Shipping News.

Somali Pirates been Attacked.
7:21 AM 1/18/2012

Somali Pirates tried to attack and capture a Dutch vessel named M/V Flintstone while it was sailing towards Singapore from Malta. The pirates learned a hard lesson when the Marines stationed on board the vessel opened fire on them to flee away from the vicinity of the Flintstone. It was not known whether any casualties among those fled Somali pirates. But it is expected some to be dead.

When the incident took place all the ship crew went in to hiding in the ships specially designed safe place to maneuver the ship and to safeguard them form the crossfire.
Mean while another group of Somali pirates released a Malta flag Tanker ship and it's crew of 18 after getting US$4 million ransom money.There were 15 Georgians and 3 Turks who were onboard the Greek owned chemical tanker M/V OlibG when it was hijacked on its final voyage to scrap yard in the Gulf of Aden.

Now all the crew members had been transported to port of Mombasa in Kenya through a tugboat while the tanker seems to be abandoned near to the Somali coast.

Transit Passengers at Colombo Airport Doesn't Need Transit visas.
3:37 PM 1/13/2012

Transit passengers changing flights at the Colombo International airport and children under the age of 12 years who are coming as tourist are not requested to have valid visas on their arrival. This was announced by the Sri Lanka Government today. Further more the online visa system is working perfectly to issue the required Srilanka visitor visas while people who want to obtain their visas personally too can obtain them from the Embassies and Consular offices located in most part of the world.

For further Sri Lanka visa information visit our main page.

Maritime School Funded by Foreign Vessel owners
10:56 AM 1/13/2012

It was obviously in recognition of Filipinos as the best seafarers in the world that owners of large ocean-going vessels, particularly those in Europe, decided to fund the Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific (MAAP) located at Kamaya Point in Mariveles. Students must be natural-born Filipinos who were born from January 1, 1991 to March 31, 1996.
More here.

Happy Xmas for 22 marine families. Here

American Navy rescue Iranian fishermen from Pirates.
12:39 PM 1/7/2012
American Navy carrier which received distress signal from the master of an Iranian flagged fishing vessel Al Molai, and responded to its message. They saw the boat with another pirate skiff and took necessary action to release the Iranian people from those pirates. Now those pirates numbering 15 are held onboard to be hand over to a suitable country where they can be prosecuted.

According to the statement of the fishing vessel's master they were captives of the pirates for the last 45 days and their fishing vessel was used as mother ship to attack and hijack merchant ships in the region.

Now the joyful Iranians are on their way to reach their homeland and they thanked the American forces for their effort in releasing them from the pirates.

Seaman from India and South Korea are targeted by Somali Pirates.
9:34 AM 12/3/2011

Somali pirates used to keep those Indian and South Korean seaman as hostages even if they got the ransom money and the ships are released by them. In the recent time one Indian sailor was died while in their custody even after the ship was released after paying the ransom money of millions in dollar. Panama registered ship MV Asphalt Venture was released in the month of April after getting the ransom money and holding 7 of the Indian crew in their custody. Within 8 months of time they are saying 2 of them are dead due to illness where no one can verify yhe accuracy of both the seaman's death.

The Somali pirates want the release of their counterparts from the Indian prison where they were found guilty of armed piracy operation. It seems that the Indian Government only going to take seriou7s action against on these pirates where innocent Somali fishermen too going to be affected if the Somali pirates don't release those held Indian seafarers from their custody.

Somali Pirates Capture Cargo Ship.
8:59 AM 11/30/2011
Somali pirates had captured one more cargo ship off the coast of Oman, with 18 crew members on board it. The vessel is an Italian owned one which includes seven Indians, six Italians and five Ukrainians crew members. The incident took place when the ship was sailing towards Turkey during the festive season and now all these innocent seaman are not only far away form their loving families but also robbed of their freedom by these greedy money makers unlawfully.

