Curtas do Lloyd´s List

"Pirates now well funded and better equipped - Por Richard Meade - Somalia’s pirate gangs are being equipped with increasingly sophisticated technology by their land-based backers, according to a United Nations expert. - Pirates are too canny to be defeated by precedent alone - Por Tim Stephenson e Jessica Taylor - Piracy attacks have been in the headlines almost every day in recent months. Some 260 crewmembers and 12 vessels have been held by 10 pirate gangs in 55 attacks just this year. A fifth of kidnaps have lasted 100 days and with some insurance premiums increasing tenfold, the numbers abound and the related estimates change continually. - Last Word: Hungry for it - The piracy crisis in Somalia and the Gulf of Aden throws up some terrible ironies. Not least of these is that the US, in backing Ethiopia to oust the Islamic Courts Union in 2006, is indirectly responsible for the resurgence of a phenomenon that had almost disappeared when the Islamists were in control."