Pirates // Current

British Couple Captives of Somali Pirates Make Plea for Life

A British couple sailing from the island nation of Seychelles vanished after their... more

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Pirate Fair - Petersburg, Florida

The Sixth Annual Florida Pirate Festival will be held on November 21st, 22nd and 23rd,... more

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Economics of piracy: Maersk Alabama repels 2nd pirate attack

Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months, though private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship repelled the attack with gunfire and a high-decibel noise device.

A U.S. surveillance plane was monitoring the cargo ship as it steamed on to its destination.

Pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama last April and took ship captain Richard Phillips hostage, holding him at gunpoint in a lifeboat for five days. Navy SEAL sharpshooters freed Phillips while killing three pirates in a daring nighttime attack.

Somali pirates attacked the ship with automatic weapons early Wednesday about 350 nautical miles east of the Somali coast, but guards on board the craft fired back and thwarted the attempted hijacking.

Cmdr. John Harbour, a spokesman for the EU Naval Force, called it "pure chance" that the Maersk Alabama had been targeted a second time.

"It's not the first vessel to have been attacked twice, and it's a chance that every single ship takes as it passes through the area," Harbour said. "At least this time they had a vessel protection detachment on board who were able to repel the attack."

An EU patrol aircraft from the Horn of Africa nation Djibouti was called in to investigate, and the closest EU Naval Force vessel was tasked with searching for the pirate attack group, the EU Naval Force said in a statement.

Phillips' ordeal last spring galvanized the attention of the U.S. public to the dangers of operating merchant ships in the Horn of Africa, one of the busiest and most precarious sea lanes in the world.

Pirates have greatly increased their attacks in recent weeks after seasonal rains subsided. On Monday, a self-proclaimed pirate said that Somali hijackers had been paid $3.3 million for the release of 36 crew members from a Spanish vessel held for more than six weeks — a clear demonstration of how lucrative the trade can be for impoverished Somalis.

Phillips told The Associated Press last month from his farmhouse in Vermont that he was contemplating retiring from sea life after his ordeal. He's been given a book deal and a movie could be in the works.

Phillips was hailed as a hero for helping his crew thwart April's hijacking before he was taken hostage, but he says he never volunteered, as crew members and his family reported at the time.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/11/18/maersk.alabama.pirates/index.htmlSomali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven... more

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MC Hammer: STOP… The Music Piracy Crackdown

MC Hammer, rap phenomenon and self-confessed geek, has kicked the major music labels... more

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Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent This Week

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘Funny People’ tops the chart... more

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Navy Vessel Saw Pirates Kidnap Brit Couple

The crew of a Royal Navy vessel was forced to watch a British couple being kidnapped... more

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UN: Illegal Music Sharers Should Not Be Jailed

The heavy punishment of illegal file sharers on the web will be counter-productive in... more

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Demonoid Rewrites Code, Comeback is Imminent

It’s been more than two months since the popular semi-private BitTorrent tracker... more

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Pirates Extend Territory Expand Deeper Into Indian Ocean

Pirates on Monday launched their longest-range hijack attempt yet by opening fire on a big Hong Kong-flagged crude oil tanker, 1,000 nautical miles east of Mogadishu ANTI-piracy measures off Somalia appear to be forcing pirates to extend their range to strike deep into the Indian Ocean, shifting the menace even further from the protection of international naval forces. Gunmen on Monday launched their longest range hijack attempt yet by opening fire on a big Hong Kong-flagged crude oil tanker, the BW Lion, 1,000 nautical miles east of Mogadishu, the European Union naval force EU Navfor said. The bid failed, but was a stark demonstration of seaborne gangs ambition to outwit the naval forces deployed against them and defeat a more determined defence by their civilian prey. Its a pretty formidable development. It shows the pirates are a confident and adaptive opponent, said Martin Murphy, an expert on maritime irregular warfare at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. The Horn of Africas coastal waters - vital shipping lanes linking Asia and Europe - have seen a sharp rise in attacks by pirates who have earned tens of millions of dollars in ransom from hijacks of mostly foreign vessels in the past three years. The minimum distance vessels are advised to keep from shore has steadily increased in that time to 600 miles from fewer than 200 miles. The pirates typically use mother ships to sail hundreds of miles to sea and then attack in small skiffs. They have shown their competence at greater and greater distances. At each stage of this development, the pirates have gone to the previously assumed limit of their range, knowing that there is where they will find ships to attack, Murphy said. Mondays attack follows similar incidents at distances off the east coast that were also far in excess of earlier attempted boardings, which often took place within 200 miles of the coast. On Oct. 29, for example, pirates seized a Thai-flagged fishing boat, the Thai Union, about 200 nautical miles north of the Seychelles and 650 miles off the Somali coast. On Oct 19, pirates seized a Chinese coal ship, the De Xin Hai, some 700 nautical miles east of Somalia. Tony Mason, secretary general with the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), which represents 75 percent of the global industry, said reports of Mondays attack were worrying. This is a really big problem if shipping over that sort of area has got to consider itself susceptible to attack by pirates, he said. Ironically the development appears to stem partly from security improvements aboard. Responding to expert advice, many crews now take a wide variety of measures to resist boarders, so as to buy time to allow naval forces to come to their rescue. Such steps can include installing barbed wire coils, using fire hoses, sailing the vessel in a zigzag pattern and speeding up. But taking such steps in remote waters may have little use since there are few naval forces active there to rescue them. Foreign navies are deployed mainly off Somalias north coast in the Gulf of Aden. Since the turn of the year they have operated convoys as well as set up and monitored a transit corridor for ships to pass through vulnerable points. These measures have also deterred pirates, but they only have an effect where naval forces are present. In contrast, on the east coast of Somalia, there is practically no naval effort except for probably a few ships belonging to the (U.N.s) World Food Programme and maybe a few more, said Cyrus Mody, manager with London-based watchdog the International Maritime Bureau (IMB). John Dalby, chief executive of MRM, which provides security personnel to merchant vessels in the region, said it was going to be impossible for navies to police the whole of the western half of the Indian Ocean. We are stressing to governments that we just cant see this problem institutionalised - that people just accept piracy in this area as a way of life, the ICSs Mason said. ToPirates on Monday launched their longest-range hijack attempt yet by opening fire on a... more