We suggest to deploy guard men onboard vessels to guard against those merciless Somali pirates as soon as possible. There are hundreds of seamen being kept as hostages along with their ships waiting for ransom money. Somalia is a lawless country where bandits are roaming freely and doing whatever thing they can do to make money in all the illegal ways.

Somali Pirates Get Prison Term In France.
Five numbers of Somali pirates who were captured after hijacking a French couple on their yacht in the Gulf of Aden were sent to prison by the orders of a French court after hearing their trail. Both the couple were aged 60 years when they were captured by the Somali pirates and asked to pay a ransom money of US$ 2 million. The ransom money was never paid but the French forces made a daring rescue operation on board the Yacht. Both Mr. & Mrs. Delanne were rescued safely while one Somali pirate was killed during the Yacht raid operation.

In another operation which took place during the last week, 7 Somali pirates were captured by the Royal Navy while they were trying to capture a Spanish fishing vessel in the off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean. RFA Fort Victoria responded to the SOS and sent out a helicopter for to support the Spanish Fishing vessel. When the pirates saw the Helicopter, they started to speed away. But the sniper shots from the helicopter made them to give up their run and surrendered to the UK Navy. There were 7 pirates and no one was injured.

We thank the crew and officers of the RFA Fort Victoria for its timely action for the second time. Yes they saved the Italian ship crew too from the Somali pirates recently.

MT Gemini with 28,000 M/T of crude palm oil was captured by the Somali pirates along with its 25 crew members on 16th of April 2011 and it was released by the Somali pirates after getting the ransom money. But they failed to release four number of South Korean crew members and took them to Somali a as hostages. The rest of the crew of 21 includes Indonesian, Chinese and Burmese seaman. Still the shipping company is waiting for the release of those four S. Koreans through the mediators.

Maritime News For Merchant Ship Crew.
Another lot of freed seamen are going to enjoy their family reunion this week, after being held in captivity along with their hijacked ship by the money greedy Somali pirates.

M/V ROSALIA D'AMATO a Bulk Carrier with the capacity of 74,500 dwt and registered in Italian was hijacked by the Somali pirates on 21 April when it was sailing to Port Bandar Imam Khomeini in Iran from Port Paranagua in Brazil around 350NM South East of Salalah, Oman, in the Indian Ocean.

This merchant ship was released after dropping the ransom money onboard the vessel from a small airplane. it is not clear, how much the ransom money was paid by the shipping company to the Somali pirates on this occasion.

Any how the Somali pirates are going to make more money as they are holding nearly 50 ships and 27 of them are larger ones including oil tankers. And nearly 450 innocent seafarers are too held with these ships by the Somali pirates and waiting for their release. Every one must take note that not only these captured seamen are suffering but also their families too are missing them and their financial support too is cut for the family to make a decent living.

Somali Pirates News November.
Somali pirates who are holding the hijacked vessel MV Iceberg 1 with 24 crew members had demanded a ransom of $8 million and also posted a dead line date for the payment to be made to them.

Somali pirates had seized MV Iceberg 1 off the port of Aden in Yemen on March 29 last year. This Panama-flagged ship was on the way to Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates, while the ship was transporting a mixed cargo of general mechanical equipments. According news release MV Blida was released by the Somali pirates along with its crew members on 3rd of November 2011. The ship was captured with its crew members by Somali pirates off the port of Salalah, Oman on January 1 this year.

Mean while Somali pirates had confirmed the capture of Greek-owned chemical tanker with 22 crew members and officers in the Gulf of Aden while it was sailing from Suez on the way to India, this month. The 11,599 ton liquid tanker is owned by a Greek firm.

Somali Pirates.
7:00 PM 10/26/2011
According to a newspaper report a Dubai owned Panama-flagged ship with the name MV Iceberg 1 was released by the Somali pirates after 19 months of captivity. It was said that a ransom was paid to those Somali pirates to release the ship. Nearly US$2.1 was paid as ransom money according to the reports.There were 24 sailors on board the Merchant Vessel Iceberg 1, where two of them were Pakistanis, six Indians, nine Yemenis, two Sudanese, four Ghanians and one Filipino were onboard.

