9344. wabbit - 4/8/2009 4:26:59 PM…Piracy has become a multi-million dollar business in Somalia, which has limped along since 1991 without a functioning central government. A captured Ukrainian arms freighter hijacked off Somalia’s coast in 2008, for example, was released in February when its owners paid $3.2 million in cash, dropped by parachute.
Armed with automatic weapons, the pirates often attack the large merchant ships from small speed boats, and then scale the towering ship hulls with hooks and ropes and overpower the merchant crews, which are generally unarmed.
To extend their reach from shore, the pirates have begun operating from floating outposts known as “mother ships” — often captured fishing trawlers which can serve as bases for the smaller speedboats as they lie in wait. The crews are generally not harmed by the pirates…
I suppose as long as there are hostages, the alternative to paying ransom is unacceptable, but can't these ships carry armed personnel?9345. Wombat - 4/8/2009 8:12:06 PM There has been a philosophical dispute among shipowners and flagging states over arming the crew (or putting an armed detatchment on board civilian vessels). Before the Somalia episodes--and perhaps still--most pirate attacks were of the board, steal what isn't tied down, and get the hell off, variety. It was thought that the crew's safety was best served by having them stay out of the way and not resist, since insurance would cover any material losses.
Perhaps a re-think is in order. 9346. vonKreedon - 4/8/2009 8:31:49 PM Don't some, maybe cruise ships in particular, have non-lethal defense systems like focused sound and water cannons? 9347. wabbit - 4/9/2009 12:27:51 AM Wombat, the debate continues. Some want to arm all the ships and others think that will cause more problems than it will solve.
VK, I found an New Scientist from Dec. 2005 about those very tactics, and Salon did a piece a few months ago, but I don't know how well those will work long-term. Wired has also done some decent reporting on Somali piracy.
It seems the US crew has retaken the Maersk Alabama, but has lost their captain who is now a hostage. 9348. Wombat - 4/9/2009 3:29:45 AM The best resource for information on pirate attacks is probably the International Maritime Bureau (IMB). Not only that, but in the 1980s they sponsored a conference at which I gave two presentations, which became chapters in the published proceedings of the conference...! 9349. wabbit - 4/9/2009 1:53:38 PM IMB Piracy Reporting Centre
Their maps are interesting. 9350. alistairconnor - 4/10/2009 11:42:13 AM Interesting standoff :
Andrew Mwangura, the head of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, said the Alabama had left the scene and was sailing under armed guard towards Mombasa, Kenya - its original destination - where it was expected to dock on Saturday. None of the crew members were hurt in the attack.
"They will release the captain, I think, maybe today or tomorrow, but in exchange for something. Maybe some payment or compensation, and definitely free passage back home," Mwangura told Reuters. [...]
"Our friends are still holding the captain but they cannot move, they are afraid of the warships. We want a ransom and, of course, the captain is our shield. The warships might not destroy the boat as long as he is on board."
The Alabama was the sixth ship to be hijacked off Somalia's Indian Ocean coast in a week, and is believed to be the first American-flagged merchant vessel to be attacked by pirates anywhere since the early 19th century.
The "East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme" sounds like an intriguing outfit... Charity? Trade union? Crime syndicate?
I blame Johnny Depp. 9351. Wombat - 4/13/2009 2:53:13 AM Pirate hostage situation over. SEALS kill three pirates, ship captain safe. One pirate arrested. Well done. 9352. wabbit - 5/13/2009 2:02:25 PM A lawyer killed by gunmen over the weekend left behind a videotape saying that if anything happened to him it was at the behest of President Álvaro Colom. “If you are watching this message, it is because I was assassinated by President Álvaro Colom with help from Gustavo Alejos,” the president’s private secretary, the lawyer says in the video. The lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg, was shot while riding his bicycle on Sunday, the newspaper El Periódico de Guatemala said. In the tape, Mr. Rosenberg said officials might want to kill him because he represented a businessman who had refused to engage in acts of corruption sought by President Colom. The businessman was killed in March. Mr. Colom appeared Tuesday on national television to reject the accusation, and he called for a United Nations commission and the F.B.I. to investigate the case. I don't know who put the video up on YouTube, but that it is there prevented it from going missing. Whether this case will change anything in Guatemala remains to be seen. It's easy to get people worked up in the heat of the moment, but not as easy to keep them engaged in the long term.9353. vonKreedon - 6/15/2009 10:43:11 PM Hoping to lure Marj into this thread.
