Jessica Buchanan Rescued by Navy Seals

The same Navy SEAL team responsible for killing Osama Bin Laden roughly seven months ago pulled off another successful mission Tuesday, rescuing two aid workers taken hostage in Somalia late last year. The mission reportedly occurred shortly before President Obama took to the podium to deliver his State of the Union address.

According to the BBC, neither the U.S. troops nor the hostages were injured in the rescue, but nine captors were killed. The captors were not identified as al-Shabab militants (al-Shabab is an Islamist group controlling much of southern Somalia), but rather as "criminals" by U.S. officials.

The two aid workers are Jessica Buchanan, an American, and Poul Hagen Thisted, from Denmark. They were taken captive at gunpoint by Somali pirates in October.


Read the full report here.

Stop SOPA and PIPA and Piracy?

Wikipedia and Google joined hundreds of other websites on Wednesday in a sprawling online protest against legislation in the US Congress intended to crack down on Internet piracy.

Wikipedia shut down the English version of its online encyclopaedia for 24 hours to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate version, the Protect IP Act (Pipa).

Google blotted out the celebrated logo on its US home page with a black banner and published an exhortation to users to “Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the Web!”

Like Wikipedia, social news site reddit also went dark, urging visitors to call their lawmaker or sign a petition opposing the House and Senate bills. “These bills provide overly broad mechanisms for enforcement of copyright which would restrict innovation and threaten the existence of websites with user-submitted content,” reddit said.

Culture and technology blog Boing Boing also took itself offline to protest what it called “legislation that would certainly kill us forever”.

Reporters Without Borders shut down its English-language website for 24 hours warning that the bills “would sacrifice online freedom of expression in the name of combating piracy”.

Blogging platform WordPress.com covered its home page with black banners with the word ‘censored’ as did technology magazine Wired.

The popular Cheezburger humour network posted messages of opposition to the bills on all of its 58 sites, which include icanhascheezburger.com, FAIL Blog and The Daily What.

The draft legislation has won the backing of Hollywood, the music industry, the National Association of Manufacturers and other groups.—AFP

Using Mercenaries to Stop Piracy

Ansel J. Halliburton (UC Davis School of Law) has posted Pirates Versus Mercenaries: Purely Private Transnational Violence at the Margins of International Law on Social Science Research Network. Here is the abstract:

Because of the recent surge in piracy emanating from the failed state of Somalia, the world’s navies have focused unprecedented resources and attention on the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. Despite a few successes, this military might has largely failed to reverse the tide of piracy. Shipping companies have begun to hire armed private guards to protect their vessels and crew where the public navies cannot. But should private force take a larger role? Should shipping companies hire mercenaries to go on the offensive against pirates? Does, or should, international law allow them to do so? This paper surveys public international law, emerging transnational criminal law, human rights and humanitarian law, and the histories of piracy and transnational private violence in search of answers.
 
 
Hiring mercenaries to go after pirates... humm. Since corporations already do this, we are faced with a question of business ethics. As far as I know there is no international law forbidding it.

Filipinos to Train in Anti-Piracy

Beginning January next year, all Filipino seafarers would undergo training to prepare themselves against pirate abduction in the high seas, the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) announced Thursday.

The training, which is not expected to last more than a day, is aligned with the module of the International Association of Independent Tanker Owners and will begin on Jan. 15, POEA chief Jennifer Manalili said.

According to Manalili, the module would be conducted outside the existing pre-departure orientation seminar so that it would be more “thorough and extensive."

“And this would not have additional cost for the seafarers. It will be shouldered by the manning agency," said Manalili.

Filipinos who take the module will be given a certification by the POEA and only then could they be deployed overseas.

 
Read more here.

Somali Pirates 'Desperate Men'

NEWSWEEK: Why has there been such an increase Somali piracy?

In Somalia all the young men are desperate. There is wide unemployment in the country, there are no sources of income. One of the only sources we have had is fishing, and the superpowers and Asian countries sidelined us in our own sea. So at first we started out just to counter illegal fishing, but international forces started to protect them.

NEWSWEEK: Now the European Union is sending an additional naval force. Are you worried about the increased naval presence?

We know the EU and NATO forces are coming, but that is not the solution. The solution is to restore peace in Somalia so that we can have a better life and more job opportunities. I can tell you that sending forces will not stop us going into piracy. They can arrest us if they find us out at sea, they've arrested our friends several times, but that will never deter us from this business. The only thing that can stop piracy is a strong government in Somalia.

The most friendly forces in Somali waters are the U.S. forces. They arrest us and release us, because they know we are not going to hurt them. But the French and the Indians treat us badly and sometimes they don't know what they're doing. The Indians sunk that Thai boat [a fishing vessel reportedly taken over by pirates this month] and said it was pirates, but I tell you there was not a single pirate on that boat.

