Tuesday - August 16, 2011

Flash Mobs At Sea

Location detail: Around 60nm WNW of Al Hudaydah, Yemen
Type of Attack : Boarded
Narrations: 11.08.2011: 1115 UTC: Posn: 15:09N - 041:55E, Around 60nm WNW of Al Hudaydah, Red Sea.
A bulk carrier underway noticed a mother ship at a distance of 0.5nm. Suddenly three skiffs appeared from behind the mother ship and approached the bulk carrier at high speed - one from port side, one from starboard side and one from astern. The vessel commenced evasive manoeuvres. The pirates were able to hook on their ladder and board the vessel. The Master ordered all the crew to retreat into the citadel and called the CSO, who informed the navies in the region. Later a warship arrived and marines boarded and searched the vessel. No pirates found. Crew and ship safe.

Location detail: Gulf of Aden
Type of Attack : Fired Upon
Narrations:09.08.2011: 0226 UTC: Posn: 13:08.8N - 048:41.6E, Gulf of Aden.
Five pirates armed with RPG and guns in a 12 meter white plastic skiff chased and fired upon a general cargo ship underway. Onboard security team fired warning shots resulting in the pirates moving away. A warship in the vicinity carried out a search in the area.

Location detail: Around 20nm ENE of Assab, Eritrea
Type of Attack: Fired Upon
Narrations: 06.08.2011: 1505 UTC: Posn: 13:07.2N - 043:04.9E, Around 20nm ENE of Assab, Eritrea, Red Sea.
Twelve skiffs with five to eight pirates in each skiff approached a bulk carrier underway. As the skiff closed in, guns and ladders were noticed. Warning flares were deployed by the onboard security team. The skiffs continued to approach the vessel at 17 knots. At a distance of around 300 meters, on the command of the Master, the onboard security team fired warning shots resulting in most of the skiffs falling back and circling the vessel. Two skiffs continued to chase the vessel and returned fire. The skiffs and the security team exchanged fire and after 30 minutes and numerous approaches the skiffs aborted and moved away.

Looks like the Somali pirates are trying attacks en masse to overwhelm shipboard security. So far, it isn’t working. While piracy off of Malaysia and off of the West African coast has seen some success, the Somalis are still batting 0. Now that the insurance companies have jacked up the rates enormously, and declared nearly half the Indian Ocean a high-risk zone, the combination of rough seas from a long monsoon season and the presence of armed security on many merchantmen has ground pirate victories almost to a halt. That doesn’t mean that all the hijacked ships and crews have been released, just that the pirates aren’t bringing home any new ones right now:

(report from mid-July) Pirate attacks on the world’s seas totalled 266 in the first six months of 2011, up from 196 incidents in the same period last year, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) revealed today.

More than 60% of the attacks were by Somali pirates, a majority of which were in the Arabian Sea area said the report, Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships. As of 30 June, Somali pirates were holding 20 vessels and 420 crew, and demanding ransoms of millions of dollars for their release.

“In the last six months, Somali pirates attacked more vessels than ever before and they’re taking higher risks,” said IMB Director Pottengal Mukundan. . “This June, for the first time, pirates fired on ships in rough seas in the Indian Ocean during the monsoon season. In the past, they would have stayed away in such difficult conditions. Masters should remain vigilant.”

In the first six months, many of the attacks have been east and north-east of the Gulf of Aden, an area frequented by crude oil tankers sailing from the Arabian Gulf, as well as other traffic sailing into the Gulf of Aden. Since 20 May there have been 14 vessels attacked in the Southern Red Sea. “It is necessary that shipboard protection measures are in place as they sail through this area,” said Mr Mukundan.

But although Somali pirates are more active – 163 attacks this year up from 100 in the first six months of 2010 – they managed to hijack fewer ships, just 21 in the first half of 2011 compared with 27 in the same period last year. This, the report says, is both thanks to increased ship hardening and to the actions of international naval forces to disrupt pirate groups off the east coast of Africa.

Don’t worry about those poor pirates going hungry and having nothing to do. Right now they’re busy stealing half or more of the millions of tons of food aid the UN is shipping the Poor ‘n Starvin’ in that fly-bitten land:

Thousands of sacks of food aid meant for Somalia’s famine victims have been stolen and are being sold at markets in the same neighbourhoods where skeletal children in filthy refugee camps can’t find enough to eat, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The UN’s World Food Program for the first time acknowledged it has been investigating food theft in Somalia for two months. The WFP said that the “scale and intensity” of the famine crisis does not allow for a suspension of assistance, saying that doing so would lead to “many unnecessary deaths.”

