The four Somalis, who were taken aboard the Danish naval vessel patrolling the pirate-infested waters off the coast of the anarchic Horn of African nation on January 7, arrived by airplane in Kenya's port city Mombasa.

"We are happy the Kenyan government has agreed to try the suspected pirates on their soil," Danish foreign ministry official Tomas Konigsfeldt said, after the suspects were handed over to Kenyan police.

Denmark had previously sought to hand the men to the Seychelles for prosecution under an agreement that allows regional countries to try suspected pirates, but the Indian Ocean island turned down the request.

"We call upon other countries which signed the agreement to allow suspected pirates tried on their land too," said Konigsfeldt.

Kenya has already tried and convicted several Somali pirates. The four are expected to appear in court in Mombasa on Monday.

Danish warships are patrolling the seas off Somalia as part of an international anti-piracy force to protect commercial shipping.

Two decades of lawlessness have carved up Somalia into mini-fiefdoms ruled by gunmen and militia, encouraging rampant piracy.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:47 AEST Manila, Philippines (UPI) Feb 16, 2012 - The Philippines navy soon will receive its second decommissioned U.S. Coast Guard ship amid concern that the move sends the wrong signal to China.

Final U.S. approval for the sale of the USCGC Dallas, a Hamilton class cutter, is under way and the 378 foot-long, 3,250-ton vessel should soon sail for the Philippines.

The Dallas was commissioned in 1967 at the Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans. It carries a crew of 167 and can stay at sea for around 45 days, making it a high-endurance vessel.

Armaments included one OTO Melara MK-75 76mm gun, two MK-38 25mm machine gun systems and two MK 36 SRBOC systems. It also had a Phalanx CIWS missile defense gun, along with other mounted machine guns.

The ship is being sold as an excess defense article through the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act 1961.

But the Communist Party of the Philippines said the sale indicates the United States is preparing the Philippines navy as its de facto fighting force against China as the tensions increase in the South China Sea, a report in the Philippines newspaper Business Mirror said.

"The transfer of another naval cutter from the U.S. government serves the purpose of U.S. military buildup on the South China Sea," the CPP said in a statement.

"The United States is able to employ the Philippine navy as an augmentation force in the course of its operations to permanently project its military presence and power in the area and secure the trade routes and Asian markets in the interest of U.S. monopoly capitalist companies."

The CPP also said the acceptance of the Dallas makes the navy a target by enemies of the Philippines.

A report in The Philippine Star newspaper confirmed the sale of the Dallas soon will be completed.

"I'm pleased to report that the congressional review process for another ship - Coast Guard cutter Dallas -- wraps up this week," U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., told a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs hearing on U.S.-Philippine relations. "It should soon be on its way to Manila."

The Dallas joins the former U.S. Coast Guard vessel Hamilton -- renamed the Gregorio del Pilar -- which was decommissioned in March and taken over by the Philippines navy in May.

Royce said the Dallas will bolster the Philippines navy's efforts to maintain its territorial integrity.

Aggressive Chinese claims on the South China Sea -- or the West Philippine Sea as it is referred to in Manila -- are driving the nations of southeast Asia to seek closer U.S. ties," Royce said.

Philippines military spokesman Col. Arnulfo Burgos Jr. said the backing of U.S. politicians by agreeing to military sales helps increase Manila's defensive capabilities, the Star report said.

"This is a welcome development for the armed forces of the Philippines which continues to strive to be more efficient and effective in fulfilling its constitutional mandate of protecting the people and upholding the sovereignty and integrity of its national territory," he said.

The Philippines Business Mirror quoted Andrew Shapiro, U.S. State Department assistant secretary for Political and Military Affairs, saying the Philippines's internal security threat has shifted from terrorism to maritime concerns. The reason is Manila's concern over Chinese intrusions in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, said Shapiro.

Philippines and China dispute ownership of the Spratly Islands, although they are under Manila's control.

Shapiro also said "the United States hasn't taken a position on the claims, we believe it will not be resolved through the use of force," the Business Mirror report said. "We will continue to press that point to all the parties, that's been the U.S. policy under the Obama administration."

