Somali Pirate Economics

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-07/ff_somali_pirates

by tc • 17 years ago

43 14 17 years ago

wired.com

wglb• 17 years ago

Anyone else get "video unavailable" on the video?

andreyf• 17 years ago

This kind of deframes the reality of international over-fishing and dumping of toxic waste in Somalia:

According to Nick Nuttall of the United Nations Environmental Programme, "Somalia has been used as a dumping ground for hazardous waste starting in the early 1990s, and continuing through the civil war there," and "European companies found it to be very cheap to get rid of the waste, costing as little as $2.50 a tonne, where waste disposal costs in Europe are something like $1000 a tonne."

If my family started getting radiation sickness, that would add quite a bit of emotional justification for piracy...

Src: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_Somalia#Sovereignty_a...

tokenadult• 17 years ago

Both issues are symptoms of a country without effective governance.

nopassrecover• 17 years ago

Both issues are symptoms of an inadequate international system of governance. If the United Nations had any power it would have stepped in diplomatically to prevent the dumping and stepped in militarily to prevent the piracy.

philwelch2• 17 years ago

It's interesting that even pirates need outside investment, rather than simply being able to bootstrap. This need is significant, given the 50% cut going to financiers.

It's also interesting that piracy is still low enough of a cost that it doesn't justify rerouting ships, landing marines, or any of the other traditional responses to piracy.

pbhj3• 17 years ago

Isn't the traditional response to post a few blokes with guns, big guns, and attempt to blow any pirates out of the water? Aren't ship's crew using guns for protection?

philwelch2• 17 years ago

You'd think so. There must be legal issues with this approach, since you'd have to have deck-mounted machine guns to have much chance. Or maybe, as with everything else described in this article, deck-mounted machine guns wouldn't have enough cost-benefit.

sokoloff3• 17 years ago

A substantial part of why foreign flagged merchant vessels get easy access to ports is that they are "known" to not be armed.

We wouldn't let a <pick a foreign country not too friendly with us> warship steam into Boston Harbor. Same country's oil tanker or cargo ship? Come on in.

Somali Pirate Economics

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