Do people realize Pirates are back?
...and I'm not talking about the movie franchise. I guess this is more of an editorial than anything else, but how awesome is it that real life pirates are again ruling the high seas?! It's tough to picture Somalian's with big beards, eating old bread, swilling rum from a bottle, and wearing eye patches, but that is totally the way I am envisioning them in my head. Swords, flags on the mast, the whole bit. In today's economy a pirates gotta do what a pirates gotta do. I've been reading stories about this stuff for weeks, and never really realized the magnitude of what was going on until now. Some of these groups are getting millions in ransom money. Are we far away from pirates trolling seas throughout the world, ninjas hiding in the shadows on land, and asstrich's patrolling the friendly skies (those things can fly right?)? I don't know, but it'd be pretty cool, wouldn't it? Anyway, here's a snippet of some of the results of these pirates activities, from SFGate.
Piracy has become rampant off the Somali coast, and recently pirates have begun targeting cruise liners as well as commercial vessels. On Nov. 30, pirates fired upon the M/S Nautica — a cruise liner carrying 650 passengers and 400 crew — but the massive ship outran its assailants. Other ships have not been so lucky.
Pirates have attacked 32 vessels and hijacked 12 of them since NATO deployed a four-vessel flotilla in the region Oct. 24 to escort cargo ships and conduct anti-piracy patrols. Ships still being held for huge ransoms include a Saudi oil tanker carrying $100 million in crude and a Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and heavy weapons.
Hapag-Lloyd decided on the detour for its passengers after the German government denied the company's request for a security escort through the gulf, company spokesman Rainer Mueller said.
"We won't travel through the Gulf of Aden with passengers" as long as the German Foreign Ministry's travel warning is in effect, Mueller said.
Another German cruise ship operator, Stuttgart-based Hansa Touristik, canceled a trip that would have brought the M/S Arion through the Gulf on Dec. 27, company spokeswoman Birgit Kelern said.
