A US skipper held on a lifeboat by Somali pirates dived into the sea yesterday in a dramatic break for freedom before being hauled back onboard, US networks said, as his captors demanded a ransom.
Richard Phillips jumped into the water during the night and tried to swim toward a nearby US destroyer, the USS Bainbridge, but the pirates jumped into the water and recaptured him, three television networks reported.
The escape bid came as the pirates said they were demanding an unspecified amount of money for the skipper’s release and warned against using force to secure his freedom.
US military officials told CNN that Phillips was fine and that the pirates did not hurt him.
Phillips has been held hostage on the lifeboat since Wednesday when the gang of four pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama aid ship. Although the pirates were later overpowered by the unarmed American crew, they were able to separate Phillips and bundle him into a lifeboat.
The US navy has already encircled the lifeboat and more US ships, including some from a counter-piracy task force out of Bahrain, are on the way to join the Bainbridge, which arrived on Thursday, defense officials said.
The Bainbridge, accompanied by a P-3 Orion surveillance plane, was preventing the pirates from moving their hostage to a larger ship.
“The safe return of the captain is the top priority,” US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters in Washington.
The commander of the pirates vowed that Phillips would remain a captive until a ransom was stumped up for his release.
“We are demanding to get ransom and to return home safely before releasing the captain,” Abdi Garad said by telephone from Eyl, the pirates’ lair in largely lawless Somalia.
Garad also said their men were negotiating with the US navy “not to be arrested if they release the captain and the American officials will hopefully fulfill that condition, otherwise the captain will not be released.”
With six hijackings in the space of four days, Somalia’s pirates have dashed any hope that an increasing naval presence in the region could significantly dent a scourge that is disrupting one of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes.
Since the start of the year, piracy watchdogs had recorded a slump in the number of attacks and their success rate compared to last year, during which pirates attacked close to 150 ships and harvested a bumper crop of ransom money.
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS