Princess "ill" after criticism

Norway's Princess Märtha Louise, who last week announced that she was clairvoyant and that she would be launching a school to teach students how to "communicate with angels," is off sick after much criticism for her latest business venture.

Märtha Louise, daughter of King Harald and Queen Sonja, announced last week that she is clairvoyant and that she is setting up an alternative school where students will be taught to "get in touch with their own truths" through "readings, healing, crystals and hands-on treatment." The three-year course, which will run twice a week at a cost of NOK 12,000 per semester (around USD 2,000) quickly filled up, despite the criticism.

Princess claims clairvoyant powers, aims to share them

Norway's Princess Märtha Louise, daughter of King Harald and Queen Sonja, has emerged as a clairvoyant, and is launching an alternative school aimed at training students to contact angels. Officials at the Royal Palace won’t comment on the princess' latest business venture.
I don't believe in this nonsense......

Business tags along on royal trip to South Korea

Crown Princess Mette-Marit draws a fairly large following wherever she goes, and a looming trip to South Korea is proving no exception.

The crown couple will visit Seoul, Busan and Ulsan from May 8-11. Crown Prince Haakon will attend a variety of business seminars and deliver a speech on peace and development to students at Korea University.

Crown Princess Mette-Marit will attend a seminar on family life that will focus on ways of combining work and family life. South Koreans have been reported to have the world's lowest birth rate, and are reportedly keen to hear how Norwegians combine careers with family life.

Royal drops summer home plans

Norway's so-called "crown couple" have dropped their efforts to build a large summer home on an island off the coast near Crown Princess Mette-Marit's hometown. The project had sparked criticism that it would give new meaning to the term "royal privilege."
The decision came after what the palace called "a total evaluation" of the project’s complexity: "This involves the effect on the local landscape, consideration to land owners in the immediate area and necessary security measures."
The palace reported that Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit would continue to look for another summer home on the southern coast of Norway.

Police investigate royal leak claim

Mette-Marit
A special police unit is investigating allegations that someone in their ranks has sold information to controversial celebrity magazine Se og Hør.
The maximum penalty for such leaks is a three-year prison sentence.

Security around Royal family

At least 14 persons are believed to be obsessed with Norway's Princess Martha Louise and police are beefing up security around all members of the royal family, especially the women.
The family's female members appear to be the main targets, and that the royal escorts even fear an assassination attempt.
Crown Princess Mette-Marit and Queen Sonja are also believed to be targets of possible attacks, while an alleged plot to kidnap Crown Prince Haakon several years ago was reported in late October.

King of Sweden forgot to pay

Staff at a Hydro Texaco station in Levanger, Norway got the shock of their lives when they managed to trace the motorist that drove off without paying a gasoline bill.
Surveillance cameras at the station are routinely used to identify customers that fill up at the pumps and drive off without paying. When staff checked the license plates on a missing payment, they traced the vehicle to the Swedish palace.
By accident he only paid for the candy, something that happened without thinking. Then he went out to the car and just drove on," Nina Eld, press chief for the Swedish palace said.

A prince is born

Crown Princess Mette-Marit gave birth to a son on Saturday morning. The boy becomes third in line to the Norwegian throne.
The boy was born at 10.45 CET (a.m.)
Norwegian

Princess cashes in on title

Norway's Princess Martha Louise will be using her royal title for all its worth this month, when she sets off on an 11-day tour of the US to sell a children's book she's written. Such commercial exploitation is controversial at home in Norway.

An American fascination with royalty, the commercial success of Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and the US' large Norwegian-American population bode well, however, for Princess Martha Louise. She's already been booked onto two TV programs, and it's no coincidence that some of her "live" appearances will be in the Scandinavian-American heartlands of North Dakota and Seattle.
The princess launched her career as a purveyor of culture a few years ago, around the time she started dating Ari Behn, who'd had success with a book he'd written. She's educated as a physiotherapist but seems to prefer singing, reading fairy tales aloud and, now, writing books.

Book due on Mette-Marit's life

Book due on Mette-Marit's life
She was a relatively obscure, hard-partying young woman who ended up as a single mother and then became Norway's crown princess. The first authorized biography of Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby's unlikely rise to royalty will be out in 2006.
It's the stuff of fairy tales, and fledgling publisher Font Forlag hopes the new book on Mette-Marit's life will be a big-seller both in Norway and abroad.
There's no question that public interest abounds in the young blonde who became Crown Princess Mette-Marit when she married Norway's Crown Prince Haakon in August 2001. It seemed an unlikely match: The highly educated and reflective Haakon who grew up in royal surroundings fell for the single mother who shared his interest in music but otherwise had a decidedly different background.
Moreover, she had little formal education and a record of wild partying in Oslo's drug-infested "house party" circles of the early- to mid-1990s. Her admittedly debauched past also sparked concern within the Oslo police, who investigated security challenges posed by some of her former acquaintances.
But with Haakon reportedly threatening to abdicate if he wasn't allowed to marry her, King Harald went along with the match. Mette-Marit tearfully apologized for her past in a pre-wedding press conference and then set about learning how to be a princess.
She's now chosen author Halfdan Freihow to write her biography, although Freihow insists he'll have freedom to write as he sees fit. He also says he's been promised necessary access to both the crown princess "and other necessary sources."
Freihow admits he doesn't yet know how open Mette-Marit will be about her controversial past. "I don't have any ambitions about getting a scoop," he told newspaper Aftenposten on Monday.
"I want to draw a comprehensvie picture of the person Mette-Marit, who has many roles, and who, in the space of a short time, saw her life changed," he said
Kilde:Aftenposten