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:47 AEST The Hague, Netherlands (UPI) Feb 16, 2012 - The Netherlands this week imposed delays on the ratification of the ACTA international anti-piracy agreement, which critics claim threatens Internet freedoms.

Opponents say the draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement puts users' privacy at risk while the European Commission contends the measure doesn't change existing data protection laws and is needed to mount a long-term global fight against copyright theft.

Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have already delayed the international trade agreement's ratification process, citing the same privacy concerns highlighted during a wave of anti-ACTA protests throughout Europe last week.

The Netherlands joined that group Tuesday, when the Dutch lower house of Parliament backed a motion from the Green Left party calling on the Netherlands to refrain from signing onto ACTA, Radio Netherlands reported.

Lawmakers demanded more clarity on the privacy implications for Dutch Internet users under the terms of the deal, which unites all 27 EU member nations, the United States, Japan, Canada and others countries in a regime in which Internet service providers are expected to cooperate with rights holders of content such as music and movies.

One of the chief fears of opponents is that ISPs will be forced to hand over private information to rights holders about users who distribute "counterfeit" digital content, without first obtaining a court order -- something they say has the potential to destroy the freedom of Internet.

Dunja Mijatovic, media freedom representative for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Tuesday urged the European Parliament to reject ACTA, which it is considering for ratification.

"In my role as the OSCE representative on Freedom of the Media, I am mandated to observe media freedom developments in the OSCE participating states and am concerned that the present agreement on ACTA might have a detrimental effect on freedom of expression and a free flow of information in the digital age," Mijatovic said in Vienna.

Her main concern, she said, is that ACTA "would authorize online service providers to disclose personal information of alleged copyright infringers to rights holders without a court order or the right to appeal, placing the decision on the legal status of content outside the established judicial framework."

The European Commission, however, counters that legal obligations of ISPs aren't changing under ACTA.

"ACTA will not change the role of (ISPs), as is often claimed," a EU position paper says.

Rather, the agreement complies with the Commission's 2000 E-Commerce Directive, which makes it "impossible" for the government to impose "general obligations for ISPs to monitor the information they transmit."

However, the commission noted a memorandum of understanding was struck between rights holders and ISPs in Brussels last year -- signed by such major Internet companies as Microsoft, eBay, Amazon and rights holders such as the Motion Picture Association.

It calls for prompt action by ISPs to police users and remove infringing material at the request of rights owners.

The memorandum states ISPs "commit to disclose … the identity and contact details of alleged infringers and their user names," but only "insofar as permitted by applicable data protection laws," which may require the obtaining of court orders in some countries.

If that's the case, the ISP retains the right to force the copyright holder to procure court authorization, the agreement states.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:47 AEST Mogadishu, Somalia (UPI) Feb 14, 2012 - The plague of Somali pirates marauding across the Indian Ocean has spawned a lucrative security industry that boasts 120 companies providing protection and which the Financial Times says "make more money than the pirates."

This growing business earns revenue of some $55.2 million a month for security firms such as Hart Security of Britain and Templar Titan of the United States, which provide armed guards for around 1,500 voyages a month, the business daily says.

The pirate gangs that prowl 1,500 nautical miles eastward into the Indian Ocean shipping lanes, including the heavy oil tanker traffic coming out of the Persian Gulf, amassed $160 million in ransom money from shipping lines in 2011.

"Piracy is a lucrative business not only for Somali pirates but to many profiteers who make more money than the pirates themselves," said Peter Cook, director of U.K. Security Association for the Maritime Industry.

"Some of them are cowboys -- they have no proper security training, they're inefficient, incompetent and they want money."

The Security Association, known as Sami, was established in 2011 to accredit companies offering armed and unarmed guards for ships. Cook estimated that by the end of 2012 some 20 percent of the shipping companies operating in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden will be carrying armed guards.

The security situation regarding merchant ships was confused for some time after the pirates became a problem three years ago, although that's becoming more organized.

The navies of some 30 countries patrol the piracy zones with destroyers and frigates as part of NATO's Operation Ocean Shield and the European Union's Operation Atalanta.

