Eeyore's News and View

I want to thank blogger for making me do this blog three times because of some type of glitch.

There has been a lot on the news about pirates and hijacks. So i figured i would group them together in one blog article. I hope you all realise that this will only get worse and closer to home. As the economy worsens, people instead of working harder will go to stealing. Just human nature for the people living in this time period. So expect to see it happening more and more. If you read all the articles you will understand that the thief does not just effect the company they steal from but it effects everyone.

Somali pirates hijack Thai fishing boat; 8th ship in two weeks
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Pirates hijacked a Thai fishing boat with 16 crewmembers off the coast of Somalia, the eighth ship to be seized in the area in the past two weeks, a maritime official said Wednesday.
The boat was seized Tuesday in the Gulf of Aden, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur. Also Tuesday, an Iranian bulk cargo carrier with 25 crewmembers was seized in the area, according to earlier reports.
Both vessels were heading to the Middle East when they were hijacked, he said.
The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet based in Bahrain dispatched an aircraft to the area after the hijackings were reported, and spotted the two vessels in the hands of the pirates, 5th Fleet spokeswoman Cmdr Jane Campbell said.
She said there were no U.S. ships in the vicinity when the hijackings were taking place. In any case, ships would have to be "within 10 minutes responding time to prevent any hijacking," she told The Associated Press.

Choong said the Thai boat, which was flying a Kiribati flag but operated out of Thailand, made a distress call as it was being chased by pirates in two speedboats but the phone line got cut off midway.
Wicharn Sirichaiekawat, manager of Sirichai Fisheries Co.,Ltd. told The Associated Press that the hijacked Thai ship — the Ekawat Nava 5 — sailed from Oman and was headed to Yemen to deliver fishing equipment when it was hijacked about 380 miles (610 kilometers) from Eyl — where he said the pirates were believed to be taking the ship.
He said he did not know what the hijackers' demands might be for the release of the crew — 15 Thais and one Cambodian.
"We have informed the families of the crew, but right now, we don't have much more information to give them either," Wicharn said.
The bulk carrier was flying a Hong Kong flag but operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines. Tuesday's incidents bring the number of attacks in Somali waters this year to 95, with 39 ships hijacked.
Choong said 17 vessels remain in the hands of pirates along with more than 300 crew, including a Ukrainian ship loaded with arms and a Saudi Arabian supertanker carrying $100 million in crude.
Despite increased patrols by a multicoalition naval force, attacks have continued unabated off Somalia, which is caught up in an Islamic insurgency and has had no functioning government since 1991. Pirates have seized dozens of ships off Somalia's coast in the last year, generally releasing them after ransoms were paid.
NATO has three warships in the Gulf of Aden and the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet also has ships in the region.
But, Campbell said, naval patrols simply cannot prevent attacks given the vastness of the sea and the high number of vessels passing through the Gulf of Aden — 21,000 every year.
"Given the size of the area and given the fact that we do not have naval assets — either ships or airplanes — to be everywhere with every single ship" it would be virtually impossible to prevent every attack, she said.
On Tuesday, a major Norwegian shipping group Odfjell SE ordered its more than 90 tankers to sail around Africa rather than use the Suez Canal after the seizure of the Saudi tanker, MV Sirius Star, on Saturday.
"We will no longer expose our crew to the risk of being hijacked and held for ransom by pirates in the Gulf of Aden," said Terje Storeng, Odfjell's president and chief executive.
The Gulf of Aden, off Somalia, connects to the Red Sea, which in turn is linked to the Mediterranean by the Suez Canal. The route is thousands of miles (kilometers) and many days shorter than going around the Cape of Good Hope off the southern tip of Africa.
Saudi Arabia, which is the world's leading oil producer, has condemned the hijacking and said it will join the international fight against piracy. Somali officials vowed to try to rescue Sirius Star by force if necessary.
The supertanker was anchored Tuesday close to Harardhere, the main pirates' den on the Somali coast, with a full load of 2 million barrels of oil and 25 crewmembers.
"As usual, I woke up at 3 a.m. and headed for the sea to fish, but I saw a very, very large ship anchored less than three miles off the shore," Abdinur Haji, a fisherman in Harardhere, told the AP in a telephone interview.
"I have been fishing here for three decades, but I have never seen a ship as big as this one," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "There are dozens of spectators on shore trying to catch a glimpse of the large ship."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-11-18-somali_N.htm

