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My, don't they look proud. But after shooting this rare albino moose near Belle Cote in Nova Scotia last week — and posting the pics to social media — the trio has sparked considerable outrage, particularly among the region's Mi'kmaq indigenous community. These guys breached a kind of unwritten code of conduct that has also upset many in the hunting community.

MOSCOW, October 9 (RAPSI) - Greenpeace activists on trial for maritime piracy in Russia soon may face new charges after drugs were found at the Arctic Sunrise ship, Investigative Committee's official spokesperson Vladimir Markin told journalists on Wednesday. Markin added that the investigators have secured an official court order to seize the ship. Earlier, 30 members of the crew were charged with maritime piracy. "With this new evidence that came to light during the investigation, the charges against the accused will be augmented accordingly. It is very clear to the investigation that a number of participants will be chraged with...

Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded an apology from the Netherlands on Tuesday after what Moscow says was an attack on a Russian diplomat in The Hague by armed men over the weekend. Russia has lodged a formal diplomatic protest over the incident, in which it said a minister-counselor at its embassy in the Netherlands, Dmitry Borodin, was badly beaten in his home in front of his children by the unidentified assailants. “We are awaiting an explanation, an apology and also punishment of those responsible,” Putin said at a news conference after an Asia-Pacific summit in Indonesia, calling the incident a...

Actor Jude Law and musician Damon Albarn have joined around 800 people protesting outside the Russian Embassy in London over the arrest of 30 Greenpeace activists. The pair, along with Paul Simonon from The Clash, have called the arrests a disgrace and described them as a personal blow as their friend Frank Hewetson is among those being held. Relatives of the activists have also organised several protests across the country for the six Britons who are in custody, and a further 47 demonstrations are being held around the world.

The foreign minister of the Netherlands said Friday he is seeking to obtain via diplomatic channels the release of Greenpeace activists who were charged with piracy by Russia after the environmental group protested at an oil platform in the Arctic Sea. Two Canadians — Alexandre Paul of Montreal and Paul Ruzycki of Port Colborne, Ont. — are among those facing the piracy charge, which can result in a 15-year prison sentence upon conviction. Frans Timmermans, the Dutch foreign minister, also said Friday he will file suit to recover the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, which was seized by the Russian government...

I related an anecdote many posts ago about flying into Jolo in late 1980s to attend a meeting on recent attacks by the MNLF on civilians. In the seat beside me on the plane was a European man, who introduced himself to me as a member of a well known humanitarian NGO. He announced his intention to travel to Patikul, or some such town. I told him, “that’s Indian country. If you try that you’ll be kidnapped before sundown.” His answer was “nonsense. I have humanitarian status. They won’t hinder me.” He mentioned an affiliation with some other International agency...

I was locked up on the ship from Thursday 19 September 18:30 until Tuesday evening. I was one of the first ones to be taken in to what I thought would be an interrogation. There I sat, on a chair inside a cold room. Next to me was a translator, a young lady, who apparently had studied English. She told me that a written report had to be compiled on the incident. I requested a Dutch translator and was told, "That's not possible." I willingly stated that I would confirm my personal details, but that I would not say anything...

Moscow (AFP) - A Russian court on Sunday ordered the detention for two months of eight more crew members of a Greenpeace ship who protested against Arctic oil drilling as part of a probe into alleged piracy. The Lenin district court in the northern city of Murmansk on Thursday had already ordered the detention of 22 other Greenpeace activists for two months, pending the investigation into suspected piracy after a protest at a Gazprom oil rig on September 18. With the court's decision on Sunday, all 30 members of the Arctic Sunrise icebreaker crew will remain in custody until November...

MOSCOW — Nearly 30 years ago, Peter Willcox was captain of the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior when it was blown up by French agents. Today, the American is in a Russian jail, accused of piracy after members of his latest Greenpeace crew tried to board an offshore oil platform in the Arctic in a protest against drilling. Willcox, now the 60-year-old captain of the Arctic Sunrise, was among 22 Greenpeace activists from around the world who were ordered detained for two months this week by a court in Murmansk, a Russian port above the Arctic Circle. After a hearing...

A court in Murmansk, north-west Russia, was continuing to decide on Thursday the fate of the 30 Greenpeace activists arrested during an Arctic drilling protest. Three of those arrested, including a freelance photographer and a Canadian national, have already been refused bail and remanded in custody. Russian prosecutors have accused the activists of piracy as part of an organised group, an offence that carries a maximum 15-year jail term. The activists were on board Greenpeace's boat the Arctic Sunrise and were protesting against drilling at an oil rig off Russia's northern shores. Greenpeace has dismissed the charges as absurd, saying...