And the aid is not even safe once it has been distributed to families huddled in the makeshift camps popping up around the capital. Families at the large, government-run Badbado camp said they were often forced to hand back aid after journalists had taken photos of them with it. Ali Said Nur said he received two sacks of maize twice, but each time was forced to give one to the camp leader.

“You don’t have a choice. You have to simply give without an argument to be able to stay here,” he said.

The UN says more than 3.2 million Somalis — nearly half the population — need food aid after a severe drought that has been complicated by Somalia’s long-running war. More than 450,000 Somalis live in famine zones controlled by al-Qaeda-linked militants, where aid is difficult to deliver.

An official in Mogadishu with extensive knowledge of the food trade said he believes a massive amount of aid is being stolen — perhaps up to half of aid deliveries — by unscrupulous businessmen.

The percentage had been lower, he said, but in recent weeks the flood of aid into the capital with little or no controls has created a bonanza for businessmen.

The official, like the businessmen interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals.

The AP could not verify the official’s claims. WFP has not said how much food aid it believes is being diverted.

At one of the sites for stolen food aid, about a dozen corrugated iron sheds are stacked with sacks. Outside, women sell food from open 110-pound sacks, and traders load the food onto carts or vehicles under the indifferent eyes of local officials.

Stolen food aid is not new in Somalia — it’s the main reason the U.S. military become involved in Somalia during the country’s 1992 famine, an intervention that ended shortly after the military battle known as Black Hawk Down. There are no indications the military plans to get involved in this year’s famine relief efforts.
...
In Mogadishu markets, vast piles of food sacks are for sale with stamps on them from the World Food Program, the U.S. government aid arm USAID and the Japanese government. The AP found eight sites where aid food was being sold in bulk and numerous smaller stores.

Among the items being sold were corn, grain, and Plumpy’nut — a specially fortified peanut butter designed for starving children.

Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman said the government does not believe food aid is being stolen on a large scale but if such reports come to light, the government “will do everything in our power” to bring judicial action.

The AP investigation also found evidence that WFP is relying on a contractor blamed for diverting large amounts of food aid in a 2010 U.N. report

Eight Somali businessmen said they bought food from the contractor, Abdulqadir Mohamed Nur, who is known as Enow. His wife heads Saacid, a powerful Somali aid agency that WFP uses to distribute hot food. The official with extensive knowledge of the food trade said at some Saacid sites it appeared less than half the amount of food supplied was being prepared.

Attempts to reach Enow or his wife for comment were not successful.

Plumpy’nut? What on earth is that?

Pronounced Plum-pea-nut, Plumpy’nut is a miracle worker. Known across Africa simply as Plumpy, it’s the magic goo that saves children’s lives by the millions. It is what is known as RUTF, a Ready To Use Theraputic Food. It is all natural, needs no cooking, needs not water to be added, has a shelf life of years, and children love the taste. It allows aid workers, totally overwhelmed in their health centers, to simply distribute the packages and ward off several malnutrition without the presence of hospitals or even doctors. A few 3.5oz packs of Plumpy and some clean water are all it takes to save lives.

When an Antonov An-12 airlift took off from Marseilles, heading for a famished region of Niger, it carried several tons of oil and sugar, supplies you would expect would be used to feed starving people. But it also carried tons of a 92g, 500-calorie foil sachet that is a household name in hungry countries and almost unknown in well-fed ones.

The sachets are packed with Plumpy’nut - known to millions of hungry and formerly hungry children as Plumpy - a peanut-butter food for the acutely malnourished which may have transformed the way hungry people are treated. The French newspaper Libération called it “this magic potion”.

The ingredients of this revolution are simple: peanut paste, vegetable oil, milk powder, vitamins and minerals, combined in a foil pouch with red lettering and an apostrophe shaped like a peanut. Cut the corner of the pouch, feed to a severely malnourished child two to three times a day for about 40 days, and the child will usually be up and about. Normally, a quarter of severely malnourished children do not survive, even in clinical conditions. With Plumpy’nut, death rates can be cut by half.

Because it contains a range of vitamins – A, B-complex , C, D, E, and K – and minerals calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, zinc, copper, iron, iodine, sodium, and selenium, in 92-gram packets that deliver 500 kilocalories of highly specialized nutrition, Plumpynut works where local food and even family food fails. This is because, past a specific stage of malnutrition, children are unable to digest “regular” food and need intense nutrition.

Plumpy’nut is a patented food, and the patent is owned by Nutriset. While they have allowed local production in many of the really awful African nations, they have held on to their legal rights in all other world markets. This has