This is great news and I hope they can establish a few other places to prosecute these guys. We must square away the legal process for dealing with pirates, and end this stupid ‘catch and release’ game we keep playing. I also think that we should put these pirates to […]

   Interesting move, but as the last sentence in the article specifies, the pirates are completely going off the hunting reservation.  Now if the Japanese built a prison on their base to keep all of these pirates, now that would be something.  Then we can end this catch and release program once and for all. […]

   I wanted to put this up, because they gave a mention to MPRI training the Equatorial Guinea navy.  I posted the job ad for this gig awhile back, and it is cool to hear a little something about it. Although the hardhat Stetsons decorated with the ’stars and stripes’ is a little much for me. lol […]

     “I came here with my friends. They had a gun and were immediately recruited and joined companies. But I’ve never had a gun so, after a fairly long process, I was told to take part in training for a month and now I can join,” he told Reuters by phone from the coastal, […]

   A big thanks to Cannoneer #4 for posting this in the comments of yesterday’s post on piracy. Other folks sent me the same link to this publication and I was very interested in what Theodore Richard had to say.  To say the least, I was impressed and this paper was well researched and footnoted. (as a good […]

    “I don’t think we can sustain the level of operation we’ve got down there forever,” said Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald did not indicate the Navy would abandon the mission any time soon. Instead, his remarks suggest that the answer to piracy may lie elsewhere – especially if it becomes a more violent activity. He says the shipping […]

   Thanks to Gary for sending me this.  I read this and laughed, and then I wanted to pull my hair out.  How incredibly frustrating this must be for the navies out there that continue to capture these pirates, and then let them go?  At this point, the only real options available are either to […]

    U.S. government policy is “to deny hostage takers the benefits of ransom, prisoner releases, policy changes, or other acts of concession,” the White House said in a statement today.
***** 
   This is the only article I could find that listed the administration’s follow up statement on the matter.  This quote was also added as an […]

   Wow, if this is interpreted this way, this would be very significant.  If in fact ransoms were considered ‘donations’, well then private security is now the only option that shipping companies would have.  Stand by for more on this one, and already the companies are jumping on this.  Check out the Marque Star’s press release in […]