QUIRKY WORLD ... Migrants bike into Norway at Arctic crossing

NORWAY: A trickle of asylum seekers from Syria and the Mediterranean region have found an unlikely route into Europe: Through Russia to a remote Arctic border post in Norway, partly on bicycles.

Police chief inspector Goeran Stenseth said 151 people have crossed the border this year near the northeastern Norwegian town of Kirkenes, 2,500km northeast of Oslo.

He said that most of the migrants are from Syria, with some from Turkey and Ukraine, and they mainly cross in motor vehicles although some have resorted to arriving on bicycles because the Storskog border post is not open to pedestrians, in line with a Norwegian-Russian border agreement.