By Eugene Agha
Lagos — Strong indications emerged yesterday that a group of pirates collected 400,000 US dollars (about N88 million) as ransom before they freed the three foreigners kidnapped off the coast of Nigeria on February 3.
Until they were kidnapped, the two Greeks and a Pakistani worked on board a Greek oil
24 February 2015
Dirk Siebels thinks that the private sector should contribute further to Africa’s maritime security. As he sees it, private maritime security companies (PMSCs) can help close short-term capability gaps, thereby allowing African countries to develop their own abilities over time.
By Dirk Siebels for African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
This article was originally published by ACCORD in Conflict Trends (2014: 4).
Maritime matters have long been neglected in most African countries. While almost all coastal states on the continent claim an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that stretches out to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from the coastline, little effort has been made to realise the ocean’s economic potential. In recent
In ten chapters of the book, Palmer packs knowledge on modern piracy that includes “political developments of Somalia’ in which he revisits the relationship between the political collapse of modern Somalia and the political and economic consequences for Somalis, and also the effects the ensuing chaos have had for Somalia’s neighbours and the world.
Palmer further discusses topics such as the Pirate Coast highlighting the value of the more than 3,000km-long coast of Somalia to pirates.
It looks like 2014 may have been the most dangerous year for Asian seafarers in almost a decade. According to the Singapore-based Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP), 183 actual or attempted attacks took place in Southeast Asian waters during 2014. This figure represents a marked increase from 150 in 2013 and 133 in 2012, and is the highest since 2006.
The latest figures released by the International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) Piracy Reporting Center corroborate ReCAAP’s findings and show a similar increase in attacks in 2013 and 2014. Since a total of 245 attacks