Our North-Western department has opened a criminal case on probable violation of the part 3 article 227 of the Russian Criminal Code "piracy committed by an organised group". The investigators have claimed that a group of people, probably associated with the "Greenpeace" international ecological organization approached the sea platform "Prirazlomnaya" on the ship "Arctic Sunrise" and attempted an illegal descent onto that platform. Their illegal action was foiled by officers of the Murmansk province's border-guarding department of the FSB. We must state that the ship 'Arctic Sunrise' used by the persons who attempted an illegal descent onto "Prirazlomnaya" was in...

Russian border guards said Friday that they would tow Greenpeace's Arctic protest ship to port after armed officers boarded the ship and locked up the activists. Border guards stormed the ship after Greenpeace activists scaled an oil platform owned by state energy giant Gazprom to protest against planned drilling on the Arctic shelf. Special forces officers armed with guns locked up crew members on the Arctic Sunrise icebreaker ship after lowering themselves onto the deck with ropes from a helicopter. "At this moment, the Arctic Sunrise ship is being taken to the port of Murmansk," Greenpeace said on Twitter on...

The crew has been herded to the upper deck and forced to stay there kneeled at gunpoint. Some crewman locked themselves in the radioshack. A search is underway, doors are being beaten out. We still hold the press-room from Spetznaz. We'll keep on writing on what is going on here. We don't know for how long the door will survive.

MOSCOW – The environmentalist group Greenpeace says two of its activists have been arrested after climbing onto an oil platform in Russia's Arctic waters. It claims warning shots were fired across the organization's ship. A Greenpeace statement says the arrests were made Wednesday in the Pechora Sea, a section of the Barents Sea. The activists, who climbed a platform belonging to state gas company Gazprom, are being held on a Russian Coast Guard ship, according to Greenpeace. The statement said the Coast Guard fired 11 shots across the Greenpeace ship that brought activists to the area. A spokeswoman for the...

MOSCOW (AFP) -- Greenpeace said Wednesday that Russia had denied its ship access to Russian Arctic waters to hide the extent of its lucrative energy exploration work in the fragile ecosystem. The global environmental lobby group said its Arctic Sunrise icebreaker intended to enter the Northern Sea Route to protest at work being conducted jointly by Russia's Rosneft energy giant and its US partner ExxonMobil. Arctic Sunrise confronted the Rosneft-contracted Akademik Lazarev last week near the Barents Sea as the Russian vessel was performing powerful seismic sounding tests. The environmental watchdog said Russian authorities had refused it permission to enter...

Russia has blocked a Greenpeace ship from entering Arctic waters where the environmentalist group was planning to protest against oil exploration activities by Rosneft and ExxonMobil, the group said. Russian authorities denied the icebreaker Arctic Sunrise entry to the Northern Sea Route, citing questions over the vessel's ice strengthening, Greenpeace said in a statement... ..."This is a thinly veiled attempt to stifle peaceful protest and keep international attention away from Arctic oil exploration in Russia," Greenpeace campaigner Christy Ferguson said in a statement... ...Greenpeace said it wanted to "expose" the offshore activities of Russian oil company Rosneft and US partner...

It was the kind of meeting that conspiratorial conservative bloggers dream about. A month after President Barack Obama won reelection, top brass from three dozen of the most powerful groups in liberal politics met at the headquarters of the National Education Association (NEA), a few blocks north of the White House. Brought together by the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Communication Workers of America (CWA), and the NAACP, the meeting was invite-only and off-the-record. Despite all the Democratic wins in November, a sense of outrage filled the room as labor officials, environmentalists, civil rights activists, immigration reformers, and a panoply of other...

Biotechnology giant Monsanto is scrapping plans to win approval to grow new types of genetically modified crops in the European Union. It says the move is due to the lack of prospects for cultivation in the EU... It comes just days after the EU began talks with the US on a wide-ranging trade deal, with agriculture likely to be one of the toughest issues. The company said it would now concentrate on growing its conventional seeds business in Europe. It will also look to get EU approval to import its genetically modified crop varieties from the US and South America...

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and the attorneys general of 11 other states sued the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday, demanding that the agency turn over documents the states allege will show the agency cooperates with environmental groups as part of a "sue and settle" legal strategy to develop regulations. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City, alleges that binding consent decrees between the EPA and environmental groups that have sued the agency over the years have led to new rules and regulations for states without allowing their attorneys general to defend their interests and those of its...

GM foods are banned from restaurants in the Houses of Parliament despite government claims it is ‘probably safer’ than other meals. Government ministers are demanding that ordinary families should abandon their reluctance to eat genetically modified food, however they are banned from MPs’ plates. This week the food and farming secretary, Owen Paterson, launched an extraordinary propaganda campaign to encourage the nation to accept GM crops and farming. He bolstered his campaign with claims that some seven million children in the Far East could have been saved from blindness or death in the last 15 years if only people had...