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Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Indian navy sinks suspected pirate 'mother ship'
Indian warship INS Tabar, right, escorts the MV Jag Arnav ship to safety after rescuing it from a hijack attempt by Somali pirates. The Indian navy says the INS Tabar dedicated to fighting pirates has successfully fought off an attempted pirate attack in the Gulf of Aden, sparking explosions and a fire on the suspected pirate ship late Tuesday, Nov. 18
NEW DELHI – An Indian naval vessel sank a suspected pirate "mother ship" in the Gulf of Aden and chased two attack boats into the night, officials said Wednesday, as separate bands of brigands seized Thai and Iranian ships in the lawless seas.
The owners of a seized Saudi oil supertanker, meanwhile, negotiated for the release of the ship, anchored off the coast of Somalia.
A multinational naval force has increased patrols in the waters between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, where pirates have grown bolder and more violent. The force scored a rare success Tuesday when the Indian warship, operating off the coast of Oman, stopped a ship similar to a pirate vessel described in numerous bulletins. The Indian navy said the pirates fired on the INS Tabar after the officers asked to search it.
"Pirates were seen roaming on the upper deck of this vessel with guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers," said a statement from the Indian navy. Indian forces fired back, sparking fires and a series of onboard blasts — possibly due to exploding ammunition — and destroying the ship.
They chased one of two speedboats shadowing the larger ship. One was later found abandoned. The other escaped, according to the statement.
Larger "mother ships" are often used to take gangs of pirates and smaller attack boats into deep water, and can be used as mobile bases to attack merchant vessels.
Last week, Indian navy commandos operating from a warship foiled a pirate attempt to hijack a ship in the Gulf of Aden. The navy said an armed helicopter with marine commandos prevented the pirates from boarding and hijacking the Indian merchant vessel.
Separate bands of pirates also seized a Thai ship with 16 crew members and an Iranian cargo vessel with a crew of 25 in the Gulf of Aden, where Somalia-based pirates appear to be attacking ships at will, said Noel Choong of the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Malaysia.
"It's getting out of control," Choong said.
Tuesday hijackings raised to eight the number of ships hijacked this week alone, he said. Since the beginning of the year, 39 ships have been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, out of 95 attacked.
"The criminal activities are flourishing because the risks are low and the rewards are extremely high," Choong said.
The pirates used to mainly roam the waters off the Somali coast, but now they have spread in every direction and are targeting ships farther at sea, according to Choong.
He said 17 vessels remain in the hands of pirates along with more than 300 crew members, including a Ukrainian ship loaded with weapons and the Saudi supertanker carrying $100 million in crude.
The supertanker, the MV Sirius Star, 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 crew members.
Asked about reports that a ransom had been demanded, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said Wednesday that the owners of the tanker "are negotiating on the issue." He did not elaborate.
He said "we do not like to negotiate with pirates, terrorists or hijackers." But he said the owners of the tanker are "the final arbiter" on the issue.
Saudi Arabia, the world's leading oil producer, has condemned the hijacking and said it will join the international fight against piracy.
Despite the stepped-up patrols, the attacks have continued unabated off Somalia, which is caught up in an Islamic insurgency and has had no functioning government since 1991. Pirates have generally released ships they have seized after ransoms are paid.
NATO has three warships in the Gulf of Aden and the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet also has ships in the region.
But U.S. Navy Commander Jane Campbell of the 5th Fleet said naval patrols simply cannot prevent attacks given the vastness of the sea and the 21,000 vessels passing through the Gulf of Aden 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.
The Gulf of Aden 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.
The Thai boat, which was flying a flag from the tiny Pacific nation of Kiribati but operated out of Thailand, made a distress call as it was being chased by pirates in two speedboats but the phone connection was cut off midway.
Wicharn Sirichaiekawat, manager of Sirichai Fisheries Co., Ltd. told The Associated Press that the ship, the "Ekawat Nava 5," was headed from Oman to Yemen to deliver fishing equipment.
"We have not heard from them since so we don't know what the demands are," Wicharn said. "We have informed the families of the crew but right now, we don't have much more information to give them either."
Later in the day, Thai Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Voradet Veeravekin told The Associated Press that Thai officials in Kenya were trying to make contact with the vessel.
"Based on previous cases, we believe they were held for ransom. We are optimistic that we will be able to negotiate for their release once we can contact the ship," he 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 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.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Murdoch: China, India will reshape the world
SYDNEY, Australia – Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch says the ongoing metamorphosis of China and India from historic backwaters into economic powers will help reshape the world in the next few decades.
The News Corp. chief gave an upbeat assessment of the future and made a vigorous case for free markets despite troubled economic times and what he called "naked, heartless aggression" in the world.
