CNN: British couple's plight as pirate captives

It has been just over one year since retired couple Paul and Rachel Chandler were snatched from their yacht by pirates while sailing from the Seychelles towards Tanzania.

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CNN: Somali pirate suspects indicted in Spain

A Spanish judge indicted two Somali pirate suspects in Madrid on Monday, while pirates held a Spanish fishing boat and its crew off the Somali coast for the 46th day.

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How to fend off a pirate attack

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CNN: Global pirate attacks on the increase

The first nine months of this year has seen more pirate attacks than all of last year. And more than half of those attacks were carried out by suspected Somali pirates, an international maritime watchdog group said Wednesday.

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CNN: Pirates release Malaysian tugboat after seven months

Somali pirates have released a Malaysian tugboat and 11 crew members after holding them for more than seven months, an international business group reported Monday.

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CNN: Pirates Seize Greek Ship

Pirates hijacked a 35,000-ton Greek-owned bulk carrier in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, the European Union's Maritime Security Center said.

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CNN: Pirates hijack Italian tugboat in Gulf of Aden

An Italian tugboat sent a distress call to a NATO ship Saturday before it was hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden

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Round the world racers to go on pirate alert

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LONDON, England (CNN) -- Eight yachts competing in the Volvo Ocean Race round-the-world event will be kept closely briefed on piracy threats and monitored by warships as they approach the troubled waters of the Arabian Sea.

Into stormy waters: the Volvo fleet are threatened more than just heavy seas on the second leg to Cochin, India.

Currently on the second leg of the race, between Cape Town, South Africa, and Cochin, India, the Volvo Ocean Race fleet is attempting to avoid the worst of the pirate danger zone, heading south east of the Arabian Sea area where pirates seized a Saudi-owned crude tanker and 25 crew members on Monday.

The U.S. Navy confirmed that the vessel, Sirius Star, had been stormed by pirates and the crew held hostage.

Piracy in the Gulf of Aden region, particularly in the waters off Somalia, has soared this year with the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reporting more than 60 incidents in the first nine months of the year.

A Volvo Ocean Race spokesman told CNN that the course had been changed to help dodge the piracy threat.

"If it went straight to Cochin they would get a lot closer to the danger area," he said.

Race organizers added a scoring way point below Mauritius, and an exclusion zone above the country to keep the fleet east and away from Somalia, he said.

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The crews were about a week away from getting close to the danger zone, and it was expected they would get no closer than about 600 miles from where attacks had been reported, the spokesman said.

They would be briefed on any potential dangers when they drew closer to the northern Indian Ocean, he added.

Before the leg began, teams were also briefed on the pirate threat by Graeme Gibbon Brooks of maritime intelligence service Dryad Maritime.

"There are places you are going to which could prove problematic. There are a places where a piracy threat exists and there are also challenges of avoiding other boats. The purpose of this briefing is advice on how to avoid a situation and what to do if you can't," he told the crews.

Ken Read, skipper of one of the race's main contenders, PUMA Ocean Racing, said before the second leg started: "It's a step into the unknown for all of us.

"The ocean arena we usually race in will now be the real world. We need to prepare right so we know what to do to avoid problems."

The position of the all the competing boats is also being monitored closely, the spokesman said.

The UK Maritime Trade Organization (UKMTO), based in Dubai, would be monitoring the positions of the boats and feed them into a database passed out to warships to assess.

If the crews make it through the second leg unscathed they then face another dangerous jaunt through the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca, and the waters between west Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra on leg three.

Telefonica Blue led the eight teams on Monday as the boats headed east, away from the African continent.

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Chemical Tanker Hijacked off Lawless Somali Coast

From Amanda!

CNN 11 November 2008

(CNN) -- Armed pirates have hijacked a Philippines chemical tanker off the coast of Somalia, but Indian forces thwarted an attack on one of its vessels, authorities said Tuesday.

A U.S. Navy patrol monitors the MV Faina -- in the hands of pirates since September 25.

Twenty-three crew members were on board the chemical tanker when pirates seized it in the Gulf of Aden on Monday, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

He did not disclose the nationalities of the crew members.

Thirty-three ships have been hijacked off the Somali coast this year despite increased security, Choong said.

Eleven vessels -- most notably the Ukrainian freighter, MV Faina which is loaded with tanks and weapons, seized September 25 -- remain in the hands of pirates along with more than 200 crew.

Meanwhile, Indian marines repulsed a pirate attack on an Indian merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, the country's defense ministry said.

An armed helicopter carrying marine commandoes forced the pirates to abort their hijack attempt, the ministry said.

The Indian navy has been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since October 23 to protect Indian merchant vessels on the route.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that a multinational force of warships has carved out a narrow shipping corridor off the coast of Somalia that is helping protect merchant vessels from pirate attacks, the force's commander said Monday.

Ninety percent of ships transiting the perilous Gulf of Aden are now using the guarded corridor and there have been no hijackings inside the zone since it was set up on August 22, said Danish Commodore Per Bigum Christensen.

In a telephone interview from his East African base in Djibouti, Christensen said coalition naval forces were also having success using planes, helicopters and drones to find and track suspect vessels until they can be boarded and searched, AP said.

Turkish ship 'distressed' in pirate waters

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/10/30/somalia.pirate/index.html#cnnSTCText