A gunman armed with multiple weapons opened fire in a mosque near Oslo Saturday, injuring one person before being overpowered by an elderly worshipper and arrested, Norwegian police and witnesses said.
Hours after the attack, the body of a young woman related to the suspect was found in a home in the suburb of Baerum where the shooting took place earlier in the day, police said Saturday evening.
Investigators are treating her death as suspicious and have opened a murder probe.
The head of the mosque described the assailant as a young white man dressed in black and said he was wearing a helmet and bulletproof vest.
He said only three people had been inside the al-Noor Islamic center at the time of the attack.
Police were alerted to the shooting shortly after 4 p.m. local time (1400 GMT).
Rune Skjold, assistant chief of police, holds a news conference after a shooting in al-Noor Islamic center mosque, in the police headquarters in Oslo, Norway, Aug. 10, 2019.
A lone gunman
Officers first reported that a victim had been shot, but later clarified one person had sustained “minor injuries” and that it was unclear if they were gunshot wounds.
Police said the suspect appeared to have acted on his own.
“It is a Norwegian young man, with a Norwegian background. He lives in the vicinity,” Oslo police spokesman Rune Skjold had told a press conference earlier Saturday.
Skjold added that the suspect had been known to police before the incident but could not be described as someone with a “criminal background.”
The man, who is in his early 20s, was taken into custody, police said in a press release carried by Norwegian media.
Norway was the scene of one of the worst-ever attacks by a right-wing extremist in July 2011, when 77 people were killed by Anders Behring Breivik.
Mosque board member Irfan Mushtaq reacts after a shooting in al-Noor Islamic center mosque, near Oslo, Norway, Aug. 10, 2019.
‘Sitting on the perpetrator’
“One of our members has been shot by a white man with a helmet and uniform,” Irfan Mushtaq, head of the mosque, told local media.
Mushtaq said that the man had carried multiple weapons, but that he had been subdued by a member of the mosque.
Mushtaq arrived at the scene shortly after being alerted about the gunman and had gone to the back of the building while waiting for police to arrive.
“Then I see that there are cartridges scattered and blood on the carpets, and I see one of our members is sitting on the perpetrator, covered in blood,” Mushtaq told Norwegian newspaper VG.
He said the man who apparently overpowered the shooter was 75 years old and had been reading the Koran after a prayer session.
According to Mushtaq, the mosque had not received any threats ahead of the shooting.
The attack took place on the eve of the Muslim celebration of Eid Al-Adha, marking the end of the Muslim pilgrimage Hajj.
Police said Saturday they would be sending out more officers so that those celebrating would “be as safe as possible.”
Jeffrey Epstein, the U.S. financier facing federal sex trafficking charges, committed suicide on Friday night in his lower Manhattan jail cell, several U.S.media outlets reported on Saturday.
This is a developing story. More information will be published as it becomes available.
Ozaguin, considered the most popular singer-songwriter in the Central African Republic, recently came to the U.N.’s European headquarters in Geneva to awaken the world to the struggles faced by his country, which has been mired in civil war since 2012.
Ozaguin sings about the difficulties confronting his people. He sings about the constant search for food in a country where insecurity prevents people from farming and harvesting their crops. He sings about people fleeing into the bush to escape the violence of armed groups. He sings about the same armed groups manipulating vulnerable people into doing their bidding so they can feed their families.
The musician and activist recounts the difficulties he, himself, has faced in life. He says he was forced to quit school in the fourth grade to earn money as he was the sole support of his mother and four younger sisters. He tells VOA there were no jobs in the C.A.R., so he went to Brazzaville in search of work.
“Et moi, il m’en refuse…
Ozaguin says no one would hire him because he was too young and too small. He says he had no choice, but to live on the streets. He says he spent four years as a homeless street child, scrounging for food, dodging the police, fighting off the mosquitos. What saved him, he says, was his music.
He says this experience also sensitized him to the plight of street children and prompted him to eventually create a foundation to help homeless youngsters.
“A ce moment, il y’a…
The musician notes money raised through his concerts helps to support 32 homeless children, including 10 Muslim children who live in a separate district in Bangui. He explains Muslims and Christians live in segregated areas in the capital. He says he is working to end this separation and to bring the two communities together.