NEWSWEEK: Are you worried about another attack ashore, such as the one the French conducted, now that the U.N. has approved such attacks?

The French forces made two attacks. They arrested our friends, but French nationals will pay for that. If we get a ship with French nationals, we will punish the crew and they will pay double ransom. We're not worried about another attack [against pirates on land], because now we are on very high alert and they will never succeed with another raid.

NEWSWEEK: You justify piracy against all shipping even though your only complaint was against foreign fishing boats operating in your waters. Does that really make sense?

I justify it as a dirty business encouraged by the foreign forces that were escorting illegal fishing boats and toxic waste dumpers. And if they are escorting fishing boats, they can't escort all commercial shipping, and if we are forced to avoid fishing our waters, then those [commercial] ships are all our fish.

NEWSWEEK: How do you justify attacking pleasure yachts hundreds of miles offshore, or cruise liners, or even any vessel so far from Somalia?

Luxury yachts are what we are looking for, because what we need is money, and if we get a luxury yacht, we make a fortune.

Read it all here.

U.S. Blamed for Somali Piracy

afrol News, 21 November - The Eritrean Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement has blamed Washington's alleged policy of "balkanising Somalia" for being the root cause behind piracy off the Somali coast, adding that breakaway Somaliland and Puntland must return to Somalia to create a forceful unit.

According to the official Eritrean statement, it is the US government that stands behind the political split currently experienced in Somalia. Somaliland - a former British colony uniting with Italian Somalia in 1960 but declaring independence again in 1991 - the autonomous region of Puntland, and other areas held by local warlords all were the product of "reckless" US policies aimed at splitting Somalia, the Asmara Ministry holds. Also the serious problem of Somali piracy could therefore be blamed on Washington, Eritrea holds.

"The main cause of this problem is the vacuum that has been created for the last 17 years in Somalia," the statement said. "Sadly, an enduring solution is not conceivable until the reckless acts of the US and its surrogates aimed at balkanising Somalia, dividing its people along ethnic and clan lines ... cease," it adds.

"The solution lies, accordingly, in the liberation and reconstitution of a united and sovereign Somalia," Asmara officials hold. "Unless and until the entire Somali people – whether they are in the so-called 'Somali-land', “Punt-land', 'Juba-land' or 'Benadir-land' - extricate themselves from the malaise of fragmentation to bring about their own enduring solution by themselves, piracy and other deplorable activities will not indeed cease," they add.

This is not the first time the Eritrean government calls for unity among "the entire Somali people." Somalis also dominate large tracts of Ethiopia - Eritrea's arch enemy - Kenya and Djibouti. It has been documented that Eritrea has sponsored and trained Somali secessionists in Ethiopia.

Eritrea further is actively involved in the fighting in Somalia, supporting one of the many splinter groups there. Eritrea, it has been documented, has trained and armed a militant Somali Islamist group which is blamed for attacks on the Somali transitional government, its Ethiopian allies and Somali civilians.

While itself intervening in Somalia arming extremist groups, Eritrean authorities cast doubt on the motives of several Western powers now getting involved in the fight against Somali piracy and that are sending naval forces to the Horn region. "Some might be motivated by sincere objectives. But for others, the situation provides a silver lining for illegal intervention," the Eritrean Foreign Ministry claims.

Source: AfrolNews

Somali Pirates Capture Saudi Aramco Oil Carrier

DUBAI: On Monday, Nov. 17, pirates attacked and took control of the Saudi-owned large crude carrier Sirius Star off the east coast of Africa, the US Navy reports.

The vessel, which came under attack more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, is heading towards the coast of Somalia, a spokeswoman for the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet said.

“According to the latest report we have, the ship is approaching the Somali coast, heading towards Eyl (port),” she said, contacted by telephone from Dubai.

“Can we assume that the pirates are Somalis?"

"Yes.” The spokeswoman said she has no confirmation of a report on Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya television that control of the vessel had been regained from the pirates.

Sirius Star, which is owned by Saudi Aramco, carried 25 crew members from Croatia, Britain, Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia, according to a US Navy statement. The 318,000-tonne vessel, launched earlier this year, is flagged in Liberia and operated by Vela International.

“Our presence in the region is helping deter and disrupt criminal attacks off the Somali coast, but the situation with the Sirius Star clearly indicates the pirates’ ability to adapt their tactics and methods of attack,” Vice Admiral Bill Gortney said in the US Navy statement.

The International Maritime Bureau has reported that at least 83 ships have been attacked off Somalia since January, of which 33 were hijacked. Of those, 12 vessels and more than 200 crew were still in the hands of pirates.

Last week, the European Union started a security operation off the coast of Somalia, north of Kenya, to combat growing acts of piracy and protect ships carrying aid agency deliveries.

Source: Pakistan Daily Dawn