The crew of the HMS Iron Duke, the ship Prince William is training on, seized nearly a ton of cocaine Saturday. The HMS Iron Duke stopped a 50-foot speedboat which the Iron Duke's crew spotted hundreds of miles northeast of Barbados. The sighting raised suspicions because it is unusual to see such a small vessel so far out at sea.

Somali pirates are demanding at least $1 million for the immediate release of kidnapped German couple, their young son and a French boat captain, a Somali government official privy to the negotiations said Thursday. Somalia's minister of state for security Jama HIrsi Farah said the gunmen was asking for a $1 million ransom for the release of their hostages.

The resident of a small island off the coast of Scotland has declared its independence from the United Kingdom. Stuart Hill, the owner of the island, wants it to be a crown dependency, similar to the Channel Islands. According to a statement on his Web site, Hill, who owns Forvik, a 2. 5-acre island in the Shetland Islands, declared that he no longer recognized the authority of the British government or the European Union.

A castaway cocker spaniel and his companion, a macaw parrot, were rescued by Norwegian Cruise Line workers from a tiny atoll about 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. Snickers, an 8-month-old dog, survived 95 days adrift on a 48-foot boat then four months of being stranded on Fanning Island, one of 33 scattered coral atolls that make up the remote island nation of Kiribati.

Crews from a Canadian warship involved in an anti-terrorism patrol of the Arabian Sea have found more than four tons of hashish from a Pakistani fishing boat they intercepted on Feb. 18. The Canadian crews of the frigate HMCS Charlottetown found the cargo of illegal drug hidden under the deck planks and fuel tanks of the dhow named Al Moula Madad after a 17-hour search. The crews boarded the vessel 37 miles (60 kilometers) off Pakistan's coast to verify reports that it is being used by terrorists.