Word: cargo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Somalia's lawless coast have taken in more than $100 million in ransom payments since 2007, and this year their attacks became ever more brazen. Somali pirates targeted close to 100 ships in 2009, ranging from supertankers to fishing boats. In April, a raiding party seized the U.S. cargo ship M.V. Maersk Alabama--the first American ship to be successfully hijacked since the 1800s--but all the pirates were killed or captured in the ensuing standoff with a U.S. Navy destroyer. The navies of more than two dozen nations now patrol the Gulf of Aden, and cargo ships have begun...
...That's the same type of SAM they used to shoot down Eugene Hasenfus," a bystander remarks, referring to the CIA contractor pilot whose cargo plane was downed by Sandinista soldiers in 1986, while making a supply drop for "contra" insurgents. More recently, the U.S. has tried to get Nicaragua to destroy its remaining stockpile of surface-to-air missiles, allegedly out of fear they'll fall into terrorist hands. But Nicaragua has insisted it will hold on to its 400 SAM-7s for strategic defense purposes - and amusement park photo ops. (Read "Nicaragua: Where Every Day is Christmas...
...that's part of a controversy. A senior U.S. Navy official said that this is the first time since the plague of Somali pirates erupted in the Indian Ocean that a major cargo shipping line deterred pirates with gunfire. While commercial shipping lines have been leery of hiring armed security forces for their vessels, "we clearly think that if you value your cargo, you need that last line of defense," said Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet responsible for the seas in that part of the world.(See photos of the pirates of Somalia...
...reliable non-lethal means of curbing piracy remains elusive. On Wednesday, the pirates "fired upon the ship, and the embarked security team responded with warning shots, and the pirates fired back, and the embarked security team fired back - and there was no piracy event," Gortney said. All aboard the cargo ship were reported safe; it was not known if the pirates suffered casualties...
Gortney called the LRAD "a terrific non-lethal weapon," and said cargo ships plying those waters should also use other means - slippery foam and barbed wire around ships' entry and exit points - to ward off pirates. But kinder, gentler techniques have their limits. "At the end of the day, if your opponent has an AK-47, the LRAD is not quite as effective as that AK-47," he said. "A well-placed round from an M-16 is far more effective than that LRAD...