16th of Aug 09

NATO, Russia join forces in hunt for missing ship
By Orlando Rodrigues (AFP) – 41 minutes ago
PRAIA — As NATO and Russia joined forces in the search for the missing cargo ship Arctic Sea, commentators on Sunday said news the ship's owners had received a ransom demand augured well for the Russian crew.
Helsinki-based Solchart Management had received the demand, Finnish police confirmed on Saturday.
Finnish Detective Chief Superintendent Jan Nyholm told AFP the authorities there were keeping more than 20 countries informed of developments concerning the hunt for the ship.
A story on the website of the Financial Times Deutschland reported that the demand was for 1.5 million dollars (1.05 million euros), without citing its source.
The did not say whether the ransom was for the crew to be freed or for the ship itself.
But for Russian maritime expert Mikhail Voitenko, the development was good news for the 15-strong Russian crew.
"This is the first positive sign that there are intentions to bring back the crew," told AFP on Sunday. Voitenko declined to speculate on who might be behind a ransom demand.
Yulia Latynina, an anti-Kremlin political commentator and a radio host in Moscow, took a similar view.
"It appears they are looking for a way out of the situation and it appears to mean that the crew will return safe and sound, thank God -- and that's the most important."
For Latynina, the saga of the Arctic Sea's disappearance had all the trappings of a Frederick Forsyth thriller.
The mystery of the vessel -- and why somebody has gone to the trouble of hijacking it -- is attracting growing international attention.
The Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea left Finland for the Algerian port of Bejaia, carrying a cargo of about 6,700 cubic metres of sawn timber estimated to be worth 1.16 million euros (1.7 million dollars) on July 23.
A day later, eight to 10 masked men boarded the ship between the Swedish islands of Oland and Gotland in the Baltic Sea at about 0100 GMT, Swedish police later reported, several days after the incident.
Claiming to be anti-drugs police, they tied up the crew and conducted a thorough search of the vessel before reportedly leaving 10 to 12 hours later after freeing the crew.
The last definite trace of the ship was in the early hours of July 30, when its tracking system put if off the coast of northwestern France.
Then on Friday, EU Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr said the ship appeared to have been attacked a second time, this time off the coast of Portugal.
But he offered no further comment "in order not to hinder the ongoing law enforcement activities."
Recent reports by officials in Cape Verde and France that the ship had been sighted off the coast of west Africa have yet to be confirmed by Russia.
Cape Verdean military officials said Friday the ship was some 400 nautical miles (740 kilometres) off one of the archipelago's islands
One of its military officers told AFP on Saturday that the boat appeared to be heading south at a speed of between 15 and 20 knots (17 and 23 miles an hour, 28 and 37 kilometres an hour).
"A small Russian frigate that was located in the Mediterranean is currently headed toward the south, probably to meet up with the Arctic Sea," French Commander Jerome Baroe said Saturday.
Russia's envoy to NATO said late Saturday that the western military alliance was working closely with Moscow in the hunt for the missing ship.
"All information that is full and most likely objective, is instantly sent to Russian navy headquarters" from NATO headquarters in Brussels, Dmitry Rogozin told the RIA Novosti news agency.
NATO's cooperation with Russia -- and the fact that Moscow has deployed ships, submarines and satellites to the search -- will only fuel speculation about the hijacking, already a rare enough occurrence in these waters.
Experts have debated whether pirates, a mafia quarrel or a commercial dispute were behind the disappearance of the ship.