Latest news with #Eide
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Norwegian foreign minister on strikes on Russian airfields: Ukraine has every right to respond
Norway's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide has reiterated Ukraine's right to self-defence following a series of drone strikes on Russian airfields on Sunday 1 June. Source: NRK, a Norwegian public broadcasting company, as reported by European Pravda Details: Eide pointed out that it was Russia that launched the full-scale war in 2022. "Ukraine, of course, has every right to strike military facilities across the territory of Russia," he said. The foreign minister added that Ukraine is adhering to international law and targeting legitimate military sites, whereas Russia frequently strikes Ukrainian cities, causing destruction and killing civilians. He also noted that despite the fact that some Russian targets relatively close to Norway had been hit, there is no reason to believe that Norwegian security is under threat. Background: On the afternoon of 1 June, a series of strikes took place targeting Russia's Aerospace Forces at no fewer than four airfields. Sources told Ukrainska Pravda that the operation, which was carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), had hit around 40 aircraft, particularly strategic bombers. A source in the SSU told Ukrainska Pravda that the special operation, codenamed Pavutyna (Spiderweb), had been in preparation for over 18 months. The plan involved smuggling first-person view drones into Russia, followed by mobile wooden crates in which the drones were concealed. "When the time was right, the roofs of the crates were opened remotely and the drones took off to strike the Russian bombers," the source said. News of the destruction of the Russian aircraft emerged on the eve of the Ukraine-Russia negotiations scheduled for 2 June in Istanbul. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Residents critique care at Rochester's Frisbie Hospital under HCA
If you wanted to know how things have gone at Frisbie Memorial Hospital since for-profit HCA Healthcare, the world's largest hospital conglomerate, took over in 2020, Wednesday's public meeting in Rochester told two stories. Corporate leaders and hospital staff marched in lockstep to the podium and offered their own positive self-assessments. Residents came not to praise HCA, but to plead with the state's Health Care Consumer Protection Advisory Commission and Attorney General John Formella to help make their community hospital better. The meeting was 2½ hours long so everyone who signed up could speak. The first 88 minutes of input, however, was almost entirely HCA and Frisbie officials talking about the strides they've made. State Sen. Tom McGough and state Rep. Julie Miles, both Merrimack Republicans who are on the commission, prodded doctors, nurses and officials to speak in unscripted terms, answer questions and be accountable to patients. 'That's a great testimonial from the CMO. I'm thrilled to hear that things have come back — ortho, neuro, partial hospital psych services. That's fantastic. We've got a room full of folks. What are we about to hear? What are you still missing?' McGough asked Dr. Trevor Eide, the chief medical officer. Eide said Frisbie's goal is to take care of as many patients as possible in Rochester and send only the sickest patients to Portsmouth Regional Hospital, which is also owned by HCA. 'If I had to say there's one thing that I'd like to have back, one service line, I think nephrology to provide dialysis for our dialysis patients.' Eide said when pressed. Hospital officials listed several areas of improvement, including faster turnaround to transfer critically ill patients to other hospitals and better access to outpatient services, primary care and specialists. Frisbie has also decreased the time it takes a patient coming into the emergency room to be evaluated by a provider, which is now less than six minutes, according to Dr. Carly Shiembob, the medical director for Frisbie's emergency department. Yvonne Goldsberry, a member of the commission, suggested HCA provide a community benefit report like nonprofit hospitals are required to share with the public. Goldsberry, Formella, McGough and Miles all suggested better communication and community outreach. Merger fallout Residents focused mostly on services they lost after HCA saved Frisbie from closing just before COVID-19 hit. Commission members also made note of services Frisbie no longer provides, such as discontinuing labor and baby delivery services. In 2022, Formella's office investigated why HCA, which had agreed as part of the merger in 2020 to continue several services for at least five years, reneged on its promise and began sending expectant mothers 21 miles down the Spaulding Turnpike to Portsmouth. Ultimately, HCA and the AG's Office worked out a deal in 2023 for HCA to provide $2.75 million to the Greater Rochester Community Health Foundation to improve health and well-being for Rochester-area residents. 'How would you have us spend the $2.75 million, which is not much to a big company like HCA. But that money came from HCA and, let's face it, it's got to be part of the cost of business. How would you have this commission spend it?' McGough asked Rochester Mayor Paul Callaghan, one of the speakers who praised Frisbie. Callaghan suggested using the money to improve mental health and drug addiction services. Sharp criticism Dr. Mike Metzger, who worked at Frisbie as a cardiologist from 2005 to 2023 and now works at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, said the most seasoned doctors and nurses have left Frisbie. 'I feel like HCA does have a playbook, and it knows how to harvest its profit,' Metzger said. 'I say this with great sadness. I was one of the biggest cheerleaders of Frisbie, but I feel like this has to be said. While there may be some services there, they're nominally there. Most patients are being transported to Portsmouth Hospital.' Sharon Croft, who was born at Frisbie and was a school nurse for almost 30 years, said she and others lost their doctors and received little or no notification. Others said the bad communication about doctor departures put some of them in a bind when it came time to renew the medications they relied on or couldn't find where their doctors moved to. Incidents like those eroded trust in the hospital and HCA, they said. 'Even though we hear all of these good things, people that I deal with, people in my neighborhood, they don't want to go to Frisbie,' Croft said. 