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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Pirates Gone Wild


Pirates from the rogue nation of Somalia have taken over the sea lanes surrounding their nation off the coast of Africa. The brazen criminals have gone so far as to hijack a super tanker with $100 million in Saudi oil and it does not look like they will stop anytime soon. You know this is a real problem when even the Saudi’s are calling them terrorists.

With such a large area to cover in international waters, the many navy and military vessels sent to protect shipping vessels can not catch all of the Somali pirates. India and its navy finally caught up with one of the thugs and scored one for the good guys. Over at Yahoo News they have this to say…

Indian navy destroys pirate boat, more ships taken

By Abdi Sheikh Abdi Sheikh – 2 hrs 3 mins ago


MOGADISHU (Reuters) – An Indian warship destroyed a pirate ship in the Gulf of Aden and gunmen from Somalia seized two more vessels despite a large international naval presence off their lawless country.

The buccaneers have taken a Thai fishing boat, a Greek bulk carrier and a Hong Kong-flagged ship heading to Iran since Saturday's spectacular capture of a Saudi supertanker carrying $100 million of oil, the biggest ship hijacked in history.

The explosion of piracy off Somalia this year has driven up insurance costs, made some shipping companies divert around South Africa and prompted an unprecedented military response from NATO, the European Union and others.

"The pirates are sending out a message to the world that 'we can do what we want, we can think the unthinkable, do the unexpected'," Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, told Reuters in Mombasa.
-Yahoo News

If this were occurring off the shores of North America I would be the first to say that the nations of North America own this problem. Then I would think that the combined military effort of both Canada, Mexico, and the United States would patrol our waters to protect and defend free trade. Leave it up to the Saudi’s to outsource another responsibility to India or someone else to do their dirty work.

Papamoka
*****Reuters has picked up this post... Thank you!

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