Two more vessels seized by defiant tanker pirates
By Daniel Howden in Nairobi
Wednesday November 19 2008
The most spectacular prize in maritime history was anchored off Somalia last night with a rag-tag army of pirates holding the world's largest oil producer to ransom.
Despite a day of loud condemnation from international leaders and a multinational fleet of warships on patrol, the pirates showed they were able to strike at will by seizing two more vessels while the hijacked Saudi supertanker was parked off Haradheere on the Somali coast.
A Hong Kong-flagged tanker, FV Tian Yu 8, carrying wheat to Iran was taken in the Gulf of Aden and a fishing vessel flying the Kiribati flag of convenience was also seized, mocking Nato's attempts to police the coast.
Lt Nathan Christensen, from the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, said: "I can confirm that the ship is anchored near the city of Haradheere. We haven't had any communication with the pirates so that's the most we can say."
Threat
As the ramifications of the largest hijacking ever sank in, the international community scrambled to meet the new threat. The Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal compared the pirates to "terrorists" and said his country would throw its weight behind a European-led initiative to step up security in the affected shipping lanes.
"This outrageous act by the pirates, I think, will only reinforce the resolve of the countries of the Red Sea and internationally to fight piracy," he said.
The US-led Nato mission has so far been unable to stop the surge in piracy. The owners of the Saudi tanker, the oil giants Aramco, said they were in talks with the pirates and had been assured that the 25 crew, including two Britons, were safe.
Witnesses in the port city of Eyl further up the coast -- originally believed to be the final destination for the tanker carrying $100m (e79m) of crude oil -- said there were increasing fears in the town of reprisals. People in the port in the breakaway region of Puntland said people were braced for an attack on what is now seen internationally as the pirates' base after the hijacking of two ships in quick succession.
Bile Wadani, a pirate who claimed to be in contact with others aboard the Sirius Star, said men were getting ready to relieve the hijackers aboard the behemoth carrying two million barrels of oil, ahead of what is expected to be a protracted ransom negotiation.
A Ukrainian-flagged vessel transporting tanks and other heavy arms was taken nearly two months ago and is still being held with a large ransom under discussion. Some $30m (e23.7m) is reported to have been paid to the pirates this year alone.
Speaking last night by telephone from Eyl, Mr Wadani said: "We are able to monitor their movements and move around them [foreign navies]. We know where they are before we decide to move."
The audacious nature of the attack on the Sirius, far beyond the coastal waters of Somalia and even the Gulf of Aden where attacks have been concentrated, has caught international authorities by surprise.
Pictures of the pirates in action show small groups of young men armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.
Many security analysts had assumed prior to the seizure of the Sirius that the high-sided vessels plying the routes far out to sea would be beyond their reach.
As the pirates seized more ships yesterday the country's 'transitional government' had to be threatened by regional leaders with targeted sanctions as they continued to refuse to agree on forming a cabinet. (© Independent News Service)
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/africa/two-more-vessels-seized-by-defiant-tanker-pirates-1544056.html

Consumers to pay price of hijack
By Sebastien Berger in Johannesburg
Wednesday November 19 2008
The hijacking of the Sirius Star and the spate of pirate attacks will drive up consumer prices in Europe and around the world as insurance and shipping costs rise, experts warned yesterday.
A surge in piracy in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's major shipping routes, has meant dozens of ransom payments being made; while the fate of 15 vessels and almost 300 crew members is still unresolved.
But the seizure of an oil tanker, and the position where it was taken far south of the pirates' usual hunting ground, mean that the problem has suddenly worsened dramatically.
"In the past we have always assumed that large ships like this would be safe, almost immune from piracy," said Roger Middleton, a researcher at the world affairs think-tank Chatham House, which is based in the UK.
Ship owners would divert their vessels to avoid the area, adding weeks to sailing times and pushing up transport costs. "Somebody's going to have to pay for that and it will be consumers in Europe," he said. (© Daily Telegraph, London)
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/africa/consumers-to-pay-price-of-hijack-1544202.html