'They want to go someplace else. It's not the people, it's what's available to them, and whether they are actually going to get the things they need. Or are they going to end up going someplace else anyway?' Roberta Goodrich, who lived in Rochester for 22 years before moving to Wakefield and previously worked at Frisbee, was disappointed when HCA closed the White Mountain Medical Center, the Barrington Walk-In Care and Seacoast Readicare in Somersworth. HCA officials said they had to close their clinics because they were losing money and didn't have enough patients to justify staying open. Goodrich said the reduction in services makes it clear that HCA values profits over patients. 'Since the HCA acquisition, Frisbie Hospital no longer has labor and delivery maternity care. How many women want to have prenatal care and then find out they have to go somewhere else to deliver,' Goodrich said. 'Delivery doesn't really generate much money for the company unless it's a complicated delivery or involves a C section.' Marsha Miller, who lives across the street from Frisbie, said she goes to Wentworth-Douglass because her husband can't get the care he needs in their home city. 'No matter what stories we hear today, and they are awesome, the reality is that people in Rochester that have touched the hospital before these changes, have that negative image,' Miller said. She said Frisbie can overcome the negative perception with better care and better communication. Putting patients first Formella was asked why so many people from HCA took up the majority of time during public comments and why residents didn't get to speak until the meeting was more than half-way over. 'We're going to think hard about that going forward as to how to make sure that these forums are true community forums, and we hear mostly from community members,' Formella said. 'Obviously, we don't' want to tell people they can't speak, but we also need to make sure that we're setting this up in a way that we hear from the community. I think we heard a lot from the community tonight, but I think in forums going forward, we're going to work to make sure we're hearing even more from community members and less from representatives from corporations.' Goldsberry agreed, saying HCA knows how to stay on message. 'The hospital has a lot of resources, and when they come to public events, they come with all their resources,' she said. 'Community members don't have those kinds of resources.' She said the commission will balance the testimony during the public meeting with a large amount of feedback its received from residents who email in their concerns. To submit a question for the Health Care Consumer Protection Advisory Commission, email Christine Rioux at dpierce@
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Norway hands over Arctic Council intact after ‘difficult' term as chair
Norway is to hand over the leadership of an intergovernmental body comprising countries with territory in the Arctic after what its foreign minister called a 'difficult two years', during which there have been unprecedented tensions within the group's membership related to Russia's war in Ukraine and Donald Trump's threat to seize Greenland. The Arctic Council requires consensus from all eight Arctic states – the US, Russia, Canada, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the kingdom of Denmark, which includes Greenland, and Sweden – for all decisions and statements. Despite seismic divisions among its membership being played out under the global spotlight – particularly in relation to Russia, and, since Trump's re-election, the US – the council remains active and intact. The Norwegian foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, will hand over the rotating two-year chair to Greenland's foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, at a meeting of the council on Monday. Denmark is due to take the presidency but in a signal that Copenhagen is attempting to reset its relations with Greenland – a former Danish colony that remains part of the Danish realm – after Trump's advances, Greenland is taking the chair. 'It's been a difficult two years to be frank because the global backdrop, the international backdrop, has made it impossible to have full business as usual,' Eide told the Guardian. 'But we were very eager to keep the council together, to maintain its membership and to have activity, and we are pleased to report that we achieved that.' He admitted that their goals – including on the oceans, the climate crisis and people in the north – were 'limited' but said the council, formed in 1996, had managed to maintain working relations despite considerable strain since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 'We were able to keep it together,' he said. 'And in contrast to some other formats, nobody has left and nobody has suggested that we should not continue our work, and slowly, slowly, we were able to develop some practical cooperation.' The next two years could present even greater challenges as Trump continues to make threats about taking control of Greenland, and amid volatile relations between the US and its Arctic neighbours and changing dynamics between the US and Russia. China is also a growing presence in the region. For a long time, Eide said, the council had managed to shield itself from politics farther south, but since the invasion of Ukraine that had become impossible. In spite of the changes, he believes it is vital to maintain Arctic unity. 'There is still a desire to maintain a full circumpolar Arctic council in which all Arctic states are members,' he said. 'There are exactly eight countries bordering the Arctic and they are all members and we would not be happy if that was fragmented into different organisations.' Despite this, Norway, like all of the Nordic countries, has dramatically changed its outlook on Russia, after relations had warmed considerably since the cold war with the two countries continuing to cooperate on the Barents Sea. Just last week, Norway launched its first ever national security strategy in response to what it described as 'the most serious security situation our country has faced since the second world war'. Eide said they did not believe threat of attack was imminent but that it was 'due diligence to be prepared', especially with the world's largest concentration of nuclear weapons 'just outside our window' on Russia's Kola peninsula. He said violent conflict was unlikely to be triggered in the Arctic, but the region could prove critical if there were 'a larger international conflict between east and west'. 'Then the Arctic is very relevant because it's the shortest route for missiles and planes and so on between Russia and North America, and that has always been very much on our radar,' he said.
