Somalia's Growing Piracy Problem

WATCHED: Pirates leave the Faina. U.S. copters often check out boats moving to and from the hijacked Ukrainian vessel, which is loaded with 33 Soviet-era tanks and other military hardware. Jason R. Zalasky / U.S. Navy

Somalia's Pirate Problem Grows More Rampant
-- L.A. Times

For many Somalis on the coast, piracy is the only way to earn a living in a country without a functioning government and faced with soaring inflation, civil war and rising malnutrition.

Reporting from Haradhere, Somalia, and Nairobi, Kenya -- Straddling a wooden crate filled with $1 million in cash ransom, a cranky old pirate bellows names from a notebook as his anxious, bleary-eyed minions lean against the stone walls of their cramped hide-out.

The grizzled buccaneer, chain-smoking Marlboros as he taps into his calculator, checks the notebook again for outstanding loans or fines before counting out each man's share of the bounty in musty $100 bills paid to release a hijacked Thai ship off the Somali coast.

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My Comment: If this is not stopped .... every failed state in Africa with a coast will be involved in this business. Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Somalia, Eritria, etc...