Oslo/Stockholm  - Norwegian police used teargas and detained some 100 protesters Saturday after a protest against Israel's offensive in Gaza went out of control in Oslo.

Fireworks and stones were thrown at police and there was also vandalism, police said in a statement.

The arrests took place near the Israeli embassy as hundreds of protesters flouted a ban against approaching the embassy.

A few police officers sustained minor injuries after being hit by stones.

Oslo- Former Norwegian foreign minister Jan Petersen was Friday named new ambassador to Austria, the government said after its weekly Council of State.

Petersen, 62, was leader of the Conservative Party from 1994 to 2004, and served as foreign minister in the coalition led by Christian Democrat Kjell Magne Bondevik 2001 to 2005.

The veteran politician is currently chairman of the standing committee on defence and member of the foreign affairs committee in parliament.

Oslo  - Norwegian police used teargas Thursday to disperse counter-protesters in connection with a public rally in support of Israel in downtown Oslo.

Siv Jensen, leader of the opposition, populist Progressive Party, was a keynote speaker, saying that "war is the worst thing there is," but insisting Israel was "exercising the right to defend itself."

Several hundred people including several parliamentarians attended the rally that was organized by pro-Israel groups including With Israel for Peace.

Oslo - Exhuming the Norwegian grave of a man who died in 1945 may offer clues to his then claims that he was a missing Austrian archduke, news reports said Thursday.

Norwegian heirs to Dr Hugo Kohler have applied for permission to exhume his grave to retrieve DNA in an attempt to prove his claims that he was really archduke Johan Orth who went missing in 1890, the Norwegian daily Faedrelandsvennen reported.

Knut Harald Saeth, church board chief in the Norwegian town of Kristiansand, granted the permission after consulting the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs.

Oslo- A record number of exploration oil wells were drilled 2008 on the Norwegian continental shelf in the wake of record high oil prices, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said Thursday.

Oil production from the Norwegian continental shelf is continuing to decline but 2008 oil production was almost 4 per cent higher than the agency's previous forecast.

The production increase equalled 70,000 barrels per day.

In 2008, 242.2 million standard cubic metres of oil equivalents were produced, down roughly 12 per cent compared to the record year 2004 but slightly more than in 2007.

Oslo - British singer Amy Winehouse has decided not to pursue an appeal in a Norwegian court against a fine for illegal possession of marijuana, her Norwegian lawyer said Tuesday.

In October 2007, the soul singer, her husband Blake Fielder-Civil and another member of her entourage spent a night in police custody after being fined for a small amount of marijuana found in a hotel room while she was on tour in Bergen, western Norway.

Attorney Ole Kvelstad told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that he had informed the appeals court in Bergen that all three of his clients had decided to drop their appeal.