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SEOUL — Suspected Somali pirates hijacked a South Korean-operated cargo ship with 21 crew on board in the Indian Ocean on Saturday, South Korean and European officials said. ... The hijacking came about two months after a supertanker used by the same South Korean shipping company was released by Somali pirates, having been held for seven months. The 300,000-tonne Samho Dream and its 24 crew -- five South Koreans and 19 Filipinos -- were released only after a ransom reported as a record $9 million was given to the pirates in a helicopter air drop.

The crew members of a Danish weapons ship boarded but not hijacked by pirates in the Indian Ocean have been kidnapped, TradeWinds can reveal. In what represents a major departure from Somali pirates' usual modus operandi, the six seafarers have been snatched and moved to a seized Taiwanese fishing vessel which is operating as a morthership [sic]. It had been hoped that a search of the 1,780-dwt Leopard (built 1989) by members of the Turkish Navy would turn up the two Danes and four Filipinos who had hid in a citadel when they came under attack west of the Gulf...

New Delhi, Jan 12 (IANS) The Indian Navy's elite marine commandos will this month be armed with Israeli assault and rifles that will enhance their operational capability as a force trained for special operations. A consignment of over 500 TAR-21 Tavor assault rifles and another 30 Galil sniper rifles worth over Rs.15 crore ($3.3 million) and Rs.2 crore respectively was delivered to the MARCOS (marine commandos) in December 2010, a defence ministry official told IANS here. A team from the Israeli Military Industries (IMI), the manufacturer of the specialist weapons, will be in India to carry out joint inspection of...

SHABWA, Jan 08 ( Saba) - Somalia pirates have attacked a Yemeni fishing boat off the southeastern province of Shabwa, firing on it and taking its engine, security officials have said. "About 7 pirates attacked the boat while fishing off Bir Ali. They fired on it but the fisherman, 24, onboard was not hurt," they said, adding that the pirates just took the engine of the boat to use it for carrying out more attacks, and ran away. In recent years, Somali pirates have stepped up their attacks on Yemeni fishing boats and local, regional and international vessels passing off...

NAIROBI, Jan. 2 (Saba)--Somali pirates have hijacked Algerian flagged and owned ship in the Indian Ocean with 27 crew members, European Union anti-piracy taskforce said on Sunday. EU Naval Force spokesman Paddy O'Kennedy said MV Blinda was seized by pirates on Saturday afternoon, approximately 150 nautical miles South East of the port of Salalah, Oman. "MV Blida has a crew of 27 (Algerian, Ukrainian and Philippino) and is carrying a cargo of Clinker," O'Kennedy said in a statement on Sunday. The 20,586 tonne Bulk Carrier was on her way to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from Salalah in Oman at the...

Somali pirates have freed a German-owned chemical tanker, reportedly after a $5.5m (£3.6m) ransom was paid. The Marida Marguerite, with a crew of 19 Indians, two Bangladeshis and one Ukrainian, was seized in May by pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades. Kenya-based officials said a ransom was paid, but there was no independent confirmation. Pirates now hold 25 vessels and 587 hostages after they seized another German-owned ship on Monday.

Dhaka, Dec 24 (bdnews24.com)--The US government has suggested that the government should negotiate with the Somali pirates by paying ransom for the release of 26 Bangladeshis on board the hijacked ship MV Jahan Moni. The state department also told Dhaka that the Somali pirates would be interested in releasing the captives with comparatively less amount of money as it's a "lean season" for the captors. Washington also revealed that "money was the sole objective" behind the hostage taking. The state department made the suggestions as Bangladesh government sought US support for the release of the hostages. On Dec 15, the...

TEHRAN, Iran -- A common fight against piracy brought U.S. and Iranian navy commanders together in a meeting with other participants earlier this month, the Iranian state news agency reported Thursday. The report revealed the rare meeting only obliquely by relating the attendance of acting Iranian navy chief Admiral Gholam Reza Khaem Bigham at an international anti-piracy meeting earlier this month in Sri Lanka attended by 22 countries, including the United States. ... The report did not say whether there were any face-to-face encounters between the two countries' military officials at the conference.

According to a Eurogamer report, game publisher Ubisoft has implemented a novel security measure - which largely involves the use of the South African vuvuzela horn - in its forthcoming Nintendo DS game "Michael Jackson: The Experience." Going by the report, the continuous buzzing of vuvuzela horns - which became immensely popular during this summer's World Cup - will virtually drown Michael Jackson's cult tunes for people who try to play the hacked version of the game via a downloadable ROM. In addition, as part of its anti-piracy measures, Ubisoft has removed the on-screen prompts on illegally downloaded ROMs of...

