Ahoy there Somalia

Larkspur

The significance of the latest attacks by Somali pirates

PIRATES do not win every encounter. On the evening of Tuesday November 18th an Indian warship attacked and destroyed a suspected Somali pirate boat in the Gulf of Aden, after the men on board had, reportedly, threatened to blow up the Indian craft. The pirates were said to be armed with guns and rocket-grenade launchers, and some escaped on speed boats. On the same day, however, other pirates in the Gulf of Aden did manage to grab a cargo ship carrying grain to Iran.

The pressure to tackle piracy off Somalia's coast is growing by the day. The threat to merchant shipping in the region is now greater than it has been for decades. The taking of the leviathan 330-metre Saudi-owned Sirius Star in the high seas fully 450 nautical miles (833km) off the Kenyan coast, on Saturday, shows that all tankers heading to or from the Arabian Gulf and all cargo vessels using the Suez Canal are now at risk from pirates, no matter what course they hold to.

Shipping companies face higher insurance premiums, customers could see longer delivery times, less traffic may pass through the Suez Canal. The success of the pirates may also strengthen the hand of radical Islamists in Somalia if gunmen abandon their poorly paid defence of the feeble transitional Somali government in Mogadishu for the promise of adventures and riches at sea.

The geographical range open to the pirates gives them (generally) the upper hand over foreign navies deployed to stop them. So, too, does their ingenious use of fishing boats for satellite cover. Warships can easily intercept captured vessels and, under a United Nations resolution agreed upon earlier this year, chase them back into Somali waters. But it is rare for them to stop the pirates boarding vessels and taking crews hostage in the first place. And by luring warships into Somali waters to watch over captured vessels, the pirates will continue to stretch their operations further south towards the Comoros and the Mozambique Channel–once the hunting grounds of late 17th century English pirates.

There have been at least 83 acknowledged pirate attacks off Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden this year, 33 of them successful enough to command a ransom. The amounts of money being paid have rocketed, with pirates demanding and getting $1m in ransom or more. The number of attacks is probably higher than stated, given the desire of some ship owners to pay a ransom quietly, without involving an insurance company.

The Sirius Star is believed now to be anchored somewhere off the coast of Somalia, near the pirate port of Eyl in the northern Puntland region of the country. It joins a dozen or so other vessels. They include the MV Faina, a Ukrainian cargo ship captured in September with a cargo of Soviet-era tanks bound for south Sudan, with the connivance of the Kenyan government. Ransom demands for the Faina have dropped from $20m to $8m since it was surrounded by American and Russian warships, but there is still no agreement on its release. The pirates are likely to ask for more than $30m for the release of the Sirius Star.

The tanker is owned by the shipping subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant. It was carrying oil worth over $100m and was bound for America when captured. For the Saudis, its loss is a reminder of a problem that has been festering just across the Red Sea for some time: Somali analysts say that Saudi Arabia has made big promises of aid and assistance to Somalia, but has delivered nothing of value.

For America, the case of the Sirius Star underlines longstanding concerns that piracy off Somalia, still strictly mercenary, might soon attract jihadist operators. Some think that al-Qaeda has already looked into the possibility of blowing up tankers in the narrows off the Comoros. If the jihadists do not organise an attack themselves, the worry is that they might pay the pirates to do it for them.

Larkspur

The car industry

Pass the plate
Nov 19th 2008
From The Economist print edition

If Detroit’s disintegrating carmakers are bailed out, Europe’s will be next in line

IT IS not just in Washington, DC, that a fierce debate is being conducted about whether to provide state aid to the beleaguered car industry. On Tuesday November 18th, just as the bosses of General Motors (GM), Ford and Chrysler were lining up with their begging bowls before the Senate banking committee, the directors of the European Investment Bank, the European Union’s lending arm, were considering whether to give Europe’s carmakers

小野猪

well done ! Somalia PIRATES

Larkspur

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama

Launching Hillary at the world


The surprising idea that Hillary Clinton could become Barack Obama's secretary of state

IN THE absence of fact, rumour will dominate: and the latest exciting rumour to emerge from Chicago, where Barack Obama's transition team is headquartered, and Washington, DC, where the political pundits live, is that Hillary Clinton is going to be the new president's secretary of state. “Sources” claim this, though all that is known for sure is that Mrs Clinton visited her former adversary last week; and, of course, that the job has not yet been given to anyone else.

To outsiders, used to administrations in other countries changing top-to-bottom the day after an election, that Mr Obama has made no cabinet appointments a full two weeks after his election might seem sluggish. In fact, he is moving quite fast. He has already named his White House chief of staff, an important position, as well as his press secretary and his chief counsel, and has been filling in some of their deputies and assistants as well. This is quite a bit faster than his recent predecessors managed.

Still, the two most important appointments remain shrouded in mystery. No one yet knows the identity of either the next secretary of state or the next treasury secretary, probably the more significant job of the two at a time when the economy is reeling. But the speculation that the job at State is earmarked for Mrs Clinton is fascinating, the more so since no one from the Obama camp has so far shot it down. It is also rather baffling. Mr Obama has impressed many foreign-policy experts with his keen interest in and aptitude for their subject: and with America bogged down in two wars and facing rising challenges from a prickly Russia, a volatile Middle East and a rising China, a fresh and creative approach to foreign affairs is sorely needed.

But if he gives the job to Mrs Clinton, he would be ceding a large measure of influence over the reconstruction of America's reputation abroad to a former, and perhaps even future, rival who he could find hard to control. “Never appoint someone you can't sack”, commented one old hand this week: and Mrs Clinton would be almost unsackable, thanks to her huge popularity among a large section of the Democratic Party and the status as an ex-president of her husband.

Her appointment would also marginalise Mr Obama's vice-president, Joe Biden, who, as the outgoing head of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, had been expected to play a big role in foreign policy. A secretary of state of somewhat less personal political stature, a Bill Richardson, perhaps, or even a Republican such as Richard Lugar, would have allowed the new president to maintain the primacy of his White House over foreign affairs. It is all too easy to imagine Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton disagreeing messily. Bill Clinton's complex web of business dealings (he has raised large sums of money from foreign companies and governments, both as a speaker and in order to fund his foundation) is also a potential complication.

There are of course positives at play as well. Mrs Clinton is highly intelligent, formidably hard-working and, though not exactly a foreign-policy expert, knows many world leaders. She has also been involved with foreign-related issues thanks to her position, since 2003, on the Senate's Armed Services Committee. If she could subordinate her ambition to the service of her new president and her country, then she could make a fine secretary of state. But the chances are that she would not be an easy one for Mr Obama and whoever he appoints as his National Security Adviser to manage.

Larkspur

Greenhouse-gas emissions

A climate of change

How countries' greenhouse-gas emissions have changed since 1990


BARACK OBAMA said on Tuesday November 18th that his presidency will “mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change”. According to new UN figures on greenhouse-gas emissions much remains to be done. Some 40 industrialised countries (though not China and India, for example) report emissions data to the UN as part of its Convention on Climate Change. Some of these countries, notably in eastern and central European, have shown big reductions from 1990 to 2006, driven in part by the collapse of heavy industries. By contrast emissions in Spain, Portugal and Ireland grew enormously as their economies surged ahead. Australia, Canada and America also pumped out more climate-warming gases. Despite a 5% decline since 1990 across the 40 countries, the recent trend is upwards. Since 2000 emissions from the former Soviet Union countries have grown by 7.4%, and those of rich countries by 2%.

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