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The captain of the Arctic Sea freighter contacted the ship’s operating company Thursday for the first time since the ship mysteriously disappeared in July. The captain made a brief call to Solchart Arkhangelsk Ltd.’s office on his cell phone, a company spokesman said. “He said the rest of the crew on the ship is all fine,” the spokesman told Interfax. Eleven of the 15-member crew have returned to their families in Arkhangelsk, while the other four are on the ship sailing to Novorossiisk. The 11 were not allowed to contact their families for more than a week after they flew...

The framework deal with Iran doesn’t even provide safety for a year, Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Tuesday. He was reacting to a media blitz by US President Barack Obama assuring the public that the agreement would curb Tehran’s nuclear program for over a decade. Obama “says we have insurance here for 10 years, but I say we don’t have insurance here for even one or two years unless the loopholes are closed, and only then could it become a more reasonable agreement,” Steinitz said, adding that “I wouldn’t trust this [deal] if it was home insurance, and...

A search is under way for a cargo ship which may have travelled through the English Channel after apparently being hijacked by pirates. Coastguards fear the Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea, carrying 15 Russian crew, was hijacked in the Baltic sea. UK authorities made contact before it entered the Strait of Dover but the Russian navy told the Itar-Tass agency it was now looking for the ship. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the situation was "bizarre". Spokesman Mark Clark said: "Who would think that a hijacked ship could pass through one of the most policed and concentrated waters in the world?...

The military airlifted the suspected hijackers of the Arctic Sea and most of its Russian crew from Cape Verde to Moscow on Thursday, after the lumber freighter mysteriously vanished and reappeared in the Atlantic. Eleven of the 15 crew members arrived in Moscow, while the captain and three sailors remained on the ship, which was adrift about 200 nautical miles from the West African island nation of Cape Verde. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the freighter was sailing to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. The sailors and their suspected captors arrived in two separate Il-76 cargo jets at the...

... mystery surrounding the hijacking of a Russian freighter in July has taken a new twist with reports claiming the pirates were acting in league with the Israeli Mossad secret service in order to halt a shipment of modern weapon systems hidden on board and destined for Iran. ...The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported over the weekend that the vessel Arctic Sea had been carrying x-55 cruise missiles and S300 anti-aircraft rockets hidden in secret compartments among its cargo of timber and sawdust.

Was Israel's secret service behind the mysterious hijacking of a Russian freighter to foil a secret attempt to ship cruise missiles to Iran? The mystery surrounding the hijacking of a Russian freighter in July has taken a new twist with reports claiming the pirates were acting in league with the Israeli Mossad secret service in order to halt a shipment of modern weapon systems hidden on board and destined for Iran. While Israeli and Russian officials dismissed the reports, accounts published in the Russian media sounded more like a spy thriller than a commercial hijacking.

Moscow, Aug 21 (DPA) A Russian newspaper claimed Friday that suspected pirates who boarded the freighter Arctic Sea were actually agents of the Israeli secret service trying to stop it from smuggling arms into Iran. According to Russian media, the Arctic Sea may have been carrying illegal X-55 cruise missiles destined for Iran hidden among its cargo of lumber. Men acting on behalf of the Israeli Mossad secret service commandeered the ship to divert the weapons away from Israel's regional enemy, the daily Novaya Gazeta said. Citing Moscow publicist Yulia Latynina, the daily pointed to the surprise visit of Israeli...

Russia says it tracked hijacked Arctic Sea all along, but questions grow over cargo Tony Halpin in Moscow Russia’s top general hinted today that the ship allegedly hijacked by pirates earlier this month may have been carrying a secret cargo, as it emerged that the country’s Navy tracked the vessel throughout its journey. President Medvedev sent the Russian Navy to find the Arctic Sea after it apparently disappeared while passing through the English Channel en route to Algeria from Finland. However, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow now says that Russian and international agencies had monitored the ship throughout its strange...

can’t say anything about the roots of this story and I don’t plan to dig further… I need to think about my own skin too. Understand that as you will.” —Mikhail Voitenko, editor of the Russian maritime Bulletin Sovfrakht., speaking about the “hijacking” of the Arctic Sea While it might seem like an unusual morphing of the movies Inside Man and The Hunt for Red October, the account of the cargo ship Arctic Sea is far stranger than either fictional account. Based on information developed through our extensive investigation, we can authoritatively state, without hyperbole, that the mysteries surrounding the...

The hijackers of a cargo ship that disappeared off the coast of France threatened to blow it up if their ransom demands were not met, Russian news agencies said.Russia has 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. Limited information from Russian officials 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...

