Posted on 08/20/2009 4:07:52 AM PDT by decimon
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 arms or nuclear material.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc.net.au ...
Great...Fabulous...
Somebody just had to drop the “N” word...
Now we’ll never know he truth...
“Nugglear”?
You're getting closer to your home.
You’ve been watching too much 24.
:^)
great pics on your FR page.
OK: Let's play connect the dots. Russian ship with nukes temporarily disappears in N Atlantic while a pair of Russian attack subs run cover in W Atlantic.
Meanwhile: Political recriminations distracting spy agency: CIA chief (AFP) – Aug 1, 2009 WASHINGTON — CIA director Leon Panetta warned in an article published Saturday that the country's premier intelligence agency has been hurt by a climate of recriminations in Congress over its past practices.... http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jxcywBymgxUCbXp4S7EbKYcimAGQ
Conclusion: Love your family, share the news of Grace and salvation; Forgive your enemies as judgement time is very near. Put your faith God not government.
The official version of events was questioned by Yulia Latynina, a leading Russian opposition journalist and commentator.
"The Arctic Sea was carrying something, not timber and not from Finland, that necessitated some major work on the ship," she wrote in the Moscow Times newspaper on Wednesday.
During two weeks of repair works in the Russian port of Kaliningrad just before the voyage, the ship's bulkhead was dismantled so something very large could be loaded, she wrote.
"To put it plainly: The Arctic Sea was carrying some sort of anti-aircraft or nuclear contraption intended for a nice, peaceful country like Syria, and they were caught with it," she said.
Okay...EVERYONE posting on this thread (12 on down) is just plain weird.
Thank you for your insightful discussion..I am a wierdo but your account is Banned.. ZOT
Wonder what will happen this 9-11?
-grin-
Dummy # 3017
CoinkyDinkys are funny.
Ship was missing a couple of weeks before the story broke, at the least.
And NYC had a shipborne WMD threat drill around the same time before the story broke.
Funny, that.
The ship is carrying the latest winter fashion designs to Africa and was hijacked by by a gang of Albanian women desperate to look au courant for the fall season in Tirana. If the Russkis had wanted to send nuclear materials to Syria, they would have sent them overland by camel caravan. Much more direct.
Now move along, there's nothing to see here. The hijacked ship has been found by the Russki Navy and all is well.
LOL!
Eggzactly!!!
Russia admits mystery ship may have had suspect cargo
By Alexander Osipovich (AFP) – 3 hours ago
MOSCOW — Top Russian officials admitted Wednesday that a cargo ship hijacked under murky circumstances in the Baltic Sea may have been carrying a suspicious cargo, after initially playing down such reports.
Speculation has been raging that the Arctic Sea — a ship that was seized by pirates near Sweden last month and vanished for weeks before being recaptured by the Russian navy — may have held weapons or even nuclear materials.
The Maltese-flagged ship with a crew of 15 Russian sailors was officially heading to Algeria with a cargo of timber.
But Moscow’s top investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, cast doubt on that in a newspaper interview.
“We do not rule out the possibility that the Arctic Sea transported something other than wood,” Bastrykin told the official government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
“This is why we detained the crew, as we must figure out if any one of them was involved in those events,” added Bastrykin, who heads the investigative committee of Russian prosecutors.
The detention of 11 Arctic Sea sailors by Russian authorities and media reports that they have not been allowed to communicate with their families have fuelled speculation of a cover-up.
Bastrykin pledged that “in a week and a half, we will give complete information” about the incident.
Separately, the head of the Russian military said that Moscow did not know if the ship was carrying any cargo other than wood.
“We do not know what it is carrying, we only know there is wood and whatever else it is carrying must be clarified by the investigation,” Nikolai Makarov, chief of Russia’s general staff, told reporters during a visit to Mongolia.
Makarov added that it was unclear why the alleged hijackers had bothered to seize the ship in an elaborate operation in one of Europe’s busiest shipping lanes.
“The motive of the hijacking is simply not very clear,” he said.
Two Russians, four Estonians and two Latvians are now jailed in Moscow on suspicion of hijacking the Arctic Sea, after being arrested when the Russian military recaptured the vessel off the Cape Verde islands.
The doubts expressed by Bastrykin and Makarov were in contrast to previous comments by Russian officials who insisted that the vessel was not carrying anything sensitive.
Moscow’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, has said the Arctic Sea was only carrying timber and dismissed speculation that the ship was carrying weapons as “tales.”
Russian officials have said that a preliminary search of the ship after it was recaptured found nothing suspicious, but have vowed a more thorough search when it reaches the Russian port of Novorossiisk.
Authorities in Finland, which the ship departed from on July 23, have said it was not carrying any radioactive cargo.
Still, the Arctic Sea mystery has revived fears — dramatized in Hollywood movies of the 1990s — that nuclear arms smuggled from the former Soviet Union could fall into the hands of terrorists of rogue states.
Russia has usually dismissed such concerns and argued that its nuclear arsenal is secure.
All you bloody conspiracy theory skeptics take note, this story is noteworthy.... Not to be ignored......
Once, I had a girl
or should I say, she once had me
One of them harda$$es, eh?
Do you have anything of substance to offer?
Do you have anything of substance to offer?
Do you? In further news, Hitler is still dead.
Post 22 news article is an update.. Suggest you cast your net into cyberspace or the docks of Copenhagen for chat or facts. I respect your humor and yet this thread is not about that.
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