Italian cargo ship was taken back by American frigate and Royal Navy support vessel from the Somali pirates.

Italian cargo ship Montecristo a 55,675 M/T bulk carrier was hijacked by the Somali pirates with 23 crew members, including six Indians. But all crew members went in to hiding in a safe compartment and started contorlling the ship unknown to the pirates. Mean while the ship master had informed the incident to the authorites and asked for assistance. An American frigate and a Royal Navy support vessel which were in that area responded to them and found one note in a bottle which was thrown through the porthole, said that the crew were safe and in hiding. With the news the operation went on to rescue the ship and the crew members. One British helicopter flew overhead while the boarding party went in inflatable boats and boarded the cargo ship. There were no resistance from those 11 Somali pirates who were on board and surrendered to the forces.All those Somali pitaes will be hand overed to the italian authorities.

Greek Bulk Carrier Released By Somali Pirates.
Somali pirates had released one Greek bulk carrier after getting the ransom money of US$ 4 million from the ship owners yesterday. Greek owned bulk carrier MV Eagle was registered in Cyprus and was attacked and hijacked on January 17th this year when it was sailing from Jordan to India. There were 24 Filipino seamen who were working as officers and crew in that bulk carrier were too released along with the merchant vessel which is now sailing towards a sea port.

In the shipping industry, Greek owners and charters have many merchant ships registered in Cyprus, Malta, Panama and Liberia. These Greek ships used to sign in foreign nationals as officers and crew for to man their ships. These Greek owners don't register their ships in their own country Greece as they have to pay more tax and they have to man the ship with Greek seaman with high scale salary. This will increase the operating charge of the vessel and they have to loose profits. So the Greek ship owners used to register their ships in Cyprus, Malta, Panama and Liberia as the taxes are less and they recruit crew members at low salary rates.

Somalia Pirates release Danish family and the crew.
Somali pirates who had captured a Danish family of 5 and 2 crew members from the 43-foot sailboat SY ING in February had released them last week. Some people say a ransom of US$ 3 million was paid for the release of those seven people and all of them are heading to Denmark.

Mean while Somali pirates are also responsible for the killing of 4 Americans on a sail ship and are still holding two South Africans from their Yacht in the last year hijacking.

Also this week Somali pirates entered in to a Kenyan tourist resort and killed one British man and had captured his wife according to a report from the British foreign ministry.

We here by warn all ship crew to be more vigilant at the sea as the monsoon has closed and the sea area around the Red sea is calm and it opens more opportunity for the Somali pirates to attack and capture merchant ships and tankers in this area.

Tanker Ship Released.
Panama flagged tanker MT Polar managed by the Greek company was released by the Somali pirates after keeping it for ransom money for nearly 10 months. There is no word about the amount of the ransom money paid to those Somali pirates. Normally the ransom money is supposed to be millions of dollars.

The tanker ship was captured by the Somali pirates on 30th October 2010 while under the control of the Somali pirates a seaman was died of stroke around November 2010. The rest 23 officers and crew members are sailing with the tanker to a safe port according to the managers Paradise Navigation. The ship consists of crew members like 16 seamen from the Philippines, four from Montenegro, three from Greece and one from Romania.

Mean while attackers of the S/V Quest off the cost of Oman, two Somali men were sentenced to life by the court for hijacking and killing of four Americans two of the owners Scott and Jean Adam and the passengers Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay. The other 9 Somali pirates involved with this hijacking will be sentenced in the coming month.

Somali pirates' Pakistan link confirmed.

