1.
Oslo
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Oslo is the capital and the most populous city in Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality, founded in the year 1040, and established as a kaupstad or trading place in 1048 by Harald Hardrada, the city was elevated to a bishopric in 1070 and a capital under Haakon V of Norway around 1300. Personal unions with Denmark from 1397 to 1523 and again from 1536 to 1814, after being destroyed by a fire in 1624, the city was moved closer to Akershus Fortress during the reign of Christian IV of Denmark and renamed Christiania in his honour. It was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838, following a spelling reform, it was known as Kristiania from 1877 to 1925, at which time its original Norwegian name was restored. Oslo is the economic and governmental centre of Norway, the city is also a hub of Norwegian trade, banking, industry and shipping. It is an important centre for industries and maritime trade in Europe. The city is home to companies within the maritime sector, some of which are among the worlds largest shipping companies, shipbrokers. Oslo is a city of the Council of Europe and the European Commission intercultural cities programme. Oslo is considered a city and ranked Beta World City in studies carried out by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group. It was ranked one in terms of quality of life among European large cities in the European Cities of the Future 2012 report by fDi magazine. A survey conducted by ECA International in 2011 placed Oslo as the second most expensive city in the world for living expenses after Tokyo. In 2013 Oslo tied with the Australian city of Melbourne as the fourth most expensive city in the world, as of January 1,2016, the municipality of Oslo has a population of 658,390, while the population of the citys urban area was 942,084. The metropolitan area had an population of 1.71 million. The population was during the early 2000 increasing at record rates and this growth stems for the most part from international immigration and related high birth rates, but also from intra-national migration. The immigrant population in the city is growing faster than the Norwegian population. As of January 1,2016, the municipality of Oslo has a population of 658,390, the urban area extends beyond the boundaries of the municipality into the surrounding county of Akershus, the total population of this agglomeration is 942,084. To the north and east, wide forested hills rise above the city giving the location the shape of a giant amphitheatre. The urban municipality of Oslo and county of Oslo are two parts of the entity, making Oslo the only city in Norway where two administrative levels are integrated
2.
Storting
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The Storting is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. The unicameral parliament has 169 members, and is elected every four years based on party-list proportional representation in nineteen plural member constituencies, a member of the Storting is known in Norwegian as a Stortingsrepresentant, literally Storting representative. The assembly is led by a president and, since 2009 five vice presidents — the presidium, the members are allocated to twelve standing committees, as well as four procedural committees. Three ombudsmen are directly subordinate to parliament, the Parliamentary Intelligence Oversight Committee, in 2009, qualified unicameralism was replaced by unicameralism, through the dissolution of the two chambers, the Lagting and the Odelsting. Since 2013 Olemic Thommessen has been president, the alltings were where legal and political matters were discussed. As oral laws became codified and Norway unified as an entity in the 10th century. The Parliament of Norway Building opened in 1866, on 27 June 1940 the presidium signed an appeal to King Haakon, about his abdication. In September 1940 the representatives were summoned to Oslo, and voted in favour of the results of the negotiations between the presidium and the authorities of the German invaders, however, directives from Adolf Hitler resulted in the obstruction of the agreement of cooperation between parliament and occupation force. Although the Storting has always been unicameral, until 2009 it would divide itself into two departments in legislative matters. After elections, the Storting would elect a quarter of its membership to form the Lagting a sort of upper house, the division was also used on very rare occasions in cases of impeachment. The original idea in 1814 was probably to have the Lagting act as an upper house. Bills were submitted by the Government to the Odelsting or by a member of the Odelsting, a standing committee, with members from both the Odelsting and Lagting, would then consider the bill, and in some cases hearings were held. If passed by the Odelsting, the bill would be sent to the Lagting for review or revision, most bills were passed unamended by the Lagting and then sent directly to the king for royal assent. If the Lagting amended the Odelstings decision, the bill would be sent back to the Odelsting, if the Odelsting approved the Lagtings amendments, the bill would be signed into law by the King. If it did not, then the bill would return to the Lagting, if the Lagting still proposed amendments, the bill would be submitted a plenary session of the Storting. In order to be passed, the bill should have then had the approval of a majority of the plenary session. In all other cases a majority would suffice. Three days had to pass between each time a department voted on a bill, in all other cases, such as taxes and appropriations, the Storting would meet in plenary sessions
3.
