While much of the world’s economy is in trouble, business is booming for Somalia’s pirates, whose attacks on commercial ships sailing Africa’s east coast are more frequent, violent and lucrative than ever. Pirates took in an estimated $160 million in ransoms last year. Click below to read the rest of the story.
and one study predicts the number will climb to $400 million by 2015, as the high seas thieves continue their brazen reign on the Indian Ocean. Efforts by shipping companies to beef up security, and by the European Union, which has mounted airstrikes on pirate ships, have so far been met with stepped-up attacks. Chillingly, pirates are now chopping off the limbs of captives in extreme cases when the airdrop of cash isn’t made quickly enough to suit them.
“It’s an established, structured model, where you have Somalis who are leading and financing operations and then you have pirates who actually go out to sea and conduct the activity,” Brian Green, chief of the counter-piracy branch of the Office of Naval Intelligence, told FoxNews.com of the piracy industry. “They are, more or less, foot soldiers. They find targets of opportunity, attack them with the goal of hijacking and bringing that vessel back to Somalia.”
To whom it may concern,
I am writing to request the use of the image in ‘Piracy Off Somali Coast More Frequent, Violent Than Ever And Bringing In Big Bucks!!!’.
It would be used in an online exhibition for the National Maritime Museum Cornwall on modern piracy. It is a not-for-profit organization and no profit will be made from the use of the image.
Copyright ownership will be referenced with the image.
Please let us know if this would be possible, it would be greatly appreciated. It will be assumed that use of this image is permissable if we don’t hear from you.
Yours Sincerely,
Isobel Tucker