Huge explosion in Oslo

[Harvey]

Incredible, RT has this unattributed photo of the blast on their page 1 feature.. wonder how it was obtained and from where?

Here we go again. Nice catch mate. Roughly zero probabability of a shot like that.

[sergeant stiletto]

Why pussy foot around the subject:


http://www.newsinenglish.no/2011/07/19/ ... e-in-oslo/

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been in Oslo this week, where he launched a new drive towards statehood by signing an agreement with Norway that upgrades the Palestinians’ representative office in Oslo to an embassy. Norway remained non-committal, though, towards formally recognizing a new Palestinian state in the United Nations.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who has long been active in efforts to resolve the ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis over territory, signed the embassy agreement with Abbas. He supports the Palestinians’ right to seek recognition from the UN and disagrees with opposition politicians in Norway who claim Abbas’ latest initiative will hinder further negotiations with the Israelis.

http://www.newsinenglish.no/2011/07/19/støre-urges-more-aid-for-palestinians/

Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre warns that the Palestinians face a serious economic crisis because of a lack of financial support for the Palestinian authorities. He urged donor nations to make an extra contribution, especially those in neighboring and Arabic countries.

Norway heads the group of countries that meets regularly to coordinate financial aid for the Palestinians.

It's just more of the same...

[Bruce Dazzling]

Norway backs Palestinian path to UN statehood vote
By JPOST.COM STAFF AND REUTERS
07/18/2011 21:23

Norway, host of the 1993 Palestinian-Israeli peace accords, said on Monday it was "perfectly legitimate" for Palestinians to take their case for statehood to the United Nations for voting in September.

"We will consider very carefully the proposed text that's to be put forward by the Palestinians in the coming weeks," said Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas beside him at a press conference.

"Norway believes it is perfectly legitimate for the Palestinian president to turn to the United Nations with such proposals," Stoere said, adding that continued negotiations with Israel will be required in any case.

Stoere's comments come after Syria on Monday officially announced that it recognizes a Palestinian state on 1967 lines with east Jerusalem as its capital, according to the semi-official SANA news agency.

In an official statement quoted by SANA, a Foreign Ministry source said, "The Syrian Arab Republic recognizes the state of Palestine on the lines of June 4, 1967 with east Jerusalem as its capital on the basis of preserving the legitimate Palestinian rights."

The statement added that Syria now considers the Palestinian Liberation Organization office in Damascus as the official embassy of the Palestinian state.

The United States and Israel have opposed Abbas's plan, backed by the Arab League, to bring the Palestinians' long quest for statehood to a vote in New York.

Abbas said on Monday the plan was still on.

Norwegian diplomats said UN membership would require approval by the Security Council, where the United States holds veto power, but that a resolution on statehood could go straight to the UN General Assembly.

Stoere said Norway would decide how to vote after reading the exact proposal but left little doubt about his inclination.

"I don't think that any Palestinians or anybody around the world are in doubt that Norway supports Palestinians' right to statehood," he said. "That has to be accompanied by a process of negotiation, which at the moment is stalling."

He and Abbas signed a document upgrading the Palestinian Authority's representative in Norway to ambassadorial rank, as several other European nations have done.

Norway chairs a group of Palestinian donor nations, some of which have contributed to a funding crisis for Abbas by not fulfilling funding pledges. Stoere implored them to pay up.

[Bruce Dazzling]

Whoops, the sergeant and I must have clicked SUBMIT almost simultaneously...

[Harvey]

These things always serve several purposes.

[sergeant stiletto]

The truth is sometimes pretty obvious, even on RI.

[Harvey]

It was a holiday, casualties might be fewer than expected. According to BBC.

[MacCruiskeen]

The truth is sometimes pretty obvious, even on RI.

There's a difference between a knee-jerk assumption and an established truth.

- Meanwhile:

1616: Saskia in Oslo emails:

"[...]It is especially odd as this is the time of year that everyone is on holiday and abroad. Also, the public sector leave work early on Fridays during the summer so was this targeted to not hurt too many people? [...]"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14254705

That always struck me about 9/11 as well. If the planes had hit those towers just one hour later, the death-toll would have been very much higher.

So far, there are two people reported dead in Oslo.