European Economic Community
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The European Economic Community was a regional organisation which aimed to bring about economic integration among its member states. It was created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957, upon the formation of the European Union in 1993, the EEC was incorporated and renamed as the European Community. In 2009 the ECs institutions were absorbed into the EUs wider framework and it gained a common set of institutions along with the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community as one of the European Communities under the 1965 Merger Treaty. In 1993, a single market was achieved, known as the internal market, which allowed for the free movement of goods, capital, services. In 1994, the market was formalised by the EEA agreement. This agreement also extended the market to include most of the member states of the European Free Trade Association. Upon the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 and this was also when the three European Communities, including the EC, were collectively made to constitute the first of the three pillars of the European Union, which the treaty also founded. The EEC was also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking countries and sometimes referred to as the European Community even before it was renamed as such in 1993. In 1951, the Treaty of Paris was signed, creating the European Coal and this was an international community based on supranationalism and international law, designed to help the economy of Europe and prevent future war by integrating its members. In the aim of creating a federal Europe two further communities were proposed, a European Defence Community and a European Political Community. While the treaty for the latter was being drawn up by the Common Assembly, the ECSC parliamentary chamber, after the Messina Conference in 1955, Paul Henri Spaak was given the task to prepare a report on the idea of a customs union. The so-called Spaak Report of the Spaak Committee formed the cornerstone of the negotiations at Val Duchesse castle in 1956. Together with the Ohlin Report the Spaak Report would provide the basis for the Treaty of Rome, in 1956, Paul Henri Spaak led the Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom at the Val Duchesse castle, which prepared for the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The conference led to the signature, on 25 March 1957, the resulting communities were the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. These were markedly less supranational than the communities, due to protests from some countries that their sovereignty was being infringed. The first formal meeting of the Hallstein Commission, was held on 16 January 1958 at the Chateau de Val-Duchesse, the EEC was to create a customs union while Euratom would promote co-operation in the nuclear power sphere. The EEC rapidly became the most important of these and expanded its activities, one of the first important accomplishments of the EEC was the establishment of common price levels for agricultural products. In 1968, internal tariffs were removed on certain products, another crisis was triggered in regard to proposals for the financing of the Common Agricultural Policy, which came into force in 1962
4.
Council of Europe
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The Council of Europe is an international organisation focused on protecting human rights, democracy, rule of law in Europe and promoting European culture. Founded in 1949, it has 47 member states, covers approximately 820 million people, No country has ever joined the EU without first belonging to the Council of Europe. Unlike the EU, the Council of Europe cannot make binding laws, the best known body of the Council of Europe is the European Court of Human Rights, which enforces the European Convention on Human Rights. The Commissioner for Human Rights is an independent institution within the Council of Europe, mandated to promote awareness of, the Secretary General heads the secretariat of the organisation. Other major CoE bodies include the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines, the headquarters of the Council of Europe are in Strasbourg, France. English and French are its two official languages, the Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress also use German, Italian, Russian, and Turkish for some of their work. In a speech at the University of Zurich on 19 September 1946, Sir Winston Churchill called for a kind of United States of Europe and he had spoken of a Council of Europe as early as 1943 in a radio broadcast. There were two schools of thought competing, some favoured a classical international organisation with representatives of governments, both approaches were finally combined through the creation of the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly under the Statute of the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe was founded on 5 May 1949 by the Treaty of London and those conventions and decisions are developed by the member states working together at the Council of Europe. Both organizations function as concentric circles around the foundations for European co-operation and harmony. The European Union could be seen as the circle with a much higher level of integration through the transfer of powers from the national to the EU level. The Council of Europe and the European Union, different roles, Council of Europe conventions/treaties are also open for signature to non-member states, thus facilitating equal co-operation with countries outside Europe. The Convention created the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the Court supervises compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights and thus functions as the highest European court. It is to court that Europeans can bring cases if they believe that a member country has violated their fundamental rights. The various activities and achievements of the Council of Europe can be found in detail on its official website, Promotion of the right to education under Article 2 of the first Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights and several conventions on the recognition of university studies and diplomas. Promotion of fair sport through the Anti-Doping Convention Promotion of European youth exchanges and co-operation through European Youth Centres in Strasbourg and Budapest, Promotion of the quality of medicines throughout Europe by the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and its European Pharmacopoeia. The institutions of the Council of Europe are, The Secretary General, mr Thorbjørn Jagland, the former Prime Minister of Norway was elected Secretary General of the Council of Europe in September 2009. In June 2014, he was re-elected, and his term in office commenced on 1 October 2014
5.