In the first of a series of speeches in his birth country of Australia, Murdoch spoke Sunday of "the great transformation we've seen in the past few decades, the unleashing of human talent and ability across our world, and the golden age for humankind that I see just around the corner."
He said China and India are great countries whose people are only recently emerging from long histories of being "incarcerated by communism or caste." The rise of their economies is creating a new middle class that would be three billion strong within 30 years and that is setting a new benchmark for global competitiveness.
"The world has never seen this kind of advance before," Murdoch said. "These are people who have known deprivation. These are people who are intent on developing their skills, improving their lives and showing the world what they can do."
Murdoch, whose New York-based conglomerate includes Twentieth Century Fox, Fox News Channel, Dow Jones & Co. as well as newspaper stables in Australia and Britain and the online networking site MySpace, described the global financial crisis as one of many challenges facing Australia.
He urged Australia to embrace internationalism and touched on a range of global issues, from international security to the commercial opportunities offered by the world's need for cleaner energy.
Murdoch's remarks came in the first of six lectures to be sent out on radio nationally by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. — this year's edition of an annual series of talks by prominent Australians.
Murdoch said that in another speech he would give his opinions on the future of newspapers, which are suffering a severe downturn, especially in the United States, as advertising revenue is lost to the Internet.
He made a strong pitch for freer trade between countries, taking agriculture as an example and saying that reducing artificial barriers is a moral and strategic issue.
"So we must continue to leverage our connections and continue to push when others have left the conference table," he said. "The global trade dialogue should echo with Australian accents."
Touching on security, he chided Europe for appearing to have "lost the will to confront aggression" and said NATO should be reformed into a group based on common values, not geography, and include countries like Australia as members.
"In this promising new century, we are still seeing naked, heartless aggression — whether it comes from a terrorist bombing in Islamabad or a Russian invasion of Georgia," Murdoch said.
"We can lament these developments, but we cannot hide from them," he said, noting Australia's contribution of troops to Afghanistan and Iraq.
In an interview published in The Weekend Australian on Saturday, Murdoch said governments have only limited power to fix the financial crisis, though they could make it worse.
Murdoch warned that a rise in protectionism in the United States "could add to all sorts of tensions in the world financial system and the world trading system and eventually all the way down to employment."
The News Corp. chief gave an upbeat assessment of the future and made a vigorous case for free markets despite troubled economic times and what he called "naked, heartless aggression" in the world.
In the first of a series of speeches in his birth country of Australia, Murdoch spoke Sunday of "the great transformation we've seen in the past few decades, the unleashing of human talent and ability across our world, and the golden age for humankind that I see just around the corner."
He said China and India are great countries whose people are only recently emerging from long histories of being "incarcerated by communism or caste." The rise of their economies is creating a new middle class that would be three billion strong within 30 years and that is setting a new benchmark for global competitiveness.
"The world has never seen this kind of advance before," Murdoch said. "These are people who have known deprivation. These are people who are intent on developing their skills, improving their lives and showing the world what they can do."
Murdoch, whose New York-based conglomerate includes Twentieth Century Fox, Fox News Channel, Dow Jones & Co. as well as newspaper stables in Australia and Britain and the online networking site MySpace, described the global financial crisis as one of many challenges facing Australia.
He urged Australia to embrace internationalism and touched on a range of global issues, from international security to the commercial opportunities offered by the world's need for cleaner energy.
Murdoch's remarks came in the first of six lectures to be sent out on radio nationally by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. — this year's edition of an annual series of talks by prominent Australians.
Murdoch said that in another speech he would give his opinions on the future of newspapers, which are suffering a severe downturn, especially in the United States, as advertising revenue is lost to the Internet.
He made a strong pitch for freer trade between countries, taking agriculture as an example and saying that reducing artificial barriers is a moral and strategic issue.
"So we must continue to leverage our connections and continue to push when others have left the conference table," he said. "The global trade dialogue should echo with Australian accents."
Touching on security, he chided Europe for appearing to have "lost the will to confront aggression" and said NATO should be reformed into a group based on common values, not geography, and include countries like Australia as members.
"In this promising new century, we are still seeing naked, heartless aggression — whether it comes from a terrorist bombing in Islamabad or a Russian invasion of Georgia," Murdoch said.
"We can lament these developments, but we cannot hide from them," he said, noting Australia's contribution of troops to Afghanistan and Iraq.
In an interview published in The Weekend Australian on Saturday, Murdoch said governments have only limited power to fix the financial crisis, though they could make it worse.
Murdoch warned that a rise in protectionism in the United States "could add to all sorts of tensions in the world financial system and the world trading system and eventually all the way down to employment."
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