Armed pirates kidnap 23 sailors off West Africa, maritime officials say

[nadinbrzezinski]

LAGOS, Nigeria — Armed pirates raided a tanker off the West African coast and kidnapped 23 sailors Wednesday, sailing off with the vessel in waters increasingly at risk of piracy, an international monitoring group said.

The International Maritime Bureau, which tracks piracy worldwide, said pirates boarded the tanker as it idled about 62 nautical miles from Benin's capital of Cotonou.

Pirates struck as the Cyprus-flagged vessel tried to transfer its cargo of crude oil to a Norwegian-registered ship, said Cyrus Mody, a manager at the the bureau.
The pirates sailed off with the crew to an unknown location, Mody said.

Meanwhile, the same group of pirates attacked the Norwegian ship, though the crew was able to lock themselves into a strong room and wait for the attackers to leave, Mody said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44517751/ns/world_news-africa/

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Why aren't these shipped either equipped with arms or security?

Pirates are to be expected at this point.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. international Maritime conventions

[Posteritatis]

3. Because then they often wouldn't be allowed to dock at their destinations. (nt)

[LooseWilly]

4. Yarr!! good for them pirates what're early celebrating talk like a pirate day!!

http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

With any luck we'll soon be adding Somali and Nigerian dialectical tics to Talk Like A Pirate Day celebrations...

In the meantime... when peoples, globally, are going without... they'll not always starve peacefully... some will go all piratical... and I say— good on them... fuck up the merchant lanes for your profit until they catch you and hang you off the yard arm— yarr!

(Seriously though... if global economic systems tend to disenfranchise and push toward starvation, then piracy, banditry and petty thuggishness ought to be expected... for industrialized countries whose early economic development was largely financed by the slave trade to act aghast about this fact is hypocritical at best... people will try to take their shit just like they took other people's shit... the US government holds no greater moral authority than a Somali pirate... just an older claim of traditional and expected authority...)