Greenpeace International News

Shell has reportedly threatened legal action against Greenpeace activists who last week boarded a heavy load carrier carrying Shell's Penguins FPSO, destined for deployment in the UK North Sea.Last Tuesday, four activists climbed aboard the Boskalis' White Marlin vessel carrying the cylindrical FPSO, in the Atlantic Ocean north of the Canary Islands, calling for Shell to "Stop Drilling. Start Paying." Read more here.According to Greenpeace, Shell, late on Friday, Feb 3, hit the…

Four Greenpeace activists on Tuesday boarded the heavy transportation vessel carrying Shell's Penguins FPSO aboard, calling on the oil major to "Stop Drilling. Start Paying."Six Greenpeace International activists attempted, and four managed to board Boskalis' White Marlin vessel in the Atlantic Ocean north of the Canary Islands. The heavy transportation vessel is carrying the recently delivered 34,000t Penguins FPSO, which is planned to ultimately be deployed northeast of the Shetland Islands in the North Sea for the Penguins field project.

A BP drilling rig heading to an oilfield in the British North Sea has been forced to turn away twice over the past two days as a Greenpeace vessel protesting climate change tries to hamper its progress.The high-sea chase is the latest step in Greenpeace's nine-day effort to stop the 40,000 tonne Paul Loyd JNR rig from reaching the Vorlich oilfield to start its drilling campaign.The vessel left Cromarty Firth, north of Inverness, Scotland on Friday after police twice removed activists…

The six activists who were detained for 33 hours on board a shipment carrying dirty palm oil into Europe have been released by Spanish authorities in Algeciras.The Greenpeace International volunteers climbed onto the Stolt Tenacity tanker at dawn on Saturday, and delayed its journey from Indonesia to The Netherlands for almost two days.The climbers were protesting a 185-metre long cargo loaded with palm oil products from Wilmar, the biggest palm oil trader in the world, which trades in palm oil associated with rainforest destruction.Wilmar is a major supplier to global snack food giant Mondelez, one of the world’s largest buyers of palm oil…

The United Nations shipping agency reached an agreement on Friday to cut carbon emissions, following years of slow progress. The compromise plan, which will cut emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050 compared with 2008 levels, fell short of more ambitious targets. Kitack Lim, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), said the adoption of the strategy "would allow future IMO work on climate change to be rooted in a solid basis". The IMO said it would also be pursuing efforts towards phasing out CO2 emissions entirely.

The Antarctic Ocean Alliance (AOA) called on the 25 member countries gathering today for the annual meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) to finally agree on lasting and significant Southern Ocean protection. CCAMLR previously pledged to establish two marine protected areas by 2012, but, because of a lack of consensus, member states have failed to reach agreement on two major proposals on four separate occasions. The Southern Ocean is home to more than 10,000 unique species, including most of the world’s penguins, whales, seabirds, and colossal squid, as well as the commercially targeted Antarctic toothfish, known in many retail outlets as Chilean sea bass.

A Greenpeace ship was detained by Spanish authorities today in the port of Arrecife, Lanzarote, following last Saturday's protest against Repsol’s potential oil drilling in the Canary Islands. Spain’s Ministry of Public Works and Transportation (Ministerio de Fomento) has detained Arctic Sunrise, a ship operated by Greenpeace International, while an investigation is performed into the protest on November 15 which resulted in the injuries of two Greenpeace activists when the Spanish Navy allegedly rammed Arctic Sunrise, Greenpeace said.

Russia’s investigative committee (IC) this morning informed Greenpeace International that it has annulled the arrest of the ship Arctic Sunrise, which has remained in custody in Murmansk since performing a protest against Arctic oil drilling September 19, 2013. According to Greenpeace, the investigative committee recently extended its investigation into the protest at the Prirazlomnaya platform by two months, until July 24. However, lawyers acting for Greenpeace International were informed of the ship’s release during a meeting in the port city of Murmansk this morning.

Greenpeace International has sent out a ship 'Rainbow Warrior'on Monday to confront the Russian Oil tanker bringing the first oil produced at a new Russian offshore platform in the Arctic Circle to Rotterdam. The oil was drilled at the Prirazlomnaya platform, an offshore rig owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom and the site of Greenpeace's protest last September. The ship sailed from the port of Rotterdam at 12:40 Dutch time (13:40 GMT), told AFP Saliz Patrick, an environmental activist organization on board the ship. The ship is expected to make contact in a day or two with the Russian tanker 'Mikhail Ulyanov', which is heading to Rotterdam.

President Vladimir Putin hailed Russia's first shipment of Arctic offshore oil on Friday, saying the platform decried by environmentalists will help Moscow expand its global energy markets share. Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russia's top gas producer Gazprom, shipped the first 70,000 tonnes of oil by tanker from the Prirazlomnoye platform, the site of a protest by 30 Greenpeace activists who were arrested last year. The launch of oil production in the Arctic, seen by Russia as one of the key sources in the gradual replacement of output from its depleted West Siberian fields…

The final chapter in the legal ordeal of the Arctic 30 began as the group was asked to attend a meeting at Russia’s powerful Investigative Committee, where the criminal case against them is being dropped en masse. According to Greenpeace they will then have one more hurdle – securing exit visas in their passports – before the non-Russians are free to leave the country and be reunited with their families. A meeting with the Federal Migration Service is scheduled for later today. The Arctic 30 are expected to leave Russia in the coming days.