They've prevented some hijackings and rescued captured crews but generally they've not proved effective in combating the piracy scourge in the vast waters of the Indian Ocean.

Shipping companies spent $1.1 billion on security equipment and armed guards in 2011, with another $635 million going on insurance, a Feb. 8 report by Colorado's One Earth Future Foundation stated. Shipping firms pay around $5,000 a day for a four-man armed team serving for up to 20 days.

With maritime trade expected to grow, "there are rich pickings to be had" for the expanding security outfits," Cook observed.

"Some of the big maritime security companies have improved their turnover by 350 percent in the last year."

Some countries allow armed guards on their merchant ships; others don't largely because of the complex legal and financial consequences of engaging pirates in combat and the fears that armed guards would escalate the violence.

But as pirate attacks mounted, Britain's coalition government ruled in October that ships sailing off Somalia can carry armed guards with rocket-propelled grenades, automatic rifles and handguns.

Greece, Japan and the Netherlands don't permit weapons aboard their vessels. But the vast majority of ships that sail pirate-infested waters eastward from the Gulf of Aden fly the flags of Liberia, Panama and the Bahamas, which permit armed guards.

"The evidence is that ships with armed guards don't get attacked," British Prime Minister David Cameron said in October.

"The fact that a bunch of pirates in Somalia is managing to hold to ransom the rest of the world and our trading system is, I think, a complete insult."

Over the last couple of years, pirate gangs operating out of Somalia have become highly organized.

By using captured mid-size vessels as mother ships for the high-speed attack boats, the pirate groups can operate for longer periods over greater distances than they managed before.

The International Maritime Bureau, a U.N. agency, says attempted pirate attacks worldwide reached record levels in the first nine months of 2011. Of the 352 listed, 199 took place in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, compared to 126 in the equivalent period the year before.

However, the number of successful hijackings fell from 35 to 24, the IMB reported.

Even so, armed guards or no, Somalia piracy cost the global economy $6.6 billion-$6.9 billion in 2011 and the $160 million paid out in ransom by shipping companies "was outstripped by the far bigger sums they spent on preventing attacks," the Financial Times reported.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:47 AEST Lagos (AFP) Feb 13, 2012 - Pirates fired on a cargo vessel off the coast of Nigeria on Monday killing the captain and chief engineer, a maritime watchdog body said as it warned shipping to stay clear of the area.

"Armed pirates chased and fired upon a drifting bulk carrier. Vessel raised alarm and headed towards Lagos. All crew except the bridge team took shelter in the citadel," the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre said in a statement.

Cyrus Mody, a manager at the IMB, said the vessel's captain and chief engineer "were killed in the shooting."

The attack, which took place 110 nautical miles off the coast, is one of three to have occurred in the area since Thursday, the IMB said.

The attackers are believed to be "Nigerian pirates", according to Noel Choong, head of the IMB's Kuala Lumpur-based piracy reporting centre.

He said the centre had alerted Nigerian authorities, who launched an operation to intercept the pirates and rescue the ship. He could not provide any information on the origins of the ship or its crew.

Nigeria's navy spokesman Kabir Aliyu confirmed the attack.

"MV FORCES was attacked by pirates at about 11O nautical miles south of Lagos Fairway Bouy. Two crew members seriously injured and later reported dead. Others sustained various degrees of injuries," he said in a statement to AFP.

The ship was sailing towards Lagos Fairway bouy, he said, adding that the rescue operation was being coordinated by state-run Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency and the navy maritime guard while its special naval joint operation in neighbouring Benin has also be alerted, he added.

"We are still searching for the vessel," he said.

The IMB said other recent attacks in the area included a tanker that was hijacked south of Nigeria on Thursday. Nigerian vessels intercepted that ship and rescued its crew.

The IMB, which is funded by shipowners, warned in September that the seas off Benin, Nigeria's neighbour, were emerging as a new piracy "hotspot" due to the weak enforcement capabilities of governments in the region.

West African leaders are scheduled to discuss the piracy issue at a regional summit that opens in Nigeria's capital on Wednesday.