University of Oslo
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The University of Oslo, until 1939 named the Royal Frederick University, is the oldest university in Norway, located in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. Until 1 January 2016 it was the largest Norwegian institution of education in terms of size, now surpassed only by the Norwegian University of Science. The Academic Ranking of World Universities has ranked it the 58th best university in the world, in 2015, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked it the 135th best university in the world and the seventh best in the Nordics. While in its 2016, Top 200 Rankings of European universities, the university has approximately 27,700 students and employs around 6,000 people. Its faculties include Theology, Law, Medicine, Humanities, Mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, Dentistry, the universitys original neoclassical campus is located in the centre of Oslo, it is currently occupied by the Faculty of Law. Most of the other faculties are located at the newer Blindern campus in the suburban West End. The Faculty of Medicine is split between several university hospitals in the Oslo area, the university was founded in 1811 and was modeled after the University of Copenhagen and the recently established University of Berlin. It was originally named for King Frederick VI of Denmark and Norway, the university is informally also known as Universitetet, having been the only university in Norway, until 1946 and was commonly referred to as The Royal Fredericks, prior to the name change. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in the universitys Atrium, from 1947 to 1989, since 2003, the Abel Prize is awarded in the Atrium. Five researchers affiliated with the university have been Nobel laureates, in 1813, The Royal Frederiks University was founded in Christiania, a small city at that time. Circumstances then changed dramatically one year into the commencement of the university, however, independence was somewhat restricted, as Norway was obliged to enter into a legislative union with Sweden based on the outcome of the War of 1814. Norway retained its own constitution and independent state institutions, although royal power, at a time when Norwegians feared political domination by the Swedes, the new university became a key institution that contributed to Norwegian political and cultural independence. The main initial function of The Royal Frederick University was to educate a new class of civil servants, as well as parliamentary representatives. The university also became the centre for a survey of the survey of culture, language, history. The staff of the university strove to undertake a range of tasks necessary for developing a modern society. Throughout the 1800s, the academic disciplines gradually became more specialised. Classical education came under increasing pressure, Education, health services and public administration were among those fields that recruited personnel from the universitys graduates. Research changed qualitatively around the turn of the century as new methods, scientific theories and it was decided that teachers should arrive at their posts as highly qualified academics and continue academic research alongside their role as teachers
6.
Surnadal
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Surnadal is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Nordmøre region, the administrative centre is the village of Skei. Other villages in Surnadal include Glærem, Mo, Stangvik, Surnadalsøra, Sylte, Todalsøra, a mild climate and rich soil make Surnadal well suited for agriculture. The local economy is based on agriculture, forestry and industrial production, the parish of Surnadal was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838. In 1858, the district was separated from Surnadal to form the new Rindal Municipality. This left Surnadal with 3,105 residents, on 1 January 1877, part of Stangvik was transferred to Surnadal. In 1879, part of Surnadal was transferred to Stangvik, on 1 January 1886, the Møklegjerdet farm, just west of Glærem, was transferred from Stangvik to Surnadal. On 1 January 1897, the Sjøflot farm was transferred from Stangvik to Surnadal. On 1 January 1965, the municipality of Åsskard and most of the municipality of Stangvik were merged into Surnadal. The newly enlarged municipality had a population of 5,934, the Old Norse form of the name was Súrnardalr. The first element is the case of the river name Surna. The meaning of the name is unknown. Before 1918, the name was written Surendalen, the coat-of-arms is from modern times. It shows two silver wavy lines on a green background, the silver lines represent the many rivers in the municipality, the most notable one being the Surna. The Church of Norway has five parishes within the municipality of Surnadal and it is part of the Indre Nordmøre deanery in the Diocese of Møre. The municipality is made up by the valley, Surnadalen through which the river Surna runs. There are also many side valleys including Stor-Bæverdalen, Settemsdalen, Øvstbødalen, Todalen. There are three main fjords that cut into the municipality, Åsskardfjorden, Hamnesfjorden, and Surnadalsfjorden, the landscape is a combination of forests, fjords, and mountains
