Word: ransoms
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There will be plenty of winners if Somali pirates keep their pledge to release the captive Ukrainian freighter MV Faina and its cargo of Russian battle tanks in exchange for a ransom of $3 million - but very little of the booty will go to the pirates themselves. "Our representatives told us that the ship's owners have agreed to a good amount of money," TIME was told this week by a man named Ahmed Gel-Qonaf, 29, who claimed to be among the pirates aboard the Faina, captured in September. "We said if there is money they are ready...
...With piracy being one of the few booming businesses amid the anarchy of Somalia, pirates interviewed by TIME indicated that both the Islamist militia that controls much of the country and elements of the government are inclined to extort a share of the ransom payments - tens of millions of dollars this year alone - whenever possible. The International Maritime Board's Piracy Reporting Center says 14 ships and between 250 and 300 crew members remain in captivity along the Somali coast...
...Still, the capture of the Sirius Star - and the apparent decision to pay ransom to free the MV Faina - makes clear that the efforts of Western and other nation-states to deploy warships to protect commercial shipping from piracy have not been particularly effective against a handful of men equipped with a few rocket-propelled grenades, a fleet of rusty boats and a great deal of pluck. Restrictive rules of engagement and the hazy legality of arresting pirates whose home nation has no functioning legal system have left even the U.S. Navy unable to take the fight to the pirates...
...Conspicuous Consumption Is Safe. It used to be hard to tell rich from poor in Baghdad, especially outside the Green Zone. Fear of being kidnapped for ransom prompted many wealthy Iraqis to feign poverty. Living below one's means became an art form: decrepit cars, cheap cell phones, minimalist jewelry...
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, alarmed that the agreement - which has taken nine months of painstaking negotiations - was about to unravel, fired broadsides in all directions. At a press conference, he lambasted naysayers as political opportunists who were trying to hold his government for ransom, in effect working against the national interest. His anger was directed not only at the Sunni, Sadrist and secular blocks in parliament, which have formed a loose coalition to oppose the SOFA; he also took an unrelated sideswipe at Kurdish politicians, without whose help he cannot hope to have the agreement ratified...