Jukka Laaksonen, head of the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, said firefighters conducted radiation tests on the ship — last reported off Cape Verde — at a port in Finland before it began a voyage full of intrigue.

But he dismissed as "stupid rumours" reports in British and Finnish newspapers that the ship could be carrying a "secret" nuclear cargo that could explain why it was attacked on the Baltic Sea before vanishing.

"Some fireman for some reason thought that there might be some radioactivity involved in this shipment and that was a very stupid idea. There was no basis for that," Laaksonen told AFP.

Finnish police said Saturday that the ship’s Helsinki-based operator, Solchart Management, had received a ransom demand for the Arctic Sea, raising fresh hopes for its 15-strong Russian crew.

The Financial Times Deutschland newspaper, without citing a source, reported on its website that the demand was for 1.5 million dollars (1.05 million euros).

"This is the first positive sign that there are intentions to bring back the crew," Russian maritime expert Mikhail Voitenko told AFP.

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."

Russian warships, backed by NATO, are scouring the Atlantic for the ship, which left Finland on July 23 on its way to Algeria with a cargo of sawn timber estimated to be worth 1.16 million euros.

The Maltese-flagged vessel was last seen off the coast of Cape Verde, officials in the west African archipelago and in France revealed Friday.

Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Monteiro, Cape Verde coastguard captain, confirmed Sunday that on Wednesday or Thursday the vessel was reported off the islands.

He said the ship had reportedly been "following a direction of 188 degrees" in international waters.

But since that sighting about 400 nautical miles (740 kilometres) off the island chain, the ship had slipped off the radar, he went on.

The lieutenant stressed it was not the Cape Verde coastguard who spotted the vessel, however, and it was only reported to the force.

As such, he could not be 100 percent certain of the sighting.

"We have not had any direct contact with the ship," he said.

Russia has not confirmed the sighting.

In the Maltese capital Valletta, the Malta Maritime Authority told AFP on Sunday that the island nation was teaming up with Sweden and Finland to launch a criminal investigation into the disappearance.

Russia’s envoy to NATO said Saturday that the transatlantic alliance was working closely with Moscow in the hunt.

"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.

Experts are debating whether pirates, a mafia quarrel or a commercial dispute are behind the disappearance.

On the night the Arctic Sea left port in Finland last month, masked men boarded the ship between the Swedish islands of Oland and Gotland in the Baltic Sea, Swedish police 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 several hours later. 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.

On Friday, European Commission spokesman Martin Selmayr said the ship appeared to have been attacked a second time, this time off the coast of Portugal.

Finland denies missing ship carries nuclear material

"There is a genuine world concern, and hopefully a consensus will come from that," Ann Taylor, British Minister for International Defense and Security, told Reuters in an interview on Sunday on the sidelines of a regional defense conference.

Britain joined the United States, Australia and East Asian defense ministers in condemning North Korea’s latest military moves at the Asia Security Conference in Singapore.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned on Saturday at the meeting that Washington would not accept a nuclear North Korea and said it would reach out to other regional powers to stop a growing threat that could trigger an arms race in Asia.

The U.S. and Japan have circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the test and calling for enforcement of sanctions imposed after Pyongyang’s first 2006 nuclear test, which included a widely ignored limited trade and arms embargo.

Taylor said the Chinese concern voiced at the forum made her hopeful the U.N. resolution would bring "some concerted action." "It is that unity of action that I think is important here. Because if we only can get the unity of action, the regime in North Korea will understand the strength of feeling and will begin to take notice," she said.

On Saturday, a top Chinese army official called on North Korea to move to denuclearization and asked all regional parties to stay calm. But he did not mention sanctions. China exports food and energy supplies to neighboring North Korea.

Fellow U.N. Security Council member Russia said last week it was too early to talk about possible penalties. This could mean a split in the Security Council, given that Gates on Saturday had called for sanctions that would bring "real pain" to the North.

Taylor said tougher financial sanctions were a possibility.

"That remains one of the options," she said. "We’ve got to work these things out with colleagues and partners on the U.N. Security Council and consider what is the next step forward."

MORE FOR AFGHANISTAN

Taylor also echoed Gates’ call for more troops and other aid from the rest of the world to build infrastructure in conflict-ridden Afghanistan. "We are operating in a difficult area in the south. We are making progress but we could do more with more help from other NATO countries, in terms of military forces, training police, helping establishing the rule of law," Taylor said.