WASHINGTON — Somalia's breakaway Puntland state has hired a private security firm to fight piracy but Washington is concerned about the program's funding, aims and scope, a Pentagon spokeswoman said Friday. "The US is aware Puntland authorities are contracting with a private security company to assist them in counter-piracy," Lieutenant Colonel Tamara Parker told AFP. ... The US and other navies have deployed dozens of warships to patrol the region's waters but have failed to stem piracy, one of the few thriving businesses for coastal communities in Somalia, a country devastated by war and poverty. Over the past two years,...

A controversial animal-rights group preparing to embark on its annual harassment campaign against Japanese whalers has stepped up its effort this season by enlisting the aid of ... Godzilla. The swift and ominous-looking interceptor vessel has the moniker Gojira, named after the ferocious monster in the legendary Japanese film, which in English means Godzilla. The 115-foot boat was launched by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society on Monday in Fremantle, Australia, and has joined the larger vessels, Steve Irwin and Bob Barker, in Hobart. At midweek all three will begin their journey to Antarctic waters, where their crews will await the...

NORFOLK In a historic decision, a jury in federal court today convicted five Somali nationals of piracy in the April 1 attack on the Norfolk-based frigate Nicholas. It’s the first time in nearly 200 years that a jury returned a guilty verdict in a piracy case in a U.S. court and now likely sets up years of appeals. The five men face mandatory life in prison. Each defendant stood without expression as the court clerk announced guilty verdicts on each of 14 counts. Their lawyers were polling the jury to ensure the verdict was read correctly. The jury deliberated about...

The most astonishing thing about Sarah Palin’s career, since the conclusion of the 2008 presidential campaign, is how frequently the Left breaks itself to pieces against the sunny rocks of her good humor. The latest example is the website Gawker, which seems on the verge of being sued out of existence because they rushed to leak photocopied pages from her new book, America By Heart, before it was published. When Palin called them on it, Gawker ran a snotty response, complete with an unflattering photo of the former Governor, suggesting she try reading fair-use copyright laws. Mary Sue at the...

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.” COICA is the latest effort by Hollywood, the recording industry and...

Five Somalis facing piracy charges were simple fishermen kidnapped, and at times blindfolded, by war lords and forced to take part in attacks on vessels in the Indian Ocean, their attorneys told a jury in federal court today. But to convince the jury that they’re innocent of trying to attack the Navy frigate Nicholas on April 1, they will have to somehow overcome their own words – confessions they gave to U.S. officials. Some wondered why the Somalis had the same rights as U.S. citizens... The Nicholas was on counter-piracy patrol more than 500 miles off the east African coast...

The military airlifted the suspected hijackers of the Arctic Sea and most of its Russian crew from Cape Verde to Moscow on Thursday, after the lumber freighter mysteriously vanished and reappeared in the Atlantic. Eleven of the 15 crew members arrived in Moscow, while the captain and three sailors remained on the ship, which was adrift about 200 nautical miles from the West African island nation of Cape Verde. Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the freighter was sailing to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. The sailors and their suspected captors arrived in two separate Il-76 cargo jets at the...

Pirates have left the German vessel Beluga Fortune, which they captured in the Indian Ocean on Sunday. According to the coordinator of a sailor support program for East Africa Andrew Mvangura, the pirates chose to leave after the ship’s crew locked themselves in a safe area pending the arrival of military ships.None of the crew, among them three Russians, were hurt. Ships of the Russian Navy are assisting international efforts off the Horn of Africa.

ZAPATA - Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, Jr. tells CHANNEL 5 NEWS armed pirates shot at a McAllen couple on Falcon Lake this afternoon. The husband and wife were jetskiing near Old Guerrero. One their way back to shore, pirates in a boat pulled up next to them and started shooting at them. The husband was hit, possibly in the head. The woman tried to save him and ended up being at shot as well. She had to turn around and leave her husband in the water. She fears he's dead.

The Indian Navy neutralised a pirate attack planned on merchant vessels passing through the Gulf of Aden on Sunday. Indian naval ship INS Delhi, a guided missile destroyer, has been deployed in the Gulf of Aden since July to escort and thwart pirate attacks on merchant vessels. INS Delhi was escorting 12 merchant vessels, including an Indian flagged merchant vessel Jag Ratan, when a small-sized, corridor boat named Bareeda was detected 180 kilometres off the Somalian coast. The boat was moving towards the merchant vessels at very high speed. INS Delhi tried to alert the boat on the Mercantile Marine...

U.S. Marines Retake Ship From Pirates By CHIP CUMMINS DUBAI—U.S. Marines early Thursday boarded and seized control of a German-owned commercial vessel that had been commandeered by pirates, in what appeared to be the first American-led military boarding of its kind amid a recent surge of attacks in the Gulf of Aden and along the east coast of Africa. A raiding party of 24 Marines boarded the ship about 85 miles southeast of Mukallah, Yemen, in the Gulf of Aden, according to the U.S. Navy. Pirates had captured the vessel, which was carrying steel chains, in the same vicinity the...