African Business is Booming

November 17th, 2009

Pirates Free Crew of Spanish Vessel

The poor peoples of Africa learn fast, that’s clear. If they can escape the drought, the AIDS, the poverty and disease, they become a major force in world politics. I suggest they don’t become too confident and smug about their successes – it could all end very suddenly in the “high risk – high reward” world they trade in. Typically, pirates press for ransoms totaling millions of dollars in return for freeing crews.

The name of the game is piracy

There has been a recent upsurge in the incidence of hijackings and attacks on shipping in the Indian Ocean and the events continue unabated, with pirates commandeering a chemical tanker with 28 North Korean crew members and trying, apparently unsuccessfully, to seize a Ukrainian cargo ship. The chemical tanker, MV Theresa, registered in the Virgin Islands and operated from Singapore, had been heading for the Kenyan port of Mombasa when it was hijacked Monday in the south Somali basin, 180 nautical miles northwest of the Seychelles, the European Union’s naval force said in a statement on its Web site.

Ukrainian cargo ship

Pirates also attacked a second vessel, a Ukrainian cargo ship, but came under fire from private security guards on board the ship. The European naval force said the ship was not commandeered, but a person claiming to be a spokesman for the pirates told The Associated Press that the hijacking was successful. Two Somalis were wounded by gunfire.

Security forces

A security force is operating in the area. The European force is made up of frigates and maritime reconnaissance planes from seven European countries, including France and Spain, under British command. But with the European and other navies focusing their patrols off the Horn of Africa, pirates in fast skiffs, usually armed with assault rifles and antitank missiles, have begun to roam farther.

A major industry

In addition to the 14 commercial vessels now under their control, pirates are also holding a British couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, snatched from their 38-foot sailboat off the Seychelles last month. A Somali pirate boss named Red Teeth said in an interview this month that his gang of pirates had whisked the couple to a lair on shore, as the pirates apparently began bickering among themselves about what to do next. The couple reportedly has little money and the British Government says it is not involved in this case. Things do not look good for the Chandlers.

October was a good month

Some of the vessels have been held for months and there has been an upsurge with six ships overrun in October, an increase ascribed by piracy experts to calmer seas after the monsoon season when storms hamper would-be hijackers. According to the privately-funded International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Center, Somali pirates have launched a total of 195 attacks on shipping this year, compared to a total of 111 for 2008. Not all attacks lead to hijackings, but the figures nonetheless show a significant increase in pirate activity.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 11:36 am and is filed under Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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