Oslo | Pakistan

The US embassy in Oslo was hit by an explosion in the early hours of Sunday but no one was injured, police in the Norwegian capital said, adding the cause was not immediately known. The blast occurred around 1am local time (0000 GMT) and caused only “minor material damage” to one of the building’s entrances, Oslo police said in a statement. Investigators were examining the scene, while dogs, drones, and helicopters were involved in the search “for one or more potential perpetrators”, it said. “Police view such incidents in public spaces as very serious, and are investigating the case with substantial resources and high priority.” Police commander Michael Dellemyr told TV2 police would “not comment on anything related to the type of damage, what it is that has exploded and similar details, beyond the fact that there has been an explosion” because “it is very early in the investigation”. He later told TV2 that police “have an idea of the cause”, adding: “It appears to us that this is an act carried out by someo...

Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado is safe and will be in Oslo, the Norwegian Nobel Institute said in a statement on Wednesday. Earlier, the organisers said the Venezuelan opposition leader, who lives in hiding, will not attend Wednesday’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, and the award will be accepted by her daughter. Machado has only been seen once in public since going underground in August last year, amidst a tense showdown with President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela’s attorney general has said the 58-year-old would be considered a “fugitive” if she left the country to accept the award. It was not known in the hours before the ceremony whether Machado was in Norway for the event due to start at 1pm (5pm PKT). The Nobel Institute finally confirmed that she would not be there. “It will be her daughter Ana Corina Machado who will receive the prize in her mother’s name,” Nobel Institute director Kristian Berg Harpviken told Norway’s NRK radio. “Her daughter will give the speech that Maria Corina herself wrote.” Harpvik...

Airports in Copenhagen and Oslo reopened on Tuesday, police said, hours after unidentified drones in their airspace caused flight diversions and other travel disruption. In the Danish capital Copenhagen, police said several large drones seen over the airport for several hours late on Monday eventually flew away on their own. “The drones have disappeared and the airport is open again,” Deputy Police Inspector Jakob Hansen told reporters. “We didn’t take the drones down,” he added. Hansen said police were cooperating with the Danish military and intelligence service to find out where the drones had come from. He said police were also working with colleagues in Oslo after drone sightings in the Norwegian capital also caused the airport to close for several hours. “We had two different drone sightings,” Oslo airport spokeswoman Monica Fasting told AFP. “We reopened the airport around 3:15 am (6:15 am PKT),” she said. Flights were diverted to nearby destinations during the closures, and officials at both airports ...

A Norwegian teenager detained after the killing of an Ethiopian-origin worker at an Oslo hostel also planned an attack on a mosque, police said on Thursday. The 18-year-old was arrested after the killing on Saturday night of Tamima Nibras Juhar, a 34-year-old social worker, at the Oslo hostel where she was a staff member and the suspect was a resident. The youth is now the subject of a murder and terrorism enquiry after police said he had expressed “opinions hostile to Muslim people”. The suspect “declared that he had the intention of committing an attack against a mosque at Hoenefoss”, a town about 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of the Norwegian capital, police said in a statement. “It is important to stress that there are still many indications that the suspect’s capacity to carry out further attacks was limited,” police added. The youth was said to have acted alone. He has been identified by media as German national Djordje Wilms, who moved to Norway from Serbia as a child, although police have not confirm...