Norway

OSLO, Norway (AP) — A Taliban delegation led by acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Sunday started three days of talks in Oslo with Western government officials and Afghan civil society representatives amid a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.

The closed-door meetings are taking place at a hotel in the snow-capped mountains above the Norwegian capital. The first day will see Taliban representatives meeting with women’s rights activists and human rights defenders from Afghanistan and from the Afghan diaspora.

STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — Convicted mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik spends his days in a spacious three-room cell, playing video games, exercising, watching TV and taking university-level courses in mathematics and business.

Halfway through a 21-year sentence and seeking early release, Breivik, 42, is being treated in a way that might seem shocking to people outside of Norway, where he killed eight in an Oslo bombing in 2011, and then stalked and gunned down 69 people, mostly teens, at a summer camp.

SKIEN, Norway, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik gave a Nazi salute on Tuesday as he arrivedin court for a parole hearing that will decide if he should be released after spending more than a decade behind bars.

Breivik, a far-right extremist, killed 77 people in Norway's worst peacetime atrocity in July 2011. He killed eight with a car bomb in Oslo and then gunned down 69, most of them teenagers, at a Labour Party youth camp.

07 Jan 2022; MEMO: Norway's Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), pledged to advance the UN Security Council discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a ministerial level this month, to restore its focus on this decades-long conflict, reported Wafa news agency.

Mona Juul expressed deep concern at the lack of international attention to the issues in Palestine and Israel, which has been compromised as a result of multiple other conflicts raging across the Middle East.

OSLO, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Norway will further tighten restrictions in a bid to limit an expected surge of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told news agency NTB on Monday.

"The situation is serious. The spread of infection is too high and we have to take action to limit this development ... Omicron changes the rules," he said.

The prime minister's office scheduled a news conference for 1900 GMT on Monday where Stoere will be joined by Health Minister Ingvild Kjerkol and other government officials.

OSLO, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Two Norwegian reporters were arrested by police in Qatar this week and held in detention for some 30 hours, their employer said on Wednesday, drawing criticism of the Gulf nation from Norway's prime minister.

Journalists Halvor Ekeland and Lokman Ghorbani were in Qatar to report on preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, public broadcaster NRK said.

OSLO, Nov 1 (Reuters) - The Nobel Peace Prize laureates will be able collect their awards in Oslo in December, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, unlike in Stockholm where the other Nobel ceremonies have been cancelled due to the pandemic for the second year running.

Journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov, who braved the wrath of the leaders of the Philippines and Russia to expose corruption and misrule, won the Nobel Peace Prize this year, in an endorsement of free speech under fire worldwide.

KONGSBERG, Norway, Oct 15 (Reuters) - The man who killed five people with a bow-and-arrow and other weapons in Norway was probably suffering from mental illness, police said on Friday.

The attacker went on a half-hour rampage in the southern town of Kongsberg on Wednesday, assaulting people in the streets and forcing his way into houses and one supermarket. 

Police arrested a suspect the same day - Espen Andersen Braathen, a 37-year-old Danish citizen who has lived in Kongsberg for most of his life.

HURDAL, Norway, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Norway will continue to explore for oil and gas in the next four years, with most new drilling permits to come in mature areas of the sea, the incoming centre-left government said on Wednesday.

A minority coalition of the Labour Party and the rural Centre Party will take power on Thursday after defeating the Conservative-led government in last month's election.

STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — The annual Nobel Peace Prize shines the brightest of lights on the person or group thought to have done most to promote peace. But guessing who it will be is just a stab in the dark.

That’s because the secretive Norwegian Nobel Committee never drops any advance hints. In the past decade, winners have included diplomats, doctors, dissidents and presidents. Who were the other candidates? We can’t know for sure — the panel keeps their ruminations in a vault for 50 years.