OSLO: A polar bear was shot dead after attacking a German cruise ship worker on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, the authorities said Sunday.
The unnamed man in his 40’s suffered head injuries shortly after landing on Spitzbergen island.
He was accompanying a tourist expedition from the MS Bremen of Hapag-Lloyd Cruises on Saturday.
“The bear was killed by another employee on the boat,” police commissioner Ole Jakob Malmo told AFP.
Hapag-Lloyd Cruises said it was “self-defense.”
“We greatly regret this incident,” said company spokesman Moritz Krause.
The injured employee was flown by helicopter to the local capital Longyearbyen and then on to Tromso on the mainland in the evening, Malmo said.
Tromso hospital told AFP the man’s life was not in danger and he was in a stable condition.
Polar bears have been protected in Norway since 1973 and nearly 1,000 were counted on Svalbard during a 2015 census.
The archipelago, roughly twice the size of Belgium, lies about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from the North Pole.
Five fatal polar bear attacks have been recorded on Svalbard in the last 40 years.
The most recent was in 2011 when a bear attacked a group of 14 people on a trip organized by a British schools association.
A 17-year-old Briton died and four other members of the expedition were hurt before the bear was killed.
Polar bear shot dead after wounding cruise ship worker
Polar bear shot dead after wounding cruise ship worker
- “The bear was killed by another employee on the boat”
- The worker suffered head injuries shortly after landing on Spitzbergen island
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
