Norwegian royals and the tsunami in South East Asia

[norwegianne]

King Harald and Queen Sonja attended a special prayer service in Oslo Cathedral for the victims of the disaster in Asia. King Harald said that dealing with such a disaster is difficult, but that the Norwegian people has done a good thing, because they're giving money to organizations like Red Cross, who're helping.



http://pub.tv2.no/nettavisen/innenri...icle321248.ece (Norwegian text)

[KikkiB]

I've (tried to) translate the article that norwegianne mentioned from TV 2 nettavisen. Here goes...

Sonja took to tears

Queen Sonja fought back her tears when she and King Harald was on their way to a service in Oslo Cathedral Wednesday. The King and Queen asks people to support the rescue work.

The King and Queen have been paying attention to what has happende in East-Asia, and were touched by gravity when they left the Palace right before 3.30pm for the service in Oslo Cathedral.

”It is with terror that one follows what has happened. An unbelievable tragedy that has stricken so many people. It is almost uncomprehensible. Many Norwegians are also involved in this. Our thoughts are offcourse with the Norwegaisn who have lost or are missing their nearest and dearest” said King Harald to TV 2.

“Have you an advice for Norwegians on how they should handle this?”

”It is not easy to make an advice to the people, but I think the Norway already have responded in a healty and very nice way, namely by giving donations to the voluntary aid orgainzations and that is the only thing we can do is to give of our abundance and help as good as we can with the means that we have. So that is what I can say. We will have to hope that everyone can be tolerant and give the support to the people who now need it the most,” said the King.

Queen Sonja was strongly touched by the situation, and struggled to keep her tears back when she met the press.

“It leaves its marks. It goes straight to your spine. Its totally awful. It is impossible to comprehend it in a way. The entire world gets so close. It is rather powerful,” said the Queen.

www.nettavisen.no

[Dennism]

Haakon and Mette-Marit were on vacation in Brazil. They returned home yesterday.

http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=260904

[Larzen]

According to Norwegian Se og Hør (I cant belive I bought that trashy magazine:p ) Haakon and MM was in Brazil and before the weekend It was decided that they should return home a week earlier than planned to participate in memorials in Norway. (Im not clear on if they are home or on the way)

According to Kjell Arne in Se og Hør (He is usually well informed) the Palace are planning on sending Haakon to Thailand to visit the center for those Norwegians who are affected by the disaster and still is in the area (Pårørende senter) and visit the disaster areas. It is not confirmd by the palace though.

There is accually no critesism of them beeing abroad in Se og Hør, I had expected that it would be and was a little suprised.

Mette-Marits brother Espen and his fiance was in Bangkok when the disaster happened

[Anna_R]

Originally Posted by Dennism

Haakon and Mette-Marit were on vacation in Brazil. They returned home yesterday.

http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=260904

Could someone please translate this article? It's strange that they've been in Brazil and the press here didn't say a word about it.... Maybe it's because it was such a short visit due to the disaster in Asia.

[Larzen]

They were on a private vacation visiting Princess Ragnhild and their children. Haakon is very close with Ragnhilds son who is also called Haakon (Lorentzen), so no official things were scheduled.

The article says nothing else than they were in Brazil on vacation and that they are returning home. The spokesperson will not say how long the initially had planned to stay, but MM had a long planned engagement on January 8th and they would have been home by then anyway.

[Dennism]

Okay. Here it goes. The gist, remember.

Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit are departing their vacation in Brazil and departing for home. With 16 confirmed dead and 275 still missing after the tsunami catastrophe in Asia the Crown Princely couple have ended their vacation in Brazil.

-They have ended their private vaction in Brazil and are returning home within a week so said the information chief for the royal house , Sven Gj. Gjeruldsen to VG.

He did not wish to say how long the couple had been(or how long they were going to stay) in Brazil.

According to Se og Hør, they left for Brazil shortly after spending Christmas with the whole family at Skaugum. The magazine wrote also that the children were with them on their vacation and that they were staying at the Lorentzen´s yacht or pleasure boat on the coast for 10-12 days. They also set apart time to visit Aunt Ragnhild Uncle Erling at their house in Rio.

[Dennism]

Grr grr grr.

[GrandDuchess]

Originally Posted by Larzen

Se og Hør (I cant belive I bought that trashy magazine:p)

Strange things never seize to happen! I hope our version of Se&Hör will have something of Crown Princess Victoria's trip - if they do, I'll buy that issue (covered in a daily paper at the cash register of course :))

[Larzen]

There were accually no pictures from Brazil, so 32 kroner wasted, I also had to look around and check so that noone I knew so me buying the magazine I accually think the Norwegian vertion of Se og Hør is better than the swedish and Danish vertion (and it does not have naked women in it like the danish has) Their royal reporter must have some contacts on the palace because he gets information noone else gets. Still not a quality mag (Understatement of the day)

[Dennism]

Originally Posted by Larzen

There were accually no pictures from Brazil, so 32 kroner wasted, I also had to look around and check so that noone I knew so me buying the magazine I accually think the Norwegian vertion of Se og Hør is better than the swedish and Danish vertion (and it does not have naked women in it like the danish has) Their royal reporter must have some contacts on the palace because he gets information noone else gets. Still not a quality mag (Understatement of the day)

Hmm. "I accually think the Norwegian vertion of Se og Hør is better than the swedish and Danish vertion" Relatively speaking! It wouldn´t win any awards, right? :)

[Larzen]

It seems the Norwegian royals will attend memorial services all over the country on january 15 just like the Swedish will

The King will attend in Nidarosdomen, Trondheim
The Queen will attend in Bodø domkirke
Haakon in Bergen domkirke
Mette-Marit in Oslo domkirke

Both couples will be present at an økumensik (english word?) memorialevent in Oslo Rådhus on the 16th

On Friday 7th The Queen will attend the funraising on TV2

On Saturaday the 8the The King and Queen will attend the fundraising organised by the norwegian sport assosiation.

