Weekend, a recently started weekly paper which, having unsuccessfully tried to position itself at the lower end of the tabloid market, is already on the brink of bankruptcy, intends to publish an article that describes in detail how terrorists could get a small bomb inside the American embassy in Oslo. (Several media reporting on this explains what the security hole is, but I see no reason to add to the damage by translating it into English.) The American embassy, naturally, want the article pulled, and Weekend hints to Journalisten that they have offered to do so for a fitting financial compensation - which the embassy has refused. Weekend mutters something about "press ethics" as well, which is kind of curious coming from a newspaper which practices blackmail against foreign diplomats. The article goes to print on Thursday.

It's possible that Weekend has exaggerated the threat, and of course there's still no preventing a dedicated terrorist with a really big bomb from simply bringing down the whole neighbourhood, but this is just plain wrong on principle. It's little more than a desperate, cynical publicity stunt. But at least Weekend will go out (figuratively, and hopefully not literally) with a bang, not a whimper.

It would be fun to do a detailed study of how to destroy Norway, through attacks on key industries... I wonder if the Norwegian government would pay me not to publish it on the internet?

Jeez, in Addison, IL drugs from Mexico were found in 5 gal tubs marked guacamole.

While I wouldn't take anything written in "Weekend" at face value, nor believe anything written in it - I find this entire "scandal" a bit humorous.

First out, Beorn, if you read the press release, the issue of Weekend was already printed when the american embassy wanted it pulled. Weekend isn't a large magazine and pulling that article and making a new front page would be quite expensive. I fully understand that they would want that compensated.

When it comes to the _moral_ issue about the article, well, I seem to remember for the book "Coup d'etat" which has detailed information about how the security around the french parliament is/was organized (probably 'was' as the book is 30 years old ;-).

To be quite frank, I don't see anything wrong in making this sort of information "very" public. Lots of 'dangerous' information is available for anyone that cares to look for it. Making it more available will make the vulnerable parties more aware. And that - that is a good thing.

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