Gates said on Saturday he was looking to Europeans in particular to do more since previous NATO summits have identified Afghanistan as the alliance’s highest priority, but there was a gap between the rhetoric in NATO and the capabilities members were prepared to put forward.

The United States leads a coalition from more than 40 countries in Afghanistan and is adding another 20,000 troops to the 38,000 there, to counter gains by a resurgent Taliban.

Britain hopeful on U.N. action over North Korea

North Korea launched the rocket at 11:30 a.m. local time, or 10:30 NYTime said the office of the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak. Early reports from the Japanese prime minister’s office indicated that the three-stage rocket appeared to launch successfully, with the first stage falling into the Sea of Japan and the second stage into the Pacific. South Korea vowed a “stern and resolute” response to the North’s “reckless act.”

South Korean officials, after studying the rocket’s trajectory, said it appeared to have been configured to thrust a satellite into orbit, as the North had claimed.

No debris was reported to have fallen on Japanese land. There has been no confirmation of whether the third and final stage of the launching took place.

But what may have mattered most to North Korea was simply demonstrating that it had the ability to launch a multistage rocket that could travel thousands of miles.

The motivation for the test appeared as much political as technological: After acquiring the fuel for six or more nuclear weapons during the Bush administration, and negotiating a halt of its main nuclear reactor in return for aid, North Korea’s recent statements appear to be a bid for attention from the Obama administration.

The Japanese government strongly protested the launching over its territory and asked for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

Lee Dong-kwan, a spokesman for the South Korean president, said, “North Korea’s launch of its long-range rocket poses a serious threat to the stability of the Korean Peninsula and the rest of the world at a time when the entire world is pulling its wisdom together to overcome the global economic crisis.”

Over the years the North has sometimes conducted tests as a gambit to extract concessions for more aid and fuel and to demonstrate its nuclear capabilities.

Manufacturing a nuclear warhead that is small enough, light enough and heat-resistant enough to be mounted atop a missile is far more complex than building a basic nuclear device — and intelligence officials and outside experts believe North Korea is still years from that accomplishment. Typically, it takes many years of experimentation for a nation to learn how to shrink an ungainly test device into a slim warhead.

Nonetheless, the series of tests in recent years — in 2006 and 1998 — is prompting fears of North Korean proliferation among Japanese, Chinese and Western leaders. North Korea’s missiles have ranked among its few profitable exports — Iran, Syria and Pakistan have all been among its major customers. If this long-range test ends up a success, it would presumably make the design far more attractive on the international black market.

The launching provides one of the first tests of Mr. Obama’s reaction to a provocation, on the weekend that he is scheduled to lay out for the first time, in a speech in Prague, his strategy to counter proliferation threats.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has ruled out any effort to shoot down the missile if the mission appeared to be a serious effort to launch a satellite. Rather, Mr. Obama’s top aides said during last week’s Group of 20 summit meeting in London that if the missile were launched, they would seek additional sanctions against the country in the United Nations Security Council, perhaps as early as this weekend.

President Bush pressed for similar sanctions after the North’s nuclear test in October 2006, but those sanctions had little long-term effect.

“We have made very clear to the North Koreans that their missile launch is provocative,” Mr. Obama said Friday after meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in Strasbourg, France. Mr. Obama took the issue up on Wednesday in London with President Hu Jintao of China.

While Washington has signaled calm, the Japanese response has been unusually strong. Japan deployed ships into the Sea of Japan and suggested it would try to shoot down any “debris” from the launching that threatened to hit the country. However, there is no evidence they tried to do so, and on Saturday, to the embarassment of the Japanese military, the country falsely reported twice that the missile had been launched.

With the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, reportedly recovering from a stroke last summer, the missile test may also be an effort by him — or some in the military — to demonstrate that someone is firmly in control and that the country’s missile and nuclear programs are forging ahead. In recent times top American intelligence officials have told Congress they believe Mr. Kim is back in charge of the country, but they admit considerable mystery surrounds the question of whether he has regained all of his faculties.

North Koreans Launch Rocket Over the Pacific – War News

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan says North Korea will be breaking international law if it launches a long-range rocket – regardless of what is on board.

He says any North Korean launch, whether it is a missile or a satellite, will be brought to the United Nations Security Council for a possible response.

North Korea informed international agencies Thursday of launch coordinates for when Pyongyang says it will put a “communications satellite” into space sometime between April 4 and 8.