New York Times
07-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Bodo/Glimt fans barter local fish and reindeer meat for Tottenham semi-final tickets
Bodo/Glimt fans have bartered local fish and reindeer meat to obtain tickets for the club's historic Europa League semi-final second leg against Tottenham Hotspur. Torbjorn Eide, a production manager at a fish farm in Torsken, was among the fans attempting to get one of the few tickets that were on general sale for the game on Thursday. NRK and Reuters reported that 50,000 fans, roughly the size of the population of Bodo, attempted to get one of the 480 tickets available. Eide explained to Norway's state broadcaster NRK that he offered five kilos of semi-dried boknafisk — worth 2,500 Norwegian crowns (£182; $243) — to a fellow fan who traded him a ticket. Torsken is an eight-hour drive north of Bodo, so Eide posted the proposed trade on social media with the idea that the boknafisk, cod partially hung up which is partially dried by the sun and wind, would attract interest for a ticket-holder. 'I thought maybe someone would like it,' Eide told NRK. 'It's the best boknafisk in Norway. I didn't think it would work, but some guy contacted me who was interested.' That buyer was Oystein Aanes, whose brother had a ticket but was unable to attend the match. 'It was just a funny thing,' Aanes said of the trade. 'I don't know anything about the fish, its price or how to prepare it. But it is for my mother anyway, so she can take care of it.' The idea inspired Nils Erik Oskal, who used the same tactic by offering five kilos of reindeer meat for a ticket. 'I was 40,000 in the queue and had the meat to spare,' Oskal told NRK. 'It didn't take long for the offer to come.' Glimt are the first-ever Norwegian team to feature in the semi-finals of a European competition but trail Spurs 3-1 after the first leg in London last week. They had been 3-0 down before Ulrik Saltnes' late goal gave them a consolation to take back to Norway. As Glimt play in the north of the country, the pitch at their 8,200-capacity Aspmyra Stadion home is made from artificial turf, rather than real grass. They have won nine European matches at home this season and each of their last five, including victories over Porto, Olympiacos and Lazio. 'There is an incredible amount of things to be learned from this match we have to take with us,' Glimt coach Kjetil Knutsen said after last week's defeat. 'There is a difference between artificial grass and grass, and some of it applies to us in the coaching team.' 'There were details where we weren't up to speed, I haven't seen them all, but we can only learn from that. We should be happy we can still turn around the tie when we go to Aspmyra next week.' (Photo:)
Local Norway
07-05-2025
- Business
- Local Norway
Norwegian foreign minister says EU more important than ever for Norway
The minister's comments were part of a statement he gave to Norway's parliament on the country's ties to Europe, which he used to call for increased cooperation with the EU. 'A new multipolar world order — not to say disorder — is taking shape. This means that our cooperation and community with the EU, and the values we share, are becoming even more important than before,' he said. 'Security, economy and fundamental values are the foremost pillars of the European community of which Norway is a part. The Labour Party government will work to strengthen this community along all three pillars,' he added. While not an EU member, Norway is tied to the bloc through the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement. The EEA covers all EU countries plus non-members Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. READ ALSO: Why Norway isn't a member of the European Union Eurosceptics in Norway argue that the EEA Agreement means Norway doesn't have a say in EU directives, which Norway must implement and follow. Earlier this year, the Centre Party left the current minority government due to a row over EU energy directives, leaving the Labour Party alone in government until general elections in September. Eide also warned parties and politicians who have told voters they would try to pull Norway out of the EEA or negotiate the existing agreement in order to gain votes that this wasn't a realistic prospect. Advertisement 'I hear those who advocate something less binding than the agreement we have today. It is fine to want something less binding than the EEA. However, I believe that critics of the agreement owe it to voters to make them aware that 'something less than the EEA' also means fewer opportunities for Norwegian companies, workers and consumers in Europe,' he said. 'Let me be clear. Talking about a renegotiation of the EEA Agreement, as some do, is tempting with a solution that does not exist,' he added.
