Silence observed for Norway victims

People lay down roses at a fountain near the bomb site in Oslo, Norway, in memory of the victims of Friday's bomb and shooting massacre. Photo / AP

Do you have any information about the missing Kiwi teenager?
Email the Herald Newsdesk

A gathering of Labour MPs and members of Young Labour held a moment's silence on Parliament's steps today to remember those who died and stand should to shoulder with their Labour counterparts in Norway.

Anders Behring Breivik appeared in court in Oslo late yesterday accused of shooting dead 68 men, women and children at a summer camp for the youth wing of Norway's ruling Labour party, on Utoya Island near Oslo and killing a further eight with a car bomb attack in Oslo's central government district.

An emotional Jacinda Ardern, Labour MP, who has a personal connection to many caught up in the tragedy, said Young Labour in Norway would continue to stand up for peace in their own country and around the world.

"We gather today to condemn what has occurred in Norway, but also to honour the memory of what those young people stood for ... They were our friends.

"Thankfully most of those I know were spared, but many, of course, were not. One who was on the island during this tragedy was a refugee from Uganda who had been brought in by AUF (Young Labour in Norway) to a safer more peacfeul life.

"Although he has survived, he watched many of his friends fall around him ... We honour them."

New Zealander still missing

A New Zealander is one of four people still missing in Norway following the mass shooting and bombing there on Saturday.

A teenage girl, who has dual New Zealand and Norwegian citizenship, was believed to be on the island at the time of the shooting and remains missing, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said today.

The New Zealand embassy was in direct contact with the teen's family.

Oslo vigil draws massive crowds

More than 100,000 Norwegians thronged central Oslo in a vigil for the victims of a last week's attacks, just hours after Anders Behring Breivik told a court hearing that he had an active network of accomplices.

Breivik, the gunman who said he was behind the massacre, was remanded in custody for eight weeks while the investigation into the attacks continues.

As thousands of flower-carrying Norwegians filed through the city centre in an overwhelming show of both grief and solidarity, even Behring Breivik's father said he wished his son had taken his own life.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg admitted the country would be changed permanently by the car bombing in Olso and mass shootings on a nearby island, but vowed to ensure it remains an open society.

He told the grimly defiant crowd massed in the city centre: "Evil can kill a person but it cannot kill a people."

Finnish police to scan for internet extremists

Meanwhile Finnish police say they'll monitor the Internet more rigorously for evidence of extremists plots following last week's twin massacres in neighbouring Norway.

Deputy police commissioner Robin Lardot said his forces will play closer attention to fragmented pieces of information - known as "weak signals" - in case they connect to a credible terrorist threat.

He told public YLE radio that Finnish police previously enhanced their online surveillance after a 22-year-student gunned down 10 people at a vocational school in the central town of Kauhajoki in September 2008.

The gunman in the Kauhajoki shooting, who also killed himself, had dropped hints about his plans before carrying out the attack, as in the Norwegian case, Lardot said.

In both cases "the perpetrators had a need to say that they were preparing something like this," Lardot added.

- NZPA, AFP