Anti-piracy: privateer option, 1st get a lawyer!
Hat tip to Lowy Institute's 'The Interpreter' for this Australian news item (behind a paywall) 'Glencore chief Simon Murray launches private navy to combat Somali pirate threat':
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This private navy will use a 10,000-ton mother ship, high-speed armoured patrol boats, '240 former marines and sailors' and one former Royal Navy commodore to provide security to oil tankers and bulk carriers as they traverse the piracy plagued Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. Murray insists that this is more cost effective than using sovereign warships to patrol the waters off Somalia.
The blog post ends with:
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Typhon is sailing into a deep legal fog. Presumably the company is investigating these issues, though it has made no public statements on the subject (and it does not appear to have a website). One thing is certain; Typhon had better have a very good lawyer on speed dial.
Link:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...vate-navy.aspx
Not to overlook:
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There has been no successful hijacking since June 2012, when a fishing dhow was seized, according to data from the International Maritime Bureau (IMB).
Link:http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/42...n-glencore.htm
Millionaire’s Private Navy Ready to Take on Somali Pirates
Millionaire’s Private Navy Ready to Take on Somali Pirates
Entry Excerpt:
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Just one of Somalia's "forgotten" piracy cases
At long last freedom for a mixed group of sailors:
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The Albedo, a Malaysian-flagged container ship, was originally captured in November 2010 with a crew of 23 from Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Iran and Pakistan.....were finally released on Saturday, bringing to an end one of the longest-running Somali piracy cases. The 11 crew members of the MV Albedo were facing their first hours of freedom after three years and seven months as hostages, during which their pirate captors often used torture
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...captivity.html
This report is supplemented by a South African video report, which suggests a different story about their escape / release:http://www.enca.com/exclusive-pirate...es-fly-freedom
Armed guards aboard did it?
Two posts in this thread in 2014, that is a sign I suppose.
It must be conference time, needless to say not in Somalia, as we have this:
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The High Risk Area off the Somali coast has seen over 700 attacks by pirates since 2009, but last year there were only 11 pirate incidents and no ship hijackings. No ships have been hijacked in the area since the start of January 2013. Toward the end of 2011, seven ships were being hijacked a month.
Security experts can point to no one reason for the quiet in the Somali Basin, but suggest several factors have combined to reduce the threat over the past year. Among these are the presence of three international naval task forces in the area, the extensive use by ship owners of armed private security guards, and improved best security practices for sailing through high risk waters off east Africa.
Link:http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.ph...ticle&id=37870
I read with amusement the hints that Al-Shabaab is now known to have had a greater role, if only as levying a tax on ransom payments. IIRC most pirates came from areas, such as Puntland, where Al-Shabaab was not in power.
The other side of Somalia's pirates
An Al-Jazeera report from a former pirate port, Eyl, in Somalia's northeast. I know some pirates have been jailed, not seen any stats before:
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Farhan is one of more than 200 men from this town who have been hauled off to prisons far from this Horn of Africa country. More than 1,300 young Somali men have been jailed in prisons abroad for piracy since 2005. Most have been sentenced to life in jail.
Rather incredulously the local mayor offers to house those jailed in the town's jail; the reporter doesn't say how long they be there for!
Link:http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/fea...12818517.html?
Highway robbery, dormant piracy and next?
A BBC reporter has been to Puntland, a semi-autonomus region of Somalia and reports on the possibility piracy will resume. He starts with:
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In northern Somalia, government officials are warning of a revival of piracy, unless foreign nations - and the naval armada patrolling the coast - do more to help create jobs and security ashore, and to combat illegal fishing at sea.
I know that trawlers operate offshore, some of whom have been kidnapped, but not that the majority are - read on:
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Accusing the west of "double standards," the president said foreign navies were only concerned about stopping Somali piracy - which more or less halted in 2012 - and were doing nothing to tackle the "highway robbery" of foreign fishing trawlers [largely Iranian] plundering Somalia's natural resources.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-33822635?
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Pirates turn to protecting Iranian fishing vessels
The actual title is:
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Somali pirates earn new cash by acting as escorts to the fishing boats they once hijacked
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-hijacked.html
There is one would expect a downside to this business:
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In late November, an Iranian fishing vessel, the Muhammidi, became the third Iranian ship to be hijacked this year, a pirate gang seizing its 15-strong grew close to the notorious pirate town of Eyl.
It is unclear whether the Iranian hijackings were cases of straighforward piracy or cases where an existing "protection deal" had fallen foul of inter-clan feuding.