Leaders in South Korea, the United States, and Japan suspect the real motive for the launch is to test a long-range missile. They say any launch will violate a United Nations resolution imposed in 2006, after North Korea conducted long range missile and nuclear weapons tests within months of each other.

U.N. agencies have advised aircraft and sea vessels of two “danger zones” in waters northeast of North Korea, where stages of the rocket will fall at high speeds back to earth.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura says his country is ready to defend itself if the missile comes too close.

He says Japanese law and national security policy permit the shooting down of any object that looks like it might land on Japanese territory.

The United States has two Aegis naval Destroyers docked in South Korea for annual joint exercises with the South’s forces scheduled to end next week. Choi Kee-dong, the Korean-American commander of the USS Chafee, says ships like his are capable of shooting down ballistic missiles. He says he will execute whatever course of action U.S. policymakers decide upon.

“The U.S. Navy is always prepared to respond in a crisis, and we will do our utmost to make sure that we carry out our mission,” he said.

North Korea says it will consider any attempt to shoot down its missile an act of war.

Pyongyang protested the South’s annual military cooperation with the United States Friday by sealing its border to the South for the second time this week. Hundreds of South Koreans were stranded at a joint industrial park in the North Korean city of Kaesong. Hundreds of other South Koreans were unable to complete travel plans to Kaesong as scheduled.

Japan, South Korea Warn North’s Launch Will Have Consequences

Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN’s “State of the Union” program that he believed Iran had enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon.

“We think they do, quite frankly,” Mullen said.

A recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency found that Iran had built up its supplies of enriched uranium to slightly more than a ton, about 33% more than Tehran had previously stated it had stockpiled. It takes about a ton of enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb.

Although a November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate found that Iran had stopped developing a nuclear weapon, senior U.S. officials now discount that conclusion. Since taking office, President Obama and other top administration officials have said repeatedly that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

Mullen said Sunday that the U.S. remains strongly opposed to a nuclear-armed Iran.

“And Iran having nuclear weapons, I’ve believed for a long time, is a very, very bad outcome — for the region and for the world,” Mullen said.

Gates, speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” agreed that deterring Iran from making a bomb was a top U.S. priority. But he said a diplomatic solution remains possible.

“They are not close to a stockpile, they are not close to a weapon at this point,” Gates said. “So there is some time.”

Although Iran says the enrichment program is for a civilian nuclear reactor, the U.S. and other governments believe the Iranians intend to use the uranium for a weapon.

Gates said the question for the U.S. was whether the U.N. would be willing to increase the sanctions imposed on Iran. But he also noted that the U.S. would show Tehran an “open door” — an apparent allusion to Obama’s statements during the presidential campaign that he would engage Iran. With lower oil prices reducing Iran’s leverage, the prospects for increasing pressure on the nation have improved, Gates said.

“There has been a continuing focus on how do you get the Iranians to walk away from a nuclear program,” Gates said.

Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and missile technology is a critical issue for the U.S. and NATO. Under the Bush administration, the U.S. pushed for a European missile defense system to protect against Iranian rockets. In the past, Obama and some of his key advisors have been skeptical of missile defense; military officials are wondering if the new administration will slow down or cut back the program

On “Fox News Sunday,” Mullen said he expected the Obama administration to conduct a review of missile defense. Such a policy evaluation would influence how much funding the program gets in the future.

Although many Democrats, including some now in the Obama administration, have been skeptical of the efficacy of missile defense, the system could face a potential real-world test in the days to come.

North Korea has said it plans a test of its longest-range missile. Key military leaders have suggested the U.S. could shoot down that missile. Striking the North Korean missile would lay aside some of the doubts about the missile defense program, but could prove controversial. North Korea has said the test is part of preparations to send a satellite into orbit.

“We have made no decisions, the president has made no decisions,” Mullen said. “I have made no recommendations as to what the North Koreans might do. I would hope that the North Koreans would not be provocative and we are keeping a very close eye on what they do”

Gates and Mullen are the two most prominent officials to have served under President Bush and continued under the Obama administration. In the NBC interview, Gates was asked to compare the two presidents’ styles.

“It is really hard to say,” Gates said. “I think probably President Obama is somewhat more analytical. He makes sure he hears from everybody in the room on an issue.”

Gates said if an advisor does not speak up, Obama calls on him or her.

Iran has the materials to make a nuclear bomb, top U.S. official says