Unlike the explosion of piracy off the coast of Somalia on the eastern side of the continent in recent years, those involved in the recent west African attacks have so far not appeared to be after ransom payments.

Fuel or oil cargo has been stolen for sale on the region's lucrative black market, while robberies have also occurred. Crew members have been beaten and the pirates tend to be heavily armed.

The theft of such cargo tends to be relatively sophisticated, with tankers often being directed to another pirate-controlled ship, where the fuel is transferred and then taken elsewhere for sale.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:47 AEST London, UK (SPX) Jan 31, 2012 - World business leaders are being encouraged to add their support to a fast-growing international anti-piracy initiative backed by twenty-eight of the world's largest shipping organisations.

Save Our Seafarers is lobbying support from business leaders to increase international pressure on governments to take firmer action to combat Somali piracy. Since its launch in March the campaign has gained rapid support from the UK, Philippine and Georgian governments. The campaign website has attracted visits from 184 countries worldwide, leading to more than 26,000 individual letters from members of the public to the heads of state of more than 100 countries around the world.

The worsening violence and hostage-taking is costing the world economy an estimated $12 billion a year.

SOS SaveOurSeafarers Campaign Chair Giles Heimann, said:"These criminal gangs are holding the world economy to ransom. Hundreds of seafarers have been held hostage and the physical and mental ill-treatment they are forced to suffer makes horrifying reading. Sixty-five seafarers have died as a direct result of Somali piracy in the past five years, through torture, murder, suicide, malnutrition and disease. The potential economic impact of the crisis is hugely disturbing given the knife edge on which the global economy is currently perched.

"Any business or organisation that conducts trade though the Suez Canal and across the Indian Ocean to the Indian sub-continent and Asia and Australasia is at risk. That's about one-fifth of global trade. We feel that businesses which rely on these routes remaining safe will be keen to offer their support. They rely on the movement of manufactured goods, raw materials, food and fuel to operate.

"We need help from the world's business leaders who have the foresight to understand the future impact of this progressively escalating problem. In business parlance, the pirate gangs have discovered the meaning of scalability - their criminal 'business model' now extends across an area of ocean twice the size of Europe.

"If this situation continues, there is a real risk that the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and the entire Indian Ocean could become restricted zones for shipping; that seafarers could simply refuse to sail into war-like attacks, captivity and the nightmare of suffering that follows; or that ship owners will not put ships and crews at risk. Using alternative routes will play havoc with costs and there is no alternative to sailing through the area for over 40% of all seaborne oil which originates from the Arabian Gulf region."

The campaign will be contacting such corporate luminaries as JCB's Alan Blake, Phil Clarke of Tesco, Ian Tyler of Balfour Beatty and UK Vodaphone chief, Guy Laurence.

"Part of the role of business leaders is to seek opportunities and identify threats, "says Heimann. "Shipping industry representatives are in a position to make direct contact with world business leaders. We see it as our duty to warn them of the threat to their businesses posed by severe restrictions to one fifth of the world's major sea trade routes.

"We hope that in turn, they will bring pressure upon their respective governments to eliminate the piracy threat."

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:47 AEST Madrid (AFP) Jan 21, 2012 - A group of Somali suspected pirates were in jail in Spain Saturday pending trial following an attack on a Spanish warship, authorities said.

The group of six men arrived in the country late Friday after they were arrested off the Somali coast January 12.

Spanish navy officials say the men had opened fire at the support-and-combat vessel Patino, which was taking part in a European Union security mission.

A high court judge on Saturday ordered five to be detained ahead of their trial. The sixth remained in hospital for treatment of foot wounds, though he too was expected to be placed in custody, officials said.

The men are charged with several crimes including attempted piracy and disobeying a warship. A trial date was not immediately set.

The five who were in court all denied having attacked the Spanish warship with grenades and assault rifles, insisting instead they were starving fishermen who had approached the Patino for help after spending three weeks without eating.

When the court was shown a military video of the men allegedly throwing weapons overboard, the Somalis said they were merely dumping garbage bags into the sea.