[Harvey]

It strikes me that this might be quite a difficult sell if it goes the Muslim extremist route.

[12#4]

Why pussy foot around the subject:


http://www.newsinenglish.no/2011/07/19/ ... e-in-oslo/

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been in Oslo this week, where he launched a new drive towards statehood by signing an agreement with Norway that upgrades the Palestinians’ representative office in Oslo to an embassy. Norway remained non-committal, though, towards formally recognizing a new Palestinian state in the United Nations.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who has long been active in efforts to resolve the ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis over territory, signed the embassy agreement with Abbas. He supports the Palestinians’ right to seek recognition from the UN and disagrees with opposition politicians in Norway who claim Abbas’ latest initiative will hinder further negotiations with the Israelis.

http://www.newsinenglish.no/2011/07/19/støre-urges-more-aid-for-palestinians/

Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre warns that the Palestinians face a serious economic crisis because of a lack of financial support for the Palestinian authorities. He urged donor nations to make an extra contribution, especially those in neighboring and Arabic countries.

Norway heads the group of countries that meets regularly to coordinate financial aid for the Palestinians.

It's just more of the same...

Rigorous in my opinion.. but also fuel for accusations of antisemitism, I can imagine if implications to today's attack were drawn. Even on RI.

I'd like to throw out Allan Dershowitz's opinion on his visit to Norway, from 3 months earlier. Don't wish to draw the discussion off topic by this and it admiteddly could go in a side thread.

Norway to Jews: You're not welcome here
CommentsTwitterLinkedInEmail.Alan M. Dershowitz, National Post · Apr. 2, 2011 | Last Updated: Apr. 2, 2011 8:15 AM ET

Irecently completed a tour of Norwegian universities, where I spoke about international law as applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the tour nearly never happened.

Its sponsor, a Norwegian pro-Israel group, offered to have me lecture without any charge to the three major universities. Norwegian universities generally jump at any opportunity to invite lecturers from elsewhere. When my Harvard colleague Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby, came to Norway, he was immediately invited to present a lecture at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Likewise with Ilan Pappe, a demonizer of Israel who teaches at Oxford.

My hosts expected, therefore, that their offer to have me present a different academic perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be eagerly accepted. I have written half a dozen books on the subject presenting a centrist view in support of the two-state solution. But the universities refused.

The dean of the law faculty at Bergen University said he would be "honoured" to have me present a lecture "on the O.J. Simpson case," as long as I was willing to promise not to mention Israel. An administrator at the Trondheim school said that Israel was too "controversial."

The University of Oslo simply said "no" without offering an excuse. That led one journalist to wonder whether the Norwegian universities believe that I am "not entirely house-trained."

Only once before have I been prevented from lecturing at universities in a country. The other country was apartheid South Africa.

Despite the faculties' refusals to invite me, I delivered three lectures to packed auditoriums at the invitation of student groups. I received sustained applause both before and after the talks.

It was then that I realized why all this happened. At all of the Norwegian universities, there have been efforts to enact academic and cultural boycotts of Jewish Israeli academics. This boycott is directed against Israel's "occupation" of Palestinian land -but the occupation that the boycott supporters have in mind is not of the West Bank but rather of Israel itself. Here is the first line of their petition: "Since 1948, the state of Israel has occupied Palestinian land ..."

The administrations of the universities have refused to go along with this form of collective punishment of all Israeli academics, so the formal demand for a boycott failed. But, in practice, it exists. Jewish pro-Israel speakers are subject to a de facto boycott.

The first boycott signatory was Trond Adresen, a professor at Trondheim. About Jews, he has written: "There is something immensely self-satisfied and self-centered at the tribal mentality that is so prevalent among Jews ... [They] as a whole, are characterized by this mentality ... It is no less legitimate to say such a thing about Jews in 2008-2009 than it was to make the same point about the Germans around 1938."

This line of talk -directed at Jews, not Israel -is apparently ac-ceptable among many in Norway's elite. Consider former prime minister Kare Willock's reaction to Barack Obama's selection of Rahm Emanuel as his first chief of staff: "It does not look too promising, he has chosen a chief of staff who is Jewish." Mr. Willock didn't know anything about Mr. Emanuel's views -he based his criticism on the sole fact that Mr. Emanuel is a Jew. Perhaps unsurprisingly, fewer than 1,000 Jews live in Norway today.