ULAN BATOR (Reuters) - Russia's top general said on Wednesday the military would search the Arctic Sea merchant ship for a possible secret cargo when it returns to Russia from a maritime odyssey that has made headlines around the world.Russia says the Maltese-registered Arctic Sea, officially carrying timber from Finland to Algeria, was hijacked by eight men off the coast of Sweden on July 24. This month Russian warships intercepted the vessel off the coast of Cape Verde."We do not know yet what it is carrying, we only know it is timber. But what else it is actually transporting. It...

In July, the Russian-manned cargo ship the Arctic Sea disappeared on its way to take timber from Finland to Algeria, sparking reports of the first incident of piracy in European waters since the days of the buccaneers. Experts and observers weighed in with their theories: the ship had been snatched in a commercial dispute; it was being used to run drugs; it was carrying something more precious — or dangerous — than timber. Since then, the Russian navy has found the ship, and the alleged hijackers who boarded it on July 24 have been charged with kidnapping and piracy. The...

The Russian security service released the crew of the Arctic Sea in Moscow on Sunday. The 11 members of the crew of the hijacked ship were flown from Cape Verde to Russia nearly two weeks ago. The Russian news agency Interfax reports that the men returned to their home town of Archangelsk, where they were met by their families. On Sunday, Russian authorities gave conflicting accounts of whether or not all of the crew would be released. The online portal life.ru reported that only nine members of the crew had been released. Rabbe von Hertzen of the Finnish National Bureau...

Report: Russia hijacked its own ship Ynet probe reveals Russian intel used secret agents to arrest the Arctic Sea vessel, thought to have been hijacked by Israel, after getting tip it was violating international accord by carrying 'destabilizing' arms to Syria or Iran Ron Ben-Yishai Published: 09.02.09, 19:03 / Israel News A Ynet investigation revealed Wednesday that the hijacking of the Russian vessel 'Arctic Sea' was ordered by the Russian government. News agencies around the world published reports tying Israel to the hijacking, as the vessel was said to have been carrying arms to the Middle East, and possibly Iran....

French lawmakers on Wednesday (1 April) discussed an intelligence bill that aims to give sweeping surveillance powers to internal security agencies and the prime minister’s office. Announced a day after the museum terrorist attacks in Tunis, the bill allows agencies attached to the economy, defense and interior ministries to spy on people by hacking their computers or mobile phones without the need for a warrant.Anyone suspected of terrorism or terrorism links, even incidentally, could be a target. Prime minister Manuel Valls has said the bill is needed to detect possible terrorist activities in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre...

Uber. WhatsApp. Twitter. Google. Snapchat. Instagram. Facebook. Many of the online services most popular among Europeans were created in the United States. The EU wants that to be different in the future. “Europe’s industrial competitiveness will in the future depend to a large extent on the capacity to develop high quality software and using the most modern computing technologies”, Oettinger said in a speech at the Net Futures event in Brussels on 25 March. To do that, the EU has had a set of software tools created to make it easier for entrepreneurs to transform their idea into a working...

The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, began a controversial visit to Moscow on Tuesday as his debt-stricken country raced to meet tomorrow’s deadline for the repayment of a €450m loan to the International Monetary Fund. With Greece suffering its worst credit crisis in modern times, the defiant leader flew into Russia amid speculation that president Vladimir Putin might make an offer of financial help he would find hard to resist.

Greece has demanded nearly €279bn in reparations from Germany, more than the value of its current bail-out, as the cash-strapped country continues to pursue compensation for crimes carried out by the Third Reich. A parliamentary committee established by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras put an official number on the claim, which includes the cost of a forced Nazi loan made by the Bank of Greece and the return of archaeological treasures. Greece suffered a brutal occupation at the hands of the Third Reich in 1941, with over 40,000 people starving to death in Athens alone. SNIP--- Berlin moved to quickly to...

The firm operating the Paris subway has come under fire for apparently pushing France's beloved secularity too far with its refusal to display an ad with the mention "Christians of the East." French music group "The Priests" had planned to advertise their upcoming June concert in Paris with a poster sporting a banner that said proceeds would go towards the cause of Christians persecuted in places such as Iraq and Syria.But the state-owned RATP firm that operates the subway and its advertising agency Metrobus ordered the group's producers to take off the banner, pointing in a statement issued last week...

On Thursday morning, we took an in-depth look at what the progression of events is likely to be in the event a cash-strapped, negotiation-weary Greece finally, for lack of will or for lack of options, fails to scrape together enough cash to pay its creditors. As BofAML notes, a missed IMF payment and/or failure to make interest payments to either the ECB or private creditors over the coming weeks would likely lead to default within 30 days, at which point "mark-to-fantasy" becomes mark-to-market and then "mark-to-default" in very short order. Although Greek officials came out midday with a “categorical” denial...