The United Nations calls the Central African Republic a forgotten crisis. War has displaced more than one million of the country’s five million population, nearly half that number are refugees in neighboring countries.
The World Food Program reports currently, more than 1.8 million people are suffering from serious food shortages. WFP spokesman, Herve Verhoosel, says these people do not know from where their next meal will come.
“Le programme alimentaire…
He says WFP distributes food rations to 600,000 people a month. He says the agency would like to increase that number to 800,000. But to make that possible, he says WFP urgently needs $35.5 million until the end of the year.
In the meantime, Ozaguin says he will continue to raise his voice in song on behalf of the 4.8 million Central Africans, half of whom continue to live in a state of physical and food insecurity.
Malta says it is willing to take in 39 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea early Saturday by a Spanish NGO’s ship.
Malta said, however, it would not take the 121 people who were already on the vessel who were plucked from the sea last week.
Malta said its military had already mounted an effort to rescue the 39.
Proactive Open Arms, the migrant rescue group, recovered the 39 instead and has refused to disembark the group if Malta does not take the group of 121 migrants.
Malta said in a statement that the larger group was rescued in “an area where Malta is neither responsible nor the competent coordinating authority. Malta can only shoulder its own responsibility since other solutions are not forthcoming.”
Oscar Camps, the founder of Proactive Open Arms, said Malta’s decision not to take the 121 migrants has “caused a serious security problem” on the ship. “The anxiety of these people is unbearable.”
Actor Richard Gere who brought food and water to the ship Friday, said, “The most important thing for these people here is to be able to get to a free port, to be able to get off the boat, to start a new life for themselves.”
A landslide buried more than a dozen village houses in southeastern Myanmar, killing at least 10 people and injuring nearly 30, media reported Saturday.
Rescuers were using backhoes and bulldozers to clear the mud and debris from the village in Paung township. The Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported that some residents were still missing.
The top official in Mon state, Aye Zan, visited the site and villagers who were evacuated to a relief camp to escape floods following torrential rains.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that monsoon flooding had displaced more than 7,000 people this week in Mon state. Apart from the landslide in Paung, houses and a school in other townships were washed away, roads were blocked and villages were submerged.
Nearly 12,000 people have been displaced in Myanmar this week alone, bringing the total number of those in evacuation centers to more than 38,000, the U.N. said.
VOA Connect Episode 82 – Before there was the Internet, there was Tradio – the local radio program to help people buy, sell or trade just about anything. Also this week, a look at groups sharing cultures and food, as well as hobbies ranging from foam sword fighting to long distance cherry pit spitting.
Radio is alive and well in middle America. In one small town in Nebraska, one of the most popular radio programs is called ‘Swap Shop,’ where listeners call in to sell or trade items on the air for free. It’s a quick way of selling things, especially in an area where the Internet is not yet king.
Members of the Belegarth Medieval Combat Society like to fight each other with swords made of foam. Participants dress up in costume and attack each other like medieval hordes of yore. And some of them don’t even really know how to hit.
Reporter/Camera: Mike Osborne; Produced by: Martin Secrest
If you like mysteries, you’ll love the Escape Room. It’s a live-action game where players use clues and solve tasks to escape from a room in a limited amount of time.
The leader of Italy’s ruling League party, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, declared the governing coalition to be unworkable on Thursday after months of internal bickering and said the only way forward was to hold fresh elections.
The shock announcement follows a period of intense public feuding between the right-wing League and its coalition partner, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, and it throws the eurozone’s third-largest economy into an uncertain political future.
Salvini said in a statement he had told Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who belongs to neither coalition party, that the alliance with 5-Star had collapsed after barely a year in power and “we should quickly give the choice back to the voters.”
Parliament, which is now in its summer recess, could reconvene next week to carry out the necessary steps, Salvini said, referring to the need for a no-confidence vote in the government and the resignation of the premier.
Tensions came to a head on Wednesday when the two parties voted against each other in parliament over the future of a project for a high-speed train link with France.
5-Star has more parliamentary seats than the League, but Salvini’s party now has twice as much voter support, according to opinion polls, and it has often threatened to try to capitalize on that surge in popularity with new elections.