The country's Foreign Minister recently wrote an article justifying his contacts with Hamas. He said that the essential philosophy of Norway is "dialogue." That dialogue, it turns out, is one-sided. Hamas and its supporters are invited into the dialogue, but supporters of Israel are excluded by an implicit, yet very real, boycott against pro-Israel views.

Source: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Norway+Jews+welcome+here/4547978/story.html

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Images here, from Norwegian state broadcaster's site. It does look like the Docklands bomb, as Gnostic said:

http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/norge/1.7722919

---

This was in the news around this time last year:

Al-Qaida suspects held over Norway bomb plot

Three men arrested on suspicion of preparing terror attack linked to similar plans in New York and England

Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 July 2010 13.10 BST


Officials did not say why Norway was a target, but Norway’s 500 troops in Afghanistan could be a factor.

Three suspected al-Qaida members were arrested this morning in what Norwegian and US officials said was a terrorist plot linked to similar plans in New York and England.

The three men, whose names were not released, had been under surveillance for more than a year. Officials believe they were planning attacks with portable but powerful bombs like the ones at the heart of last year's thwarted suicide attack in the New York City subway.

Two of the men were arrested in Norway and one in Germany, according to Janne Kristiansen, head of Norway's police security service. She declined to give further details of the locations.

Kristiansen said one of the men was a 39-year-old Norwegian of Uighur origin, who had lived in Norway since 1999. The other suspects were a 37-year-old Iraqi and a 31-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan, both of whom have permanent residency permits in Norway.

The US attorney general, Eric Holder, called the plan to attack the New York subway one of the most serious terrorist plots since 9/11.

Yesterday, prosecutors revealed the existence of a related plot in Manchester. Officials believe the Norway plan was organised by Salah al-Somali, al-Qaida's former chief of external operations, the man in charge of plotting attacks worldwide.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the case. The Norwegian police security service said only that the three were arrested on suspicion of "preparing terror activities".

Somali, who was killed in a CIA drone airstrike last year, has been identified in US court documents as one of the masterminds of the New York subway plot. Two men have pleaded guilty in that case, admitting they planned to detonate explosives during rush hour. A third man awaits trial.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ju ... -bomb-plot

So there has been a certain priming of the pump, in one way or another.

And this [edit] from last Wednesday:

Norway charges Islamist leader over death threats to a former cabinet minister

Wednesday, 13 July 2011

Norwegian prosecutors have filed a terrorism charge against Mullah Krekar, founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, who is accused of threatening a politician with death.

The Iraqi is facing the charges over remarks made about ex-minister Erna Solberg during a news conference in June last year when he spoke about plans to deport him.

“Norway will pay a heavy price for my death,” he said. “If for example Erna Solberg deports me and I die as a result, she will suffer the same fate.”

Prosecutor Marit Bakkevik told the TV2 station: “I can confirm that we have charged Mullah Krekar.”

Mr. Krekar co-founded Ansar al-Islam in 2001 under his real name of Najmeddine Faraj Ahmad but said a year later he no longer led the group, listed as a terrorist organization by the US and the UN.

Norwegian authorities have previously ordered his expulsion but the process was suspended amid concerns he would face the death penalty in his home country.

Mr. Krekar’s lawyer Brynjar Meling told the VG Nett newspaper that he had taken the news of the legal action “with a stoic calm.”
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2 ... 57424.html

For what it's worth.

I really doubt it has anything to do with the cartoons, and it's definitely no gas explosion (as some have suggested) because Norway's about 90% hydroelectric, and doesn't have an extensive gas network like ours. Don't think we can immediately put it down to their support for Palestinian statehood yet either, though it's certainly possible.

[Harvey]

It's interesting that you could get a direct link at Rueters to that explosion picture via google images until 8 minutes ago. Google does not ordinarily edit image search returns in real time, unless requested.

(edit: russia times sorry)

[seemslikeadream]

has the building imploded yet?

[Harvey]

has the building imploded yet?

[Harvey]

Is anyone talking about 2 blasts, the majority of photo's clearly show 2 different buildings invovled. One is the government building, what's the other?








Breaking news: gunmen dressed as police shooting at children at a summer camp outside Oslo.