This makes me wonder if Haakon and Mette-Marit are not home yet, this would have been things they could have attended as well

[Mandy]

A news article about Sonja and Märtha Louise in Norwegian. (Translation summary please)
http://www.budstikka.no/redaksjonelt...ticleID=183024

[norwegianne]

There is an auction planned where the money will go to Red Cross. The Palace contacted the organisators and said that the Queen would donate one of her photographs and Märtha Louise would donate ten signed copies of her book.

The photograph was taken by the Queen on one of her trips to the mountains, and is signed by her on the back.

[Mandy]

Royals kept low profile during crisis

King Harald kept an intentionally low profile during the early days of last week's tidal wave crisis. The crown prince and his family, meanwhile, opted to go ahead with a holiday in Rio de Janeiro, but later decided they'd best return home.

King Harald didn't publicly address the catastrophe until it went into its fourth day. On Wednesday December 29, King Harald and Queen Sonja answered questions outside the Royal Palace in Oslo and later took part in a memorial service in the Oslo Cathedral.

He had been following the crisis all along, though, and sent condolence telegrams to the heads of state in the lands hit by the tsunamis as early as December 26. He also quickly realized he needed to rewrite and retape his annual New Year's Eve address to the nation, something he ended up doing twice before it aired Friday night.

Meanwhile, the King of Sweden took to the airwaves as early Wednesday and the Swedish royal family has played an active role in addressing the national grief for Swedish victims of the tsunamis. Some Norwegians feel their own royal family hasn't been visible enough during the crisis.

Information consultant Pål Heidaas of public relations concern Geelmuyden Kiese in Oslo said on national television this week that he thinks the Swedish royals have earned respect for keeping a higher profile and showing their sympathy. The Norwegian royals should have done the same, he said.

Other royal watchers disagree. "King Harald would never exploit the catastrophe to gain goodwill in any way," political scientist and author Carl-Erik Grimstad told newspaper Aftenposten. "He's wise enough not to compete with the politicians."

He also may have learned from an earlier occasion, when he reportedly offended former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland by visiting an area of Norway hit by a natural disaster before she had.

Meanwhile, Crown Prince Haakon, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, their infant daughter Ingrid Alexandra and Mette-Marit's son Marius all flew off on a planned holiday to Rio de Janeiro just after Christmas. Crown Prince Haakon soon realized that he should be back home during the crisis, which initially was feared to have left hundreds of Norwegians missing or dead.

"The crown couple has interrupted their private stay overseas, and will return to Norway in the course of the week," a palace spokesman said Thursday. "Beyond that, I don't feel it's natural to comment."

Princess Martha Louise and her family have been completely out of the picture since they posed for officials photographs during the Christmas weekend. They traveled back to New York, where they're currently living.

Aftenposten's reporter
Wenche Fuglehaug

Aftenposten English Web Desk
Nina Berglund

[Mandy]

From www.aftenposten.no (English version)

Members of Norway's royal family now plan to boost their profile in connection with the tidal wave crisis:

January 7:
Queen Sonja will take part in a broadcast benefit, to raise more funds for victims.

January 8:
King Harald and Queen Sonja will take part in an annual athletes' awards banquet, which will be broadcast and will also raise funds for victims.

January 15
Royal family members will take part in the Norwegian state church's national memorial services. King Harald will attend services at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Queen Sonja will attend services in Bodø, Crown Prince Haakon will attend at Bergen Cathedral and Crown Princess Mette-Marit at the Oslo Cathedral.

January 16
The king and queen and the crown couple will attend another memorial, part of "A world in sorrow," at the Oslo City Hall.

[Larzen]

On Sunday Haakon and Mette-Marit will visit Ullevål hospital in connection with the Tsunami tragedy.

[HMQueenElizabethII]

Any pics of Queen Sonja take part in broadcast fund yesterday?

[Larzen]

Haakon and Mette-Marit as (finally) arrived in Norway
Summary of article http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=261551

They had travelled for over 24 hours via Frankfurt and was accompanied by lifeguards and a nanny
They send their thoughts to the families
They left for Brazil on 28 december when the situation was unclear
The information as been a little hard to get but they have followed it via internett and the palace has informed them
They landed in Brazil on the 29th, the 27th The minister of forreign affairs had said that 13 norwegians were dead and 40-50 in hospital
They stopped their vacation on wednesday but according to VG it was not possible for the company to get planetickets before
They styed the last days with Haakons cousin Haakon Lorentzen at Ilha Grande.

There seem to have been som critesism on a talkshow, but not to hard, a political scientist and former employer at the palace says that the King and Queen has done what was necessary and he has elsewhere also said that roylas should be careful about using a disaster to get good will

[HMQueenElizabethII]

Very sad Queen Sonja.Thanks for the pic.