The Patino operates under the EU's Operation Atalanta, a multinational mission to protect ships in the perilous shipping route off the coast of Somalia, where hundreds of seamen have been taken hostage.

The Patino eventually returned fire against the Somalis, who said another in their group was killed.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:47 AEST Brussels (AFP) Jan 16, 2012 - A NATO warship went to the rescue this weekend of an Iranian-flagged vessel whose engine broke down just days after its rescue from pirates by another NATO ship, the alliance said Monday.

An Italian ship, the ITS Grecale, offered the five Iranian and nine Pakistani crew food and water and worked through the night to fix the engine, but to no avail, NATO said in a statement.

"The engine was too badly damaged to repair at sea," the statement said.

"NATO offered to transfer the crew to the closest port, but they chose to stay with their vessel," it added. The ITS Grecale "is remaining in the area to monitor the situation, ready to provide further assistance if required."

The ship had been released from suspected Somali pirates on January 7 by a Danish warship, the HDMS Absalon.

That operation came days after a US warship, the USS Carney, intercepted the Indian-flagged dhow Al-Qashmi off the southwestern coast of Oman and freed its 20 Indian crew members.

The weekend assistance comes amid heightened tensions between the international community and Tehran.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:47 AEST The Hague (AFP) Jan 17, 2012 - Dutch marines guarding a merchant ship have warded off an attack by pirates after it was accosted in the Arabian Sea south of Yemen, the Dutch defence ministry said Tuesday.

"Dutch marines warded off the attack when pirates approached the Flintstone", a ship that dumps rocks to protect oil and gas pipelines, at around 6:00 am (0500 GMT), it said in a statement.

The Flintstone's crew sheltered in a safe room as a fishing vessel launched a fast moving skiff towards the merchant vessel.

"The marines tried in vain to stop the fast-moving skiff, occupied by six men armed with an assortment of weapons including a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), by firing tracers as a warning," the ministry said.

After one of the men aimed the RPG at the ship, the marines fired on the skiff, which turned around and joined the larger fishing vessel.

"It's not excluded that there may have been casualties among the attackers," the ministry said.

The Flintstone was underway from Singapore to Malta through the Suez Canal when the attack happened, it added.

Dutch marines teams of the Vessel Protection Detachment (VPD) are in certain instances put on board merchant ships on request from the ship's owners, the defence ministry said on its website.

Last year "heavily armed" VPD teams accompanied 11 ships through pirate infested waters, it added.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:47 AEST Shanghai (AFP) Jan 15, 2012 - Unidentified attackers fired on a Chinese cargo boat on the Mekong River in Laos, China's police said Sunday, less than two months after Beijing began joint patrols to protect shipping.

Shots were fired at the Chinese ship Sheng Tai 11 on Saturday evening, but none of the crew was wounded, China's Ministry of Public Security said in a statement on its website.

The boat, which had five crew members, was carrying wood, Chinese state television reported.

China last month deployed more than 300 armed police to patrol the Mekong in boats in collaboration with Myanmar, Thailand and Laos after a deadly attack killed 13 Chinese sailors in October last year.

In the latest incident, the Chinese ship was returning to China from Thailand, the statement said.

After the attack occurred, patrol ships from both Laos and China responded and Laos was still pursuing those suspected of carrying out the shooting.

The Mekong flows through China's southwestern province of Yunnan into Southeast Asia, serving as a major trade route through several countries.

China reacted angrily to the October attack, sending patrol boats down the Mekong to retrieve 164 stranded Chinese sailors and 28 cargo ships and calling on diplomats from Thailand, Laos and Myanmar to speed up investigations.

Since then, police in Thailand have detained nine soldiers suspected of killing the Chinese sailors and are also thought to have links with a Myanmar drug kingpin.

In a separate incident earlier this month, an unidentified rebel group fired grenades targeting Myanmar soldiers on a patrol boat that was accompanying four Chinese cargo ships on the Mekong, but missed.

]]> Tue, 21 FEB 2012 08:57:47 AEST Subscribe to our daily selection of space, military, environment and energy newsletters responseText http://visitor.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=0016gbbKsaiGSpQFojVO8ZoHw%3D%3D