helle said the 40% increase over the May, 1988, production level irritated some members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which hopes to stabilize prices by limiting supplies.

Norwegian oil minister Arne Oeien said Thursday that he had accepted an invitation to meet with OPEC President Arturo Hernandez Grisanti of Venezuela and Oil Minister Ahmad Zaki Yamani of Saudi Arabia. But Oeien said Norway currently would not support efforts to boost world oil prices to levels "contrary to the interests" of the industrialized world. Oeien said at a news conference that Grisanti and Yamani had asked for the meeting.