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Time to dust off the eye patches and pull out the gold earrings. Everybody grab a parrot and bottle of rum its time once more for Talk like a Pirate Day!

Piracy in the Indian Ocean is hampering the efforts of climate change researchers to the point where they have had to call in the Australian Navy. Pirate activity off the coast of Somalia has increased dramatically over recent years, so much so that a quarter of the Indian Ocean is now considered a "no-go" area. ... "They're ranging so far up from Somalia that we're having difficulties getting instruments into that area so it's a good quarter of the Indian Ocean [that] is a no-go area. Dr Thresher says research vessels have been pursued by pirates on a number of...

International Talk Like a Pirate Day (ITLAPD) is a parodic holiday invented in 1995 by John Baur ("Ol' Chumbucket") and Mark Summers ("Cap'n Slappy"), of the United States, who proclaimed September 19 each year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like a pirate. For example, an observer of this holiday would greet friends not with "Hello", but with "Ahoy, me hearty!" The date was selected because it was the birthday of Summers's ex-wife and consequently would be easy for him to remember. At first an inside joke between two friends, the holiday gained exposure when Baur...

The archipelago is named after Robinson Crusoe, but perhaps it should have been called Treasure Island. A long quest for booty from the Spanish colonial era appears to be culminating in Chile with the announcement by a group of adventurers that they have found an estimated 600 barrels of gold coins and Incan jewels on the remote Pacific island. "The biggest treasure in history has been located," said Fernando Uribe-Etxeverria, a lawyer for Wagner, the Chilean company leading the search. Mr Uribe-Etxeverria estimated the value of the buried treasure at US$10bn (£5.6bn). The announcement set off ownership claims. The treasure...

The Senate Chambers in Witherspoon Student Center were overrun Wednesday night with the ever-expanding ranks of scurvy dogs and scalawags as Elections Commission Chair Bonnie Pierson revealed the results of the remaining offices of the 2005 Spring General Election. Although candidate Will Quick almost doubled his votes from last week's election, Whil "The Pirate Captain" Piavis clinched victory in the runoff for the position of student body president. Student Senate President candidate Forrest Hinton was also elected, along with Senior Class President candidate Carla Babb, who triumphed over Hisham Salama by a mere 32 votes. Quick's small show of supporters,...