UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Friday for stepped-up global action to combat the “alarming” increase in pirate attacks, which topped 400 last year.
Addressing a General Assembly conference on piracy, the UN chief said there were 406 pirate attacks last year, 100 more than in 2008. The bulk of the attacks came off the coast of East Africa, which saw a sevenfold increase between 2005 and last year, he said.
Ban called for a reassessment of what’s working and what needs to be improved to combat piracy, adding that suspects must also be brought to justice, “not simply let go, or left to die.”
Anarchy
He said the problem needs to specifically be addressed in Somalia, where anarchy has reigned since 1991 when warlords overthrew long-time dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other.
Rear Admiral Peter Hudson, commander of the EU’s naval counter-piracy flotilla, said that since February there has been “a huge surge” in the number of Somali vessels going to sea to conduct pirate acts.
The EU and other international navies patrolling off Somalia “have interrupted, broken up and dismantled over 60 pirates action groups, processing somewhere over 400 suspected pirates in the last 12 weeks alone, which is three times the number of action groups that we saw last year,” he said.
Hudson said that while the presence of the international flotilla has reduced the number of attacks in the strategic Gulf of Aden from about 20 a month in the summer of last year to about four or five a month today, pirates have successfully moved the attacks farther from Africa and closer to India.
The non-governmental group Ecoterra International, which monitors seajackings, estimates that 464 seamen are currently being held hostage by Somali pirates.
Hudson said that since there are limited opportunities to prosecute pirates, the only alternative is to destroy their equipment so they can’t hijack any other ships and ensure that they can return home in their vessels.
Kenya and the Seychelles have been the only countries prosecuting suspected pirates, but Kenya gave six-months notice last month that it will terminate the trials, citing the high cost of trials and imprisoning suspects.
Kenyan Trade Minister Amos Kimunya told the UN General Assembly “the burden of prosecuting and imprisoning suspects is becoming unbearable and needs to be shared.”
He said Kenya’s commitment has not been matched by international support either financially or “in terms of the social costs of the hostilities that are developing.”
Kimunya said acts of piracy should be treated “as crimes of universal jurisdiction, enabling any state to seize pirates anywhere in international waters and try them.”
Abdurahman Ibrahim, the first deputy prime minister in Somalia’s weak UN-backed transitional government, said if the international community wants to stop piracy it must identify the root causes, create alternative sources of income for fishermen and coastal residents and rehabilitate the Somali coast guard.
“We are ready to actually eradicate this virus,” Ibrahim said. “We know who they are, where they are, what they are doing, when they are doing [it] ... We can do it, but please help us to do it.”
China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites. In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products. China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in
ANTI-SEMITISM: Some newsletters promote hateful ideas such as white supremacy and Holocaust denial, with one describing Adolf Hitler as ‘one of the greatest men of all time’ The global publishing platform Substack is generating revenue from newsletters that promote virulent Nazi ideology, white supremacy and anti-Semitism, a Guardian investigation has found. The platform, which says it has about 50 million users worldwide, allows members of the public to self-publish articles and charge for premium content. Substack takes about 10 percent of the revenue the newsletters make. About 5 million people pay for access to newsletters on its platform. Among them are newsletters that openly promote racist ideology. One, called NatSocToday, which has 2,800 subscribers, charges US$80 for an annual subscription, although most of its posts are available
GLORY FACADE: Residents are fighting the church’s plan to build a large flight of steps and a square that would entail destroying up to two blocks of homes Barcelona’s eternally unfinished Basilica de la Sagrada Familia has grown to become the world’s tallest church, but a conflict with residents threatens to delay the finish date for the monument designed more than 140 years ago. Swathed in scaffolding on a platform 54m above the ground, an enormous stone slab is being prepared to complete the cross of the central Jesus Christ tower. A huge yellow crane is to bring it up to the summit, which will stand at 172.5m and has snatched the record as the world’s tallest church from Germany’s Ulm Minster. The basilica’s peak will deliberately fall short of the
Venezuelan Nobel peace laureate Maria Corina Machado yesterday said that armed men “kidnapped” a close ally shortly after his release by authorities, following former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s capture. The country’s Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed later yesterday that former National Assembly vice president Juan Pablo Guanipa, 61, was again taken into custody and was to be put under house arrest, arguing that he violated the conditions of his release. Guanipa would be placed under house arrest “in order to safeguard the criminal process,” the office said in a statement. The conditions of Guanipa’s release have yet to be made public. Machado claimed that
RSS