Hunt of the Sea Wolves

The Japan Times

The Self-Defense Forces will be allowed to open fire on pirate boats defying warnings to stop approaching civilian vessels under a provision to be included in the planned antipiracy bill, a project team of the ruling coalition agreed.

The government has been asked to make final adjustments so that together with the ruling coalition it can next week endorse the bill designed to authorize the dispatch of Maritime Self-Defense Force ships off Somalia on an antipiracy mission.

The Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling bloc asked the government to outline the bill by March 4.  The project team is aiming to have the bill approved by the Cabinet on March 10.

The government plans to allow MSDF destroyers to protect non-Japanese ships from pirates only if such vessels join Japan-linked ships escorted by the destroyers, or if they happen to be near the site of pirate attacks on non-Japanese ships.

Read story in The Japan Times

Manila Times

Sen. Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC), has appealed to the military to pull out from the area where the Abu Sayyaf was holding three workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as hostages in Sulu to facilitate negotiations for their safe release.But Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro rejected the call. “Definitely not, we will not pull out, we will follow the dictates of the crisis management committee,” he said, referring to the task force of which the military is a part.

The Abu Sayyaf kidnapped the three ICRC hostages—Swiss Andreas Notter, Italian Eugenio Vagni and Filipino Mary Jean Lacaba—on January 15 while they were inspecting a water facility at the Jolo municipal jail.

The Abu Sayyaf’s new leader, Albader Parad, warned that if the government troops refused to withdraw, no negotiations could proceed for the release of the ICRC hostages. There were fears that he could even kill them if his men were forced against the wall.Read story at the Manila Times

Asia Times

Just as things were getting quiet in conflict-ridden Mindanao, another high-profile kidnapping incident has put the Philippines and the Abu Sayyaf group back in the global spotlight.

Last month, a group of unidentified armed men seized three aid workers from the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) in Jolo, Sulu, where they were working on a water and sanitation project for a local prison. The three - an Italian, a Swiss and a Filipino - were in a car on their way to the airport when armed men on motorbikes blocked their path and abducted them.

As with previous kidnappings in southern Mindanao, the three workers were delivered by the kidnappers to the Abu Sayyaf, which is battling against United States-supported government forces in their strongholds in the southwest area of the island, including the Sulu, Tawi-Tawi and Basilan provinces.

Read story at Asia Times

International Herald Tribune

China’s navy has rescued an Italian ship from a pirate attack off the Somali coast, Chinese state media said Thursday.

Few details were given in the one-line report by the official Xinhua News Agency. The ship was identified only as an Liberian-flagged Italian merchant vessel whose crew had been attacked.

If verified, the rescue operation would be the first direct engagement between the Chinese navy and Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden since Beijing dispatched a three-ship squadron for anti-piracy operations last December.

Read story at the International Herald Tribune

America.gov

The United States and other international partners are helping African governments confront piracy and improve maritime security on two coasts of Africa. While the waters off the coast of Somalia rank number 1 in the world for piracy and armed robbery at sea and the Gulf of Guinea on Africa’s west coast ranks closely behind in the number 2 spot, the two regions have different scenarios and different types of crime.

Jun Bando, the maritime security coordinator and U.S. Africa Command liaison for the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, made that point February 19 in an interview with America.gov.

Looking at the problems in the two regions, Bando said, “What we are seeing off the coast of Somalia [is] … acts such as ship hijacking, which is often committed on the high seas or international waters. In the Gulf of Guinea, the balance leans toward criminal acts that happen within a country’s territorial waters.”

Read story at America.gov

Easy Bourse

Switzerland will offer to send soldiers to take part in European Union anti-piracy naval operations off the coast of Somalia, the Swiss Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.

“A participation of Switzerland on the E.U. Mission NAVFOR Atalanta will be limited to a military deployment for the protection of World Food Program ships and can, if necessary, also extend to the protection of Swiss freight ships,” said a statement from the ministry.

The deployment would involve up to 30 personnel, with an estimated cost of around $8.4 million.

“The assignment of the Swiss army covers merely the protection of ships and defense from attacks from pirates. A military offensive against pirates on land or in water, that goes above the protection mandate of the military police, is ruled out,” added the statement.

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Business Mirror

SIX soldiers and eight communist guerillas were killed in sporadic gun battles between government forces and New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in Bukidnon, the military said on Tuesday.

            The intermittent fighting, which began at about 7 a.m. on Sunday at barangay Santa Cruz, Quezon town, has also resulted in the wounding of at least 10 rebels, according to Lt. Col. Benedict Arevalo, commander of the Army’s 29th Infantry Battalion (IB).

            Arevalo, whose unit is involved in the fighting, said the casualties among the rebels could be higher following the encounter on Monday, where two more rebels were reported by civilians to have been killed.

Read story at Business Mirror

RIA Novosti

A Russian oil tanker was attacked by pirates off the Nigerian coast but managed to escape with no casualties or damage, a source at a Russian shipping company said on Tuesday.

The Khatanga, owned by the Murmansk Maritime Shipping Company, was attacked on Monday 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Nigerian coast by a speedboat with five pirates on board, but managed to shake off its pursuers after about an hour.

The source said what looked like a fishing vessel, which was moving a short distance away from the tanker, had suddenly changed course heading straight for the Khatanga, ignoring all identification requests.

The tanker turned off all lights, issued a distress call and started moving at full steam while the attackers opened fire with light weapons.

The crew escaped unhurt as they had taken shelter in the engine room before the attack.

Bloomberg

Somali pirates seized a ship carrying coal through the Gulf of Aden, according to DryShips Inc., the vessel’s owner.

The Saldanha was captured yesterday while sailing west through the gulf that links Asia and Europe, said a security officer at Athens-based DryShips who declined to give his name. The vessel had taken maximum security measures to avoid attack and followed all advice given by coalition military forces, he said today by telephone.

Somali piracy attacks surged in 2008, including the hijacking of the fully loaded Saudi Arabian supertanker Sirius Star and a ship carrying tanks. In response, an international coalition of U.S., NATO, United Nations and European Union states has dispatched warships to protect sea lanes, which so far has reduced the attacks.

“It’s definitely concerning that it has happened but the areas that navies are patrolling are absolutely huge,” Cyrus Mody, a London-based manager at the International Maritime Bureau, which collates piracy data, said by phone. It’s still “early days” for military forces in the area after they stepped up protection in mid-December, he said.

Read story at Bloomberg

101 News

South Africa’s navy could be escorting billions of dollars worth of cargo through treacherous East African waters within weeks as attacks by pirates around the continent continue to escalate.

This was revealed on Friday during a media briefing by the South African National Defence Force’s joint operations division in Pretoria.

In scenes reminiscent of convoy escorts during World War 2, the South African Navy could soon be involved in patrolling and escorting hundreds of vessels off the coast of Somalia and the rest of the continent’s eastern coastline.

It is believed that South African ships would escort vessels from South Africa’s territorial waters into Somali waters where other navies, currently patrolling those seas, would take over the escort duties.

Read story at 101 News