However, it remains to be seen if things will go as Salvini plans. Pushing the nation back into election mode in August, when Italians are on holiday and parliament is closed for the summer recess, is unusual and could be unpopular and risky.
President Sergio Mattarella is the only person with the power to dissolve parliament, and may be unwilling to do so ahead of preparatory work in September for the 2020 budget, which must then be presented to parliament the following month.
Italy, which has Europe’s second-largest sovereign debt burden after Greece, has already angered the European Union with an expansionary 2019 budget and Salvini wants to make major tax cuts next year, setting up the prospect of another EU clash. Italy has not held an election in the autumn in all the postwar period.
‘We are ready’
If Mattarella decides not to dissolve parliament, he could try to install an unelected “technocrat” administration, of which there have been several examples in Italy’s recent history, though an alternative parliamentary majority appears elusive.
5-Star Leader Luigi Di Maio said his party did not fear elections.
“We are ready. We don’t care in the least about occupying government posts and we never have,” he said in a statement. He accused Salvini of “taking the country for a ride” and said sooner or later Italians would turn against him for it.
Speculation about a government crisis mounted late on Wednesday when Salvini, speaking at a rally south of Rome, peppered his speech with hints that he had had enough of 5-Star, accusing it of stalling the League’s key policies.
Markets sold off Italian government bonds early on Thursday and the day proceeded with closed-door meetings between Salvini and Conte and between Conte and Mattarella.
The League issued a statement listing a raft of areas in which it had a “different vision” from 5-Star, including infrastructure, taxes, justice and relations with the EU.
The two parties were fierce adversaries ahead of an inconclusive election in March 2018, before forming their unlikely alliance that has often ruffled the feathers of financial markets and the European Commission.
5-Star was the largest party at last year’s elections but it has struggled since the government was formed, while Salvini has prospered thanks to his popular hard line on immigration and a charismatic and informal “man of the people” public image.
The U.N. human rights chief says she is “deeply worried” the new U.S. sanctions on Venezuela’s regime are too broad and will make things worse for the suffering population.
Michelle Bachelet said Thursday that there is lots of evidence to show that wide-ranging unilateral sanctions “can end up denying people’s fundamental human rights, including their economic rights as well as the right to food and health.”
The new U.S. sanctions imposed this week bar American citizens and companies from doing business with President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
FILE – U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet speaks during a press conference in Caracas, June 21, 2019.
Bachelet says although the sanctions do not apply to food, clothing and medicine, she fears many businesses and financial institutions will stop all dealings with Venezuela to avoid the risk of violating the sanctions.
Bachelet did not blame one side or the other for the crisis inside Venezuela, but instead called on “all those with influence in Venezuela and in the international community to work together constructively for a political solution … by putting the interests and human rights of the long-suffering people of Venezuela above all else.”
The new sanctions are the toughest step so far in the Trump administration’s diplomatic and economic pressure to try to force Maduro to give up power.
Military action also remains on the table, U.S. officials have said.
A drop in world oil prices, corruption and failed policies have wrecked the Venezuelan economy and led to a severe shortage of basic foods, fuel and medicine.
A popular uprising led by Venezuelan opposition leader and National Assembly president Juan Guaido has failed to topple Maduro, who has used force against demonstrators.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon M. Huntsman Jr. will resign from his post effective Oct. 3 — capping a tumultuous two-year tenure in Moscow defined by sinking bilateral relations, despite efforts to stem the damage.
“American citizenship is a privilege and I believe the most basic responsibility in return is service to country,” wrote Huntsman in a resignation letter delivered to President Donald Trump on Tuesday and first published in The Salt Lake Tribune, a paper owned by Huntsman’s brother.
“To that end, I am honored by the trust you have placed in me as United States Ambassador to Russia during this historically difficult period in bilateral relations.”
The election shadow
Huntsman’s tenure was defined by fallout from lingering anger over allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.
He arrived just months after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the mass expulsion of 755 American diplomats from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow — a delayed response to earlier reprisals by the Obama administration.
Subsequent tit-for-tat expulsions saw U.S. Embassy numbers dwindle, while American-imposed sanctions on Moscow further poisoned the relationship.
