Oslo

Mass slaughter in Oslo. Oslo home of the Nobel Peace Award investiture.

A right wing nut job has perpetrated a mass killing - the helicopter pictures of the island and all the tents were reminiscent of those from Jonestown Guyana. The Norwegians are in total shock.

"It's taken time to search the area. What we know now is that we can say that there are at least 80 killed at Utøya," Mæland said. "It goes without saying that this gives dimensions to this incident that are exceptional."

Mæland said the death toll could rise even more. He said others were severely injured, but police did not know how many were hurt.

A suspect in the shootings and the Oslo explosion was arrested. Though police did not release his name, Norwegian national broadcaster NRK identified him as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik and said police searched his Oslo apartment overnight.

A police official said the suspect appears to have acted alone in both attacks, and that "it seems that this is not linked to any international terrorist organisations". The official spoke on condition of anonymity because that information had not been officially released by Norway's police.

The official said the attack "is probably more Norway's Oklahoma City than it is Norway's World Trade Center."

The Port Aurther massacre in Tasmania sounds a bit like what happened too - although there was no political agenda with that - so how much was this massacre a death wish rather than a 'political' action? Was the attack on the island of camping left wing kids more to do with potential body count success in his killing fantasy than any other consideration? When you look at all these examples of spree killings you find that at no stage will the killer stop once they have started - that's the chilling aspect, they will keep on killing. I can't remember examples of anyone not going through with a planned mass killing once it has started.

NZ and other nations have said they support Norway against terrorism, but given this looks like a lone killer with a purely domestic agenda and these terror acts directed at domestic political targets that's not really helpful for Norway or any other nation with lone psycho domestic terrorists. If he was part of a group however that changes things, but it is too early to answer these questions.

Too early too to predict the Norwegian response regards the firearm he had (and whether they will be banned in the same was the Aussie federal government cracked down on semi-automatics after Port Aurther) or how he managed to detonate a bomb right outside the main government building. The Nowegians must be shaken to the core from this - its magnitude, its malevolence.