Thai fishing boat hijacked by pirates off Somalia November 19, 2008 - 1:30am
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Pirates hijacked a Thai fishing boat with 16 crew members Tuesday off the coast of Somalia, the same day a major Norwegian shipping group ordered its tankers to sail around Africa rather than use the Suez Canal because pirates had seized a Saudi supertanker.
The U.S. and other naval forces decided against intervening in the seizure of the supertanker, which was carrying $100 million in crude. The pirates captured an Iranian cargo ship Tuesday _ the eighth ship seized in 12 days.
Odfjell SE said it made the decision to divert its ships after pirates seized the Saudi Arabian supertanker MV Sirius Star Saturday hundreds of miles off the coast of Kenya, the most brazen attack yet by Somalian pirates.
"We will no longer expose our crew to the risk of being hijacked and held for ransom by pirates in the Gulf of Aden," said Terje Storeng, Odfjell's president and chief executive. "Unless we are explicitly committed by existing contracts to sail through this area, as from today we will reroute our ships around Cape of Good Hope."
Noel Choong of the International Maritime Bureau said the Thai boat was seized in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday as it traveled toward the Mideast.
The vessel was captured the same day that pirates hijacked an Iranian bulk cargo carrier with 25 crew members. Saturday's attack on the Saudi supertanker was the most brazen attack in the region yet.
The Gulf of Aden, off Somalia, connects to the Red Sea, which in turn is linked to the Mediterranean by the Suez Canal. The route is thousands of miles and many days shorter than going around the Cape of Good Hope off the southern tip of Africa.
"This will incur significant extra cost, but we expect our customers' support and contribution," said Storeng.
"Odfjell is frustrated by the fact that governments and authorities in general seem to take a limited interest in this very serious problem," he added, describing the seizures as "ruthless, high-level organized crime."
Pirates have seized dozens of ships off Somalia's coast in the last year, generally releasing them after ransoms were paid. NATO has three warships in the Gulf of Aden and the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet has ships in the region. But the MV Sirius Star was seized far from where they patrol.
While Somali pirates have seized 36 ships over the past year, among them a Ukrainian ship loaded with arms that is still being held, never had they seized a vessel as large as the Sirius Star and so far out to sea. The tanker was more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, an area far south of the zone where warships have increased their patrols.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal called the hijacking "an outrageous act" and said "piracy, like terrorism, is a disease which is against everybody, and everybody must address it together."
The kingdom, which is the world's leading oil producer, said it will join the international fight against piracy, and Somali officials vowed to try to rescue the supertanker, by force if necessary.
The Sirius Star was anchored Tuesday close Harardhere, the main pirates' den on the Somali coast, with a full load of 2 million barrels of oil and 25 crew members.
"As usual, I woke up at 3 a.m. and headed for the sea to fish, but I saw a very, very large ship anchored less than three miles off the shore," said Abdinur Haji, a fisherman in Harardhere.
"I have been fishing here for three decades, but I have never seen a ship as big as this one," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "There are dozens of spectators on shore trying to catch a glimpse of the large ship."
He said two small boats floated out to the ship and 18 men _ presumably other pirates _ climbed aboard with a rope ladder. Spectators watched as a small boat carried food and qat, a narcotic leaf popular in Somalia, to the supertanker.
Salah B. Ka'aki, president and CEO of the tanker's owner Vela International Marine Ltd, said the oil tanker's 25 crew members "are believed to be safe." The statement said they were awaiting further contact from pirates controlling the vessel.
With naval forces unwilling to intervene, shipowners in past piracy cases have ended up paying ransoms for their ships, cargos and crew.
The Iranian ship was a bulk cargo carrier flying a Hong Kong flag and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines. U.S. Navy Commander Jane Campbell of the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said the status of the crew and cargo was not known.
The International Maritime Bureau on Sunday reported five hijackings since Nov. 7, before the Saudi, Iranian and Thai ships were announced.
Saud, speaking during a visit to Athens on Tuesday, said Saudi Arabia would join an international initiative against piracy in the Red Sea area, where more than 80 pirate attacks have taken place this year.
He did not elaborate on what steps the kingdom would take to better protect its vital oil tankers. Saudi Arabia's French-equipped navy has 18,000-20,000 personnel, but has never taken part in any high-seas fighting.
Abdullkadir Musa, the deputy sea port minister in northern Somalia's breakaway Puntland region, said if the ship tries to anchor anywhere near Eyl _ where the U.S. earlier said it was heading _ then his forces will try to rescue it.
Forces from Puntland region in northern Somalia have sometimes confronted pirates, though Somalia's weak central government, which is fighting Islamic insurgents, has been unable to mount a response to increasing piracy.
Puntland forces, their guns blazing, freed a Panama-flagged cargo ship from pirates on Oct. 14.
In Vienna, Ehsan Ul-Haq, chief analyst at JBC Energy, said the seizure was not affecting oil prices because traders were focused instead on "the overall economy."
The U.S. Navy is still surrounding a Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and other weaponry that was seized by pirates Sept. 25 off the Somali coast.
___
Surk contributed to this report from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, AP writers Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu, Somalia, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Belgium, and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.
http://wtop.com/?nid=387&sid=1519548

