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Greenpeace Activists Forced To End Protest On Norwegian Oil Rig

Greenpeace Activists Forced To End Protest On Norwegian Oil Rig

OSLO, Norway — Police in Norway on Thursday ended a Greenpeace protest against test drilling in a sensitive area of the Arctic by ordering its activists to leave an oil rig they had scaled or face arrest.

The activists obeyed the order peacefully and abandoned the oil rig in northern Norway, Greenpeace and police said.

Tromso Police Chief Ole Saeverud told the German news agency dpa that the seven activists were flown to the mainland by helicopter. They were to be identified, but police were not planning further legal measures, he said.

Saeverud said the police had acted on a request from the oil rig’s flag state, the Marshall Islands.

Greenpeace has criticized plans by Norwegian state-controlled energy group Statoil to drill three exploratory wells about 110 miles southeast of Bear Island, the southernmost island in the Svalbard archipelago.

An oil spill would pose a threat to the island, known for its rich birdlife and is a nature reserve, Greenpeace said.

Statoil said the risk of an oil spill was “very unlikely,” and that the test area had been approved by authorities.

The rig on Thursday was due to continue making its way to the drilling site, and it was shadowed by the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza.

The Ministry of Climate and Environment was reviewing a complaint from Greenpeace against the drilling, and pending a decision Statoil said it was not allowed to drill into oil-bearing layers.

Greenpeace said the activists were from Denmark, Finland, Norway, the Philippines and Sweden. One of the activists, Sini Saarela of Finland, was last year detained in Russia for more than two months after scaling another oil rig.

The international environmental group has staged similar protests against test drilling in environmentally sensitive Arctic waters.

AFP Photo/Ted Aljibe

Norway Killer Reconstructs Island Shooting

OSLO, Norway (AP) — The chilling images of Anders Behring Breivik simulating shots into the water at the island where he killed 69 people at a youth camp were broadcast around the world Sunday after police brought him back there.

Restrained by a harness, the Norwegian reconstructed his actions for police in a secret daylong trip back to the crime scene at Utoya island near Oslo.

A prosecutor also confirmed Norwegian media reports that police received several phone calls during the attack that were probably from Breivik himself, but wouldn’t say how police had reacted to the calls.

According to Norwegian daily Aftenposten, Breivik offered to surrender several times and asked police to call him back, but they didn’t.

Police said they took Breivik back to Utoya for a Saturday hearing about the attacks on July 22, when Breivik shot the victims at the lake island after killing another eight people in the capital with a bomb.

Breivik’s lawyer has said he has confessed to the terror attacks, but denies criminal guilt because he believes the massacre was necessary to save Norway and Europe from Muslims and punish politicians who have embraced multiculturalism.

The 32-year-old Breivik described the shootings in close detail during an eight-hour tour on the island with up to a dozen police, prosecutor Paal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby told a news conference in Oslo.

The hearing took place amid a massive security operation that aimed to avoid escape attempts by Breivik and protect him against potential avengers. Breivik walked roughly the same route as the one he took during the shooting spree and explained what happened with as little interference as possible from police, Hjort Kraby said.

The entire hearing was filmed by police and may later be used in court, he added.

Video images of the reconstruction published by Norwegian daily VG show Breivik arriving at Utoya with the same ferry he used to get to the island last month. Breivik wore a bulletproof vest and a harness connected to a leash over a red T-shirt and jeans as he casually led police around the island.

Breivik is seen pointing out locations along the way and simulating shots into the water, where panicked teenagers dove in to try to escape from him.

“The suspect showed he wasn’t emotionally unaffected by being back at Utoya … but didn’t show any remorse,” Hjort Kraby told reporters. “He has been questioned for around 50 hours about this, and he has always been calm, detailed and collaborative, and that was also the case on Utoya.”

The hearing was arranged to avoid the need for a reconstruction in the midst of the trial and to make Breivik remember more details, Hjort Kraby said.

Norwegian media have also reported that Breivik may have filmed parts of the massacre himself. Hjort Kraby said Sunday that a video camera had been discussed during the hearing on Utoya, but declined to elaborate.

Prosecutors have previously told The Associated Press that Breivik owns a video camera that they are still trying to locate, but have dismissed reports they received witness statements about Breivik filming on Utoya.

Initial speculation suggested others were involved in the terror attacks, but prosecutors and police have said they are fairly certain that Breivik planned and committed them on his own.

Breivik faces up to 21 years in prison if he is convicted on terrorism charges, but an alternative custody arrangement — if he is still considered a danger to the public — could keep him behind bars indefinitely.

Malin Rising reported from Stockholm.

Norwegian Killer Bought Ammo From The United States

Just as Jared Loughner, the madman who nearly killed Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and murdered several others, including a federal judge, at a town hall in Arizona at the beginning of this year, took advantage of lax American gun laws to purchase high capacity magazines, apparently the man who killed over 60 people in Norway last week, Anders Behring Breivik, bought his ammo from this side of the Atlantic.

“The easy availability of high-capacity ammo magazines in the U.S. has once again helped enable a large-scale massacre, this time with a shocking 68 people killed,” Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), the leading gun-control advocate in Congress, said.

“This is another tragic example of our lack of commonsense gun laws failing us with deadly consequences, allowing a cold-blooded killer to easily acquire the tools of mass murder even from another country. How many more innocent people need to die before we realize that some simple, commonsense gun safety laws in the United States could actually save lives?”

Likewise, Violence Policy Center Legislative Director Kristen Rand intoned, “America’s militarized gun industry is now in the business of exporting U.S.-style gun violence. The Norwegian terrorist who shot and killed 68 people knew to look to the United States when he wanted military-style high-capacity ammunition magazines. It is urgent that we act now to prevent a similar terrorist incident on American soil by passing Representative McCarthy’s bill to restrict high-capacity magazines.”

Gun control groups have had no luck moving a renewal of the Assault Weapons ban, which passed under Bill Clinton in 1994 before George W. Bush refused to renew it in 2004, through Congress, either in 2009-10 or, unsurprisingly, the Tea Party-infused one currently in session. They haven’t had help from Barack Obama, who has embraced the post-Al Gore paradigm of avoiding discussion of gun control like the plague to placate white conservatives.

Peter King Ignores Norway Attacks

The Long Island Congressman still thinks only Muslims can be radicalized:

Mr. Breivik frequently cited another blog, Atlas Shrugs, and recommended the Gates of Vienna among Web sites. Pamela Geller, an outspoken critic of Islam who runs Atlas Shrugs, wrote on her blog Sunday that any assertion that she or other anti-jihad writers bore any responsibility for Mr. Breivik’s actions was “ridiculous.”

“If anyone incited him to violence, it was Islamic supremacists,” she wrote.

Mr. Breivik also quoted European blogs and writers with similar themes, notably a Norwegian blogger who writes under the name “Fjordman.” Immigration from Muslim countries to Scandinavia and the rest of Europe has set off a deep political debate across the continent and strengthened a number of right-wing anti-immigrant parties.

In the United States, the shootings resonated with years of debate at home over the proper focus of counter-terrorism.

Despite the Norway killings, Representative Peter T. King, the New York Republican who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he had no plans to broaden contentious hearings about the radicalization of Muslim Americans and would hold the third one as planned on Wednesday. He said his committee focused on terrorist threats with foreign ties and suggested that the Judiciary Committee might be more appropriate for looking at non-Muslim threats.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s right-wing extremism report from 2009, warning of homegrown terrorism, is looking more prescient by the day.