Netherland Court Sentence Somali Men for Piracy at Sea.
12:10 PM 8/15/2011

Some Somali pirates are success in making their lives to live with lucrative style and they never see the sea again. But for some other Somali pirates it is greed that make them again and again to go to sea in their rubber dinghies loaded with fuel, apparatus and arms in search of ships in the high seas or on the costal line. Two of them who had earlier engaged in the hijacking the South African yacht Choizil and took two persons to the Somalia didn't stop there, but went again for blood money by attacking the merchant ships and had been caught by the Royal Dutch Navy and were bought to Netherlands to face the courts to face for their crime against the innocent maritime officers and seaman.

Well they were given six and seven years of prison term respectively for their crime against their crime recently in the city of Rotterdam.

They were in total of 5 and have been detained in custody in the Netherlands since November 2010. So far there is no news about those two innocent people onboard the South African yacht Choizil.

Good News for Indian Seaman Families.
11:59 AM 7/29/2011

Somali pirates who are tirelessly working out to catch their prize ship to make ransom money. International community is on the other hand looking on it as they couldn't control the situation. The International maritime organizations and its high salary paid officials are too giving out notices and reports about the merchant ship attacks too couldn't do any thing fruitful. Those who are suffering are the ship workers comprising well educated marine officers and trained seaman and their dependant families. For them no salary and no compensation were paid to keep their life going onwards. Some time they loose their life too to this greedy Somali pirates.

In the recent reports a UAE oil tanker MV Jubba XX which was seized by the Somali pirates while it was sailing to port of Berbera with 17 Indian crew members with a cargo of 3,500 MT of oil was released by the pirates last week after holding it for nearly two weeks. The ship owners did said that they didn't pay any ransom money to release the tanker ship and the crew members.

Ship with Pinoys seized off West African coast.
WikiLeaks: US wanted PHL to prosecute Somali pirates

7:51 AM 6/1/2011

MV Khaled Muhieddine K a bulk carrier with Tog flag was released was released by the Somali pirates this week. It was not clear whether any ransom money was paid to the Somali pirates in the process to release that bulk carrier. Ships that are hijacked by Somali pirates need ransom money to be paid to them to release the ship along with its ship crew members. This Togo flagged ship did had a mixed working crew of Egyptians and Syrians onboard the vessel for the last 3 months while in the custody of the pirates. The bulk carrier ship was attacked and captured by the pirates near Oman coast when it was sailing to Yemen port from Singapore port.

In the mean time confirmed reports says that there are 22 merchant vessels along with 500 seafarers in the custody of the Somali pirates waiting for ransom money to be released. Unconfirmed reports says that there are more than 46 vessels with over 800 seaman onboard them as captives.

Somali President pardons

Those foreign couriers who came to pay the ransom money of US$ 3.6 million to the Somalia pirates were captured by the Somali security officials at Mogadishu airport in May 24.Then they were tried in the local courts and were sentenced up to 15 years in prison for smuggling money. Also those two small planes which came with the couriers too were fined $50,000 fine for money smuggling.

Now the Somalia president had pardoned those prisoners and they are now released along with their air planes.

Well that money meant for the release of the ship and the ship crew is gone. Now the ship crew is robbed of their release from the captivity of those money greedy Somali pirates. We don't think that the company will pay another 3.5 million US Dollar as they had already spent nearly US$ 4 million.

This case must be looked after by the UN as lots of seaman life is risked their families and their dependants are too now heart broken. UN must catch those people who are providing equipments to those pirates. Also they must get the money from the Somali Government and give it back to the shipping company to release the ship and the crew as the Somali Government is not imposing law on those pirates but on those innocent people.

Here is a part report from the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre www.icc-ccs.org

Incidents Reported for Somalia:

Total Incidents: 154
Total Hijackings:21
Total Hostages: 362
Total Killed: 7

Current vessels held by Somali pirates:
Vessels: 23
Hostages: 439

Somali pirates are hijacking ships also killing innocent people.
Somali pirates are attacking ships and hijacking them all over Africa region and in the Indian Ocean region. So far only the Indian Navy is taking successful attacks on them. According to available reports the Indian Navy has captured nearly 160 Somali pirates along with some Yemen associates of Somali pirates. Many of the Somali pirates were killed by the Indian Navy while they try to attack the navy people. In many occasions they have recovered many mother ships from those Somali pirates and foiled many attempt to hijack ships near Indian Ocean and near its terrorist.