Lawyers for Greenpeace International believe the draft text of a Russian amnesty to be voted on by the Duma (the Russian parliament) would be unlikely to benefit the Arctic 30 protesters. Thus they still face the possibility of trial and conviction for their protest. In its present form, the proposal would apply only to people who have either been convicted of hooliganism, or people who are on trial and will be convicted within the six month period after the amnesty decree is adopted.

Lawyers for the Arctic 30 have started to lodge applications with Russia's Investigative Committee seeking exit visas for the non-Russian nationals. If the applications are approved, the foreign nationals would be allowed to leave Russia to await ongoing investigations into their Greenpeace International Arctic oil drilling protest. All of the foreign nationals, 26 people from 17 nations, have had their passports returned to them after their release on bail from detention last month.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry has finalised a bank guarantee of 3.6 million euros in compliance with a binding ruling by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) ordering Russia to release the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise and the Arctic 30 protesters. "The Netherlands has now fulfilled its part of the Tribunal's binding order and Russia is obligated to also comply by releasing the ship and the Arctic 30, as the Tribunal so ordered. The Tribunal has ordered both Russia and the Netherlands to report back on progress with their compliance by December 2.

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has ordered the Russian Federation in a binding ruling to release the Greenpeace ship 'Arctic Sunrise' and the 28 activists and two freelance journalists on board upon payment of a EUR 3.6 million bond. According to Greenpeace International Russia is now under an obligation to comply with the order: the Russian Constitution itself states that international law forms an integral part of the Russian legal system and Russian courts are under an obligation to implement the order.

Greenpeace International said it has already posted bail for nine of the Arctic 30, but does not expect them to be released before the weekend. Lawyers say they are making bail payments - set at 2 million rubles (€45,000) for each detainee - as quickly as they can. At court hearings this morning Faiza Oulahsen from the Netherlands and British citizen Alexandra Harris became the 13th and 14th Arctic 30 prisoners to be granted bail. Lawyers for Greenpeace today said there are a number of bureaucratic issues to resolve before any of the Arctic 30 are released from jail and they do not expect any of them to be out of prison until the weekend, possibly later. It is still not clear whether their movements will then be restricted.

Greenpeace International confirms that the train carrying 30 men and women detained after  a peaceful protest at a Gazprom Arctic oil platform has arrived in St Petersburg. The Arctic 30 departed from Murmansk in a prison wagon early on Monday and upon arrival in St Petersburg the wagon was detached and moved 1km away from the station. The authorities moved the detainees to transportation buses, surrounded by many police. It is not yet certain which SIZO (detention centre) in…

Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans informs 'Russia info' that he has met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the situation concerning the Greenpeace vessel. Relations between Russia and the Netherlands have been tense recently since an attack on a Russian diplomat in the Hague and the arrest in Russia of the Arctic Sunrise vessel, which sailed under the Dutch flag. On 19 September, 2013, border guards stormed the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise ship after the conservationists tried to hold a protest on the Prirazlomnaya platform in the Pechora sea.

ITLOS is an independent judicial body located in Hamburg, Germany, established to resolve disputes about the interpretation and application of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The Dutch authorities initiated an arbitration case against Russia on October 4, and on October 21 called for ITLOS to indicate ‘provisional measures’ pending the outcome of that arbitration. In a “provisional measures” case like this one, ITLOS can order measures it thinks appropriate to preserve the respective rights of the Netherlands and the Russian Federation…

Greenpeace International reports that it understands from diplomatic sources that the thirty men and women detained by Russia following a peaceful protest against an Arctic oil platform are being moved from a detention centre in Murmansk to a jail in St Petersburg. Lawyers for Greenpeace are not aware of the reasons for the move. "“The detainees shouldn’t be in jail at all. They should be free to join their families and restart their lives. St Petersburg has some daylight in the winter months, unlike Murmansk. Families and consular officials will now find it easier to visit the thirty.

Prosecuting authorities in Russia were under fire today after it was revealed that they have failed to lift charges of piracy against the Arctic 30, despite pledging to do so. Russia’s powerful Investigative Committee announced last week that the piracy charges – which carry a 15-year jail sentence – would be replaced with charges of hooliganism. But when the thirty detainees were brought before the Committee over the course of this week, the piracy charge was not withdrawn. Instead each of them was simply served with the additional charge of hooliganism. They now stand accused of both offences, which carry a maximum sentence of 15 and 7 years, respectively.

According to Greenpeace, Shell's CFO Simon Henry said that the company is putting the building blocks in place to drill in Alaskan Arctic as early as next year. "Shell's Arctic bravado is a desperate attempt to reassure its investors, but the facts tell a different story. Brushing off the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars and casually scrapping a drilling platform are not the actions of a company in control of its operations. "In 2012 Shell proved that it is completely unfit to drill in the remote Arctic, a place of unrivaled beauty where any spill would be an environmental disaster.

Russia boycotts ITLOS arbitration concerning their siezure of the Dutch-flagged 'Arctic Sunrise', and Greenpeace responds to reports that piracy charges against the 30 held in custody were to be replaced by that of 'hooliganism'. The Russian Foreign Ministry has announced that it will not accept an international arbitration process at which the Netherlands is seeking the release of the Greenpeace International ship Arctic Sunrise and its crew. It also said it plans not to attend the hearing at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). According to Greenpeace, the Ministry did, however, say that at the same time Russia remains open to settling the situation. “The Arctic 30 are no more hooligans than they were pirates.