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Bombing in Oslo, Norway

From The National (AE):

OSLO -- A powerful bomb tore into the heart of Norway yesterday, killing at least seven people and injuring 15 as it ripped open buildings including the prime minister's office, while a gunman dressed as a police officer opened fire at a youth camp on an nearby island.

Police said they believed incidents were connected, but could not immediately confirm Norwegian media reports that several people were killed at the camp.

An eyewitness said he saw between 20 and 25 bodies.

In the meantime we have learned that the tragedy is even more devastating. The number of teenagers murdered at the camp has been estimated at 86, and there are still several missing. The search continues. A more recent update (Jul 25th) indicates the number killed on the island is smaller, thankfully. It stands at 68 officially, with the expectation it may rise when the missing are accounted for.

Police Inspector Bjoern Erik Sem-Jacobsen said a suspect in the shooting was arrested. He said the suspect pulled out a gun and started firing into the crowd of youths.

The prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, was working at home at the time of the bombing - the first in Norway since the Second World War - and was unharmed, according to his senior adviser Oivind Ostang. Mr Stoltenberg held a crisis meeting of his government late last night.

A square in Oslo, where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, was covered in twisted metal and shattered glass, and carpeted with documents from the surrounding buildings.

The buildings around the square house government offices and the headquarters of some of Norway's leading newspapers.

More added information: The shooter is an extreme right-wing ideologue who has confessed the killings. Anders Behring Breivik claims to be part of wider anti-Islamic, anti-multiculturalism movement within Europe. The evidence shows he planned meticulously, emulating terrorists in the US, particularly the Oklahoma bombers and the Unibomber -- other cases of right-wing violence and inhumanity. His motivation was evidently to destroy the future of the labor party in Norway.

The GCP event was set for 6 hours beginning at 13:00 UTC, about an hour before the bomb in the center of Oslo (4:00 pm local time). The result is Chisquare 21936.921 on 21600 for p = 0.053 and Z = 1.616.

The bomb explosion may have been a bit earlier, around 3:30 local time, and it is difficult to specify the exact time for the shooting rampage at the summer youth camp. The times (4:00 and 5:00 local) indicated on the graph are a rough guide.

Bombing in
Oslo, Norway

It is important to keep in mind that we have only a tiny statistical effect, so that it is always hard to distinguish signal from noise. This means that every "success" might be largely driven by chance, and every "null" might include a real signal overwhelmed by noise. In the long run, a real effect can be identified only by patiently accumulating replications of similar analyses.


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