Cold War stand-off over pirates' weapons ship
Tanker laden with deadly military hardware remains under the control of hijackers off the coast of Somalia. Russia sends frigate to the Indian Ocean, joining US vessels as concern grows over fate of cargo
Wednesday October 01 2008
Russia has dispatched a frigate to the scene of an increasingly tense stand-off between the US Navy and pirates who have seized a tanker laden with tanks and weapons in the Indian Ocean off Somalia.
The tussle over the fate of the Soviet-designed tanks captured off a failed African state has developed into an international incident worthy of a James Bond novel. Pirates are demanding a $20m (£11m) ransom and governments in the region are denying any knowledge of the arms shipment, amid fears of a new civil war in Sudan.
Russia has seized upon the crisis to send the missile frigate The Intrepid, prompting speculation that it might attempt to free hostages in another public projection of its military power.
American helicopters and warships from the 5th Fleet have surrounded the Ukraine-flagged Faina after Somali pirates boarded her six days ago and seized a cargo which includes 33 T-72 battle tanks, ammunition and heavy weapons such as rocket launchers.
The US squadron has sent helicopters low over the deck of the seized tanker and has made it clear they will not allow the pirates to land their haul, which it is feared would be handed over to Islamic insurgents that Washington believes are linked to al-Qa'ida. The pirates have said they will fight to the death if the ship is boarded.
Reports of a shooting match between different factions aboard the cargo ship were denied by the hijackers, who used satellite phones to contact reporters and tell them that they were holding a feast for Eid, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month, Ramadan.
"We are happy on the ship and we are celebrating Eid," a spokesman for the pirates, who identified himself as Sugule Ali, told the Associated Press. "We are united as we were before and there was no fighting among us."
Andrew Mwangura of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme had said three Somali pirates were killed on Monday night in a dispute over whether to surrender, but later admitted he had not spoken to witnesses.
The pirates blame overfishing by foreign trawlers for destroying their livelihoods, forcing them into hijacking ships and demanding ransoms.
The most dramatic seizure yet, with its lethal cargo, has underlined a surge in piracy in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping routes. The problem has spread south to the Indian Ocean coastal waters off Somalia with 62 ships attacked this year. The International Maritime Board's piracy monitors say there are at least 10 vessels and 221 crew members held hostage in ports such as Eyl, east Somalia.
Pirates, many operating out of former fishing ports such as Eyl and Bosaso, are deploying increasingly sophisticated methods, including high speed launches, GPS trackers, and satellite communications, to target shipping. They have captured some of the biggest vessels on the seas and extracted multimillion-pound ransoms from multinational companies and even the government of Spain. France sent in special forces to track pirates who took a luxury yacht in April and captured six of them. They will face trial in France.
The London-based think-tank Chatham House says piracy could see shipping forced away from the Gulf and into the longer route to Europe and North America, producing a drastic effect on oil and commodities prices.
Photographs from the scene showed a number of smaller vessels with outboard motors alongside the much larger Faina. The ship's crew of 21 includes Ukrainians, Russians, and a Latvian. One member is said to have recently died of a heart attack.
The tanker was bound for the Kenyan port of Mombasa but the government there has denied it had purchased the tanks. US diplomats said the military material was bound for the south of Sudan, where factions are believed to be re-arming ahead of what observers fear could be a resumption of the civil war between the Christian and animist south and the Arab-led government in Khartoum. Officials in the oil-rich south said they were "surprised" to hear the battle tanks were en route to them.
Somalia is already facing the world's worst humanitarian disaster, with 3.2 million in danger of starvation and aid groups forced to pull out after their operatives became targets for militants. Pirates have taken food shipments.
Somalia, which has Africa's longest coast, is in a state of anarchy, with no functioning government since 1991 and a civil war between a weak and unpopular transitional government, backed by Ethiopian forces, and an Islamic insurgency. A period of relative stability under the Islamic Courts - a loose alliance of clerics, militia and businessmen who displaced the warlords for six months in 2006 - was curtailed after Ethiopia invaded and reinstalled the interim government with tacit US backing. The Islamic insurgency has since pushed Ethiopia to the point of withdrawing. The administration has appealed for African Union and UN peacekeepers to fill the breach.
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/africa/cold-war-standoff-over-pirates-weapons-ship-1486862.html