“It was clear that for better or worse, relations aren’t decided in the embassy,” said Alexander Baunov, an analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Center, in an interview with VOA.
Despite the “diplomatic wars,” Baunov said, Huntsman was “a low-profile ambassador” who worked to keep the relationship civil.
Indeed, Russian officials reacted to Huntsman’s announced departure by recalling his tenure as mainly a lost opportunity, with the ambassador hostage to what Moscow portrays as unjustified and pervasive anti-Russian sentiment in Washington.
“We regard him as a professional, but unfortunately, given the conditions we observe now in the U.S., realizing the potential in our relations proved impossible,” said Maria Zakharova, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, discussing Huntsman’s departure in an interview with Echo of Moscow radio.
Assessing Huntsman’s impact on U.S.-Russian relations on his Twitter account, Alexey Pushkov, a pro-Kremlin foreign policy blogger, was even more dismissive.
“He couldn’t improve, or lower [relations], since there was nowhere lower to go,” Pushkov argued. “Little depended on him.”
FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stands behind prior to their talks in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, May 14, 2019.
Hopeful days early on
Huntsman came to Moscow as Trump’s surprise choice for the Russian ambassador’s post — a political appointee and elder Republican statesman with little knowledge of Russia.
Moreover, he had little history with a president who seemed to value trusted family and insiders above all else.
“The good news is Huntsman doesn’t bring any negative baggage when it comes to Russia,” noted foreign policy analyst Vladimir Frolov in an interview at the time. “But the reality is, he doesn’t have much of a relationship with Trump. He’s not in Trump’s inner circle.”
Indeed, Huntsman — a centrist Republican who was ambassador to China in the Obama administration — seemed by nature out of step with the slashing partisan politics of the Trump era.
Early on, Huntsman embraced Trump’s calls to improve relations with Moscow — even pushing to open doors in Washington for his Russian counterpart, Anatoly Antonov.
“I made it clear when I started this job that I wanted to make sure that wherever the Russian ambassador [had access], then I had similar access, and where I get access, Ambassador Anatoly Antonov should get access,” Huntsman said in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine in March 2018.
Still, Huntsman clearly differed with his boss over the 2016 election interference allegations, with Trump reluctant to embrace conclusions by U.S. security agencies of a sustained Kremlin effort to manipulate the results.
“There is no question — underline no question — that the Russian government interfered in the U.S. election last year,” Huntsman said during his confirmation hearings. “Moscow continues to meddle in the democratic processes of our friends and allies.”
Kremlin officials found Huntsman’s mind changed little over the next two years and repeatedly called him out for embracing Washington’s “politics of sanctions.”
Moreover, Russian officials increasingly bristled at Huntsman’s style. A high-profile visit to a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean last April in which he called the ship “200,000 tons of diplomacy” led to his denunciation on Russian state media.
In a further sign his welcome was coming to a close, the Kremlin placed the Atlantic Council, an organization Huntsman headed prior to his posting and that helped draft sanctions legislation against Moscow, on an “undesirable organizations” list last month.
The relationship, never easy, was in trouble for the long haul, Huntsman stated in his resignation letter.
“Going forward, we must continue to hold Russia accountable when its behavior threatens us and our allies,” he wrote. “No reset or restart is going to help, just a clear understanding of our interests and values.”
FILE – White House national security adviser John Bolton, left, and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman wait to begin talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin in Moscow, June 27, 2018.
Search for next ambassador
Huntsman is widely rumored to be eyeing a gubernatorial run in Utah.
Meanwhile, attention turns to whom Trump may nominate next, with intrigue already in tow.
A recent CNN report raised eyebrows when it reported Trump and Putin discussed Huntsman’s departure — and possible successor — during a phone call last week in which Trump offered U.S. assistance to help combat raging wildfires in Siberia.
Yet some observers say the charged political environment in Washington means the Moscow post may stay vacant for some time.
“Before the U.S. presidential elections in 2020, it’s unlikely we’ll see a new ambassador in Russia,” said Nikolai Zlobin, president of the Center for Global Interests, a Russian think tank based in Washington, in an interview with Moscow’s Business FM radio.
“There are not many candidates,” he said, “and not many in Washington are interested in the position.”
