In this man’s opinion the announcement for a Greek restructuring is imminent. Like in the next two weeks. Does this fellow actually know the timing? No, but trust me, they guy is connected. Something is about to break in Greek sovereign debt. Now Pirates:
Back on 2/11 I reported that a Greek flagged super tanker containing 1mm barrels of crude was hijacked by the Somali Pirates. The boat was released by the pirates recently. The ransom paid was $13,500,000. It was paid in cash. Used hundred dollar bills.
Of significance to my friend was that most of the tanker crew released unharmed. There was an important exception. Seven crew members from India were retained. The unlucky seven are continuing to be held as hostages by the pirates. There are ongoing negotiations regarding a prisoner exchange. Apparently India has captured a hundred or so pirates over the past few years. They are currently in Indian custody. The pirates want to swap those bad boys for the Indian crew. This represents a significant ratcheting up of things. Apparently the Indians are very pissed. It is unlikely that the prisoner exchange will happen. At some point in the not to distant future some Indians are going to be killed as a result. The only alternative is for India to kill some pirates first. Look for that to happen pretty soon. Speaking of killing pirates this is a video from last year that I thought was disturbing. (link)
The story is that Russia forces captured a pirate ship. They chained the pirates to the hull, and then blew up the ship. I can’t confirm that from published sources. But that is the word that I got from one ship owner. The following is an edited (shorter) version of the video. You decide what is going on here:
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If I lived in Somalia and watched the shit, piss and trash dumped from freighters before they head into the Red Sea, Suez canal, wash up on my shores, I'd hijack the ships for a ransom
ReplyDeleteGreat comments as usual. It is inevitable that the pirate action/reaction gets racheted up--the Somalis have tasted some Long Green smoothie and they're going to want more. The problem with escalation is that at some point the pirates will go high tech. I mean, if you could threaten ships with an Exocet/Silkworm missile, you wouldn't need to buy/shoot off too many missiles to get paid not to shoot. And then the navies of the world can patrol all they want and it won't do a bit of good.
ReplyDeleteWhy is killing pirates a bad thing? If things escalate, the pirates lose. They only survive as long as they aren't too much of a problem. The right solution is to spend some money to eliminate some pirates in a way that sends a message to the others. It sounds like that is what the Russians are doing. Do it a couple times and the pirates no longer target Russian ships.
ReplyDeleteWhy is killing pirates a bad thing?
ReplyDeleteI'm not much troubled by killing pirates in fact I think it is generally to the good. The trouble of course is what about the good guys, e.g. the Indians they still hold?
It seems unavoidable that as this piracy business gets dealt with (or ignored) at least some and possibly lots of good guys are going to get killed or hurt. Perhaps the best to hope for is that we'll get through this with the fewest number of good guys getting killed.
We should not kill those pirate rather our govt should help them financially to increase their lively hood
ReplyDeleteBruce Krasting wrote: To address the European sovereign debt problem a very big bazooka is required. It is a trillion dollar (equivalent) ...Marine Jobs
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