Indian warship sinks Somali pirate vessel, navy says
Last Updated: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 7:05 AM ET Comments30Recommend30
CBC News
The Indian warship INS Tabar, shown in a file photo, opened fire Wednesday on a pirate vessel. (Associated Press/Indian Navy)An Indian warship was able to fight off and destroy a suspected Somali pirate vessel, the navy said on Wednesday, the same day two other ships were hijacked off the coast of Somalia.
The pirates had threatened to blow up the INS Tabar after Indian officers asked the pirate vessel to stop on Tuesday to be searched in the Gulf of Aden, the Indian navy said. Officials said they had also spotted pirates with rocket-propelled launchers on the vessel.
The pirate vessel then opened fire on the Indian ship.
"INS Tabar retaliated in self-defence and opened fire on the mother vessel," the navy said in a statement.
"Explosions were heard, possibly due to exploding ammunition that was stored on the vessel," the navy said, adding that the vessel then sank.
The Indians chased one of two speedboats accompanying the pirate vessel. The speedboat was later found abandoned. The other speedboat escaped, according to a navy statement.
The attack came the same day a Thai fishing boat with 16 crew members and an Iranian cargo ship with a crew of 25 were also hijacked in the Gulf of Aden.
Hijacked supertanker anchored off Somalia
Also Tuesday, pirates who hijacked a Saudi-owned supertanker anchored the vessel off the north coast of Somalia. The Sirius Star was anchored near Harardhere, 425 kilometres from Eyl. It is loaded with two million barrels of crude oil valued at around $100 million.
The ship, with 25 crew members on board, was seized over the weekend by Somali pirates, 830 kilometres off the Kenyan coast.
Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur, said a total of 17 vessels are currently being held hostage in Somali waters with more than 300 crew members.
"It's getting out of control," Choong told the Associated Press.
Choong said eight ships have been hijacked this week. Since the beginning of the year, 39 ships have been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, out of 95 attacked.
"There is no firm deterrent, that's why the pirate attacks are continuing," Choong said. "The criminal activities are flourishing because the risks are low and the rewards are extremely high."
Pirates have generally released ships they have seized after ransoms are paid
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/11/19/pirate-somali.html