- published: 03 Oct 2014
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Skien (help·info) is a city and municipality in Telemark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Grenland. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Skien. Skien is also the administrative centre of Telemark county.
The municipality of Skien was established on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The rural municipalities of Gjerpen and Solum were merged into the municipality of Skien on 1 January 1964.
The conurbation of Skien and Porsgrunn is considered by Statistics Norway to be the seventh largest city in Norway straddling an area of three municipalities: Skien municipality (about 52% of the population), Porsgrunn (35%), and Bamble (11.5%). The area is home to more than 90,000 people.
Skien was historically Norway's most important port town for shipping timber. The city was the birthplace and boyhood home of playwright Henrik Ibsen, and many of his famous dramas are set in in places reminiscent of 19th century Skien.
The Old Norse form of the name was Skiða (from the word skiða which means "straight plank"), and the town is probably named after a brook (with a straight run) with this name.
Anders Behring Breivik (Norwegian pronunciation: ['andəʂ 'beːɾiŋ 'bɾæɪʋiːk]; born 13 February 1979) is a Norwegian accused mass murderer, terrorist and the confessed perpetrator of the 2011 attacks in Norway. On 22 July 2011, Breivik bombed the government buildings in Oslo, which resulted in eight deaths. He then carried out a mass shooting at a camp of the Workers' Youth League (AUF) of the Labour Party on the island of Utøya where he killed 69 people, mostly teenagers.
Two pairs of court-appointed psychiatrists have examined Breivik prior to his 2012 trial. In the first report Breivik was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. A second evaluation was commissioned following widespread criticism of the first report. One week before the start of his trial the second psychiatric evaluation was published with the conclusion that Breivik was not psychotic during the attacks and he was not psychotic during their evaluation; rather he is an extreme narcissist. The trial of Anders Behring Breivik began on 16 April 2012 and is scheduled to last 10 weeks. The main issue to be decided in the trial is whether he can be given a prison sentence or, if the court finds him legally insane, he will be involuntarily sectioned to a psychiatric facility, possibly indefinitely. Contrary to popular belief, Norway's forensic psychiatric process means a psychiatric diagnosis could for Breivik mean more - rather than less - time in prison, even if he were successfully treated.