In the mean time India is taking steps to release many of their mariners captured by those Somali pirates and is considering new life for the Somali pirates to start new jobs to have new life for them and for their families.

Mean while one tanker ship with United Arab Emirates flag M/T Zirku was captured by the Somali pirates after attacking it with arms while it was sailing from Sudan to Singapore. The incident took place in the Gulf of Aden on Monday, according to available reports.

Time to focus on Somalia pirates.
Somalia pirates are becoming more and more threat to the whole world because of their thirst for blood money. Recently they killed four American hostages whom were captured with their sail boat after the failure of talks to release the 4. This week they again captured another 5 Danish family members of father mother and their 3 teenage children. According to available reports all the captives were transferred to a larger ship as the sail boat has already anchored in the Somali cost. All the developed nations are in the process of making a useful solution for this pirate menace as it not only threats to ships but to innocent people's lives.

Somali Pirates News - January 2011.
5 of the Somali pirates who fought with the S. Korean forces at sea on board the Korean chemical vessel were bought to Seoul this week. They will be tried at the S. Korean courts for their crime. As per the report these people will end their lives in side the prison for rest of their lives.

Mean while another batch of 7 Somali pirates who were captured by the Malaysian armed forces on board the Malaysian tanker when they were trying to hijack that vessel were bought to Kula Lumpur. They will be tried in the Malaysian court for their offences. Mean while on 31st January Sri Lanka Government had announced that one of their fishing boat was hijacked by the Somali pirates near Somalia while they were fishing. As per their report tow of the fishermen were shot dead by the Somali pirates and another 3 Sri Lankan fishermen were taken as hostages by the Somali pirates.

Also on the same date 15 Somali pirates were produced at the Mumbai courts in India. They were captured by the Indian navy in a Thailand registered fishing trawler Prantalay which was operating as a mother ship to attack and hijack other merchant vessels that were passing the Indian Ocean. Fishing trawler Prantalay was captured by the Somalis with its crew of 20 in the month of April in 2010. In the attack the fishing trawler was caught fire and sank.

Two ships were saved by brave soldiers.
Brave Malaysian and South Korean soldiers save two ships while killing some of the pirates and injuring many of the Somali pirates. Royal Malaysian Navy went in to action once MT Bunga Laurel was boarded by Somali pirates. Then they began to shoot randomly towards the ships entrance doors. All the 23 crew members went in to hiding in a specially made compartment. Royal Malaysian Navy responded with their Helicopter gunship and after the clearance of pirates they boarded the tanker and brought it in to control. In this brave action no crew or Royal Malaysian Navy members were injured. But there were 3 Somali pirates whom were injured and were given first aid.

Mean while in another incident took daring action to save all of 21 crew aboard Samho Jewelry from the hands of the Somali pirates after the South Korean chemical tanker Samho Jewelry was hijacked with 21 crew members. There were 11 Myanmar nationals, 8 Koreans and two Indonesians as crew members on board the vessel. After following the ship for days the South Korean navy took the decision to counter operation once they received the OK message for the action from their superiors. After 5 hours of firefight with the Somali pirates the S. Korean navy took control of the vessel. in this brave action to save the crew and the vessel master of the vessel was slightly injured and 3 South Korean commandos too were slightly injured while more than 8 Somali pirates lost their lives and captured 5 of them alive.

A Syrian bulk carrier with Togo flag was hijacked by the Somali pirates with 22 Syrians and 3 Egyptian crew members.

The 24,022 tones bulk carrier was sailing from Singapore to Yemen when the hijacking took place.