Any thoughts on what the recent Congress Party win in India means? In December The Economist said:
The Congress party, which leads India’s ruling coalition and runs Maharashtra, the state of which Mumbai is the capital, is likely to suffer for this...[the Mumbai terror attack]
Yet for most poor Indians terrorism remains a small part of their troubles. To deal with those, Sonia Gandhi, Congress’s leader, will reissue a lot of unkept promises when the election campaign begins: to bring everyone electricity, piped water, schools and jobs. She will say little about what this government has actually done: there hasn’t been much. ...
At home, often stymied by his coalition’s leftist allies, he has done much less well.
But now The Economist says:
REVERSING decades of decline, the Congress party has won India’s month-long general election by a bigger margin than its most optimistic followers had dared dream of.
What up? 9354. Wombat - 6/16/2009 3:28:46 AM Iran, anyone?? 9355. vonKreedon - 6/16/2009 7:41:44 AM Oy, interesting times in Iran right now. Hoping for a velvet revolution. Surprised at the persistence of the opposition. 9356. wabbit - 6/16/2009 1:44:34 PM I was in school with an Iranian student 12 years ago. She was very excited about what was happening then, especially for women. There were high hopes for Khatami.
So now we wait to see what the Guardian Council does about convincing people they just had a fair election. Not everyone thinks the election was stolen. 9357. Wombat - 6/16/2009 2:26:11 PM Leaving aside that the poll the authors took was three weeks before the election, had over 50% undecided or unresponsive, and predicted a narrow Ahmedinejad victory in the first round; nah, it wasn't stolen. 9358. wabbit - 6/16/2009 3:49:58 PM Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.
It seems unlikely (to me) that Ahmadinejad got twice as many votes as Mousavi, but I haven't seen any actual pre-election polls other than this one. I've read about them, I've heard about them, I just haven't seen them. Flawed and public doesn't make it reliable or accurate, but at least it was public.
I wonder if the votes in Tabriz will be recounted. Even Al Jazeera English seems curious about how normally ethnic voters failed to vote along ethnic lines. 9359. wabbit - 6/16/2009 4:03:02 PM btw, as I understand it, a major flaw with that poll is that, when it was taken, official campaigning had just begun. I wonder how many people polled knew the names and platforms of the opponent candidates. 9360. vonKreedon - 6/16/2009 4:08:18 PM I may be wrong, and am interested in hearing about it if so, but Al Jazeera has seemed like a pretty good source of information. 9361. wabbit - 6/16/2009 4:13:43 PM The other thing that strikes me as being odd is that Iran's population is so young and urban, and I would have thought they would vote against Ahmadinejad.
I'd love to hear PE's take on all this. 9362. vonKreedon - 6/16/2009 5:39:24 PM Yeah, I'd also love to hear from PE on both Iran and India.
Wretchard has an interesting take on how splitting the loot may have led to the split within Iran's ruling elite and opened the door to the reform movement. 9363. Wombat - 6/16/2009 7:25:45 PM Apparently Khameini is detested by Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani has been working very hard behind the scenes to support Moussavi, both during the election campaign and at present.
There are also unconfirmed reports of dissension in the Revolutionary Guards and the Army; both have been neutral so far. If they go, however, it will be Ceaucescu all over again.
VK's source is right about Moussavi. He didn't govern Iran throughout the Iran-Iraq War by being a nice liberal democrat. On the other hand, he is nowhere near as egregious as Ahmedinejad. It's like comparing Bush I with Bush II.
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