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Publish date: August 18, 2009
News
Independent confirmation of the report, which was carried by several Russian news agencies, was unavailable, Reuters said.
Russia on Tuesday arrested eight people on suspicion of hijacking the Arctic Sea off the Swedish coast and sailing it to the Atlantic Ocean, ending weeks of silence about the fate of a ship, which has intrigued European maritime authorities.
The limited information from Russian authorities has failed to satisfy sceptics who voiced doubts about whether the piracy actually took place or was a convenient cover story to conceal a possible secret cargo of arms or nuclear material. Bellona’s Igor Kudrik said he believed the hijacking was a simple act of piracy that had nothing to do with nuclear materials or other illicit substances aboard the errant vessel.
"The crew members have already confirmed that the captors demanded a ransom and threatened to blow up the vessel if their orders were not obeyed," Interfax quoted a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman as saying.
"The crew members also claim that the people who seized the Arctic Sea were armed and got rid of their weapons when the ship (Russian navy ship) Ladny ordered the dry cargo carrier’s crew to stop the vessel," he said.
Climbing gear, flares and a high-speed inflatable boat supposedly used in the hijack were found aboard the Arctic Sea, RIA news agency quoted the spokesman as saying at a briefing for Russian media.
The agencies did not say what ransom was demanded, though Finnish officials confirmed to Bellona Web on Tuesday that the hijackers had contacted the Arctic Sea’s owners with a relatively low demand of $1.5 million – the approximate value of the ships cargo
Nobody answered the phone when Reuters called the ministry’s press service to attempt to verify the reports presented in Interfax and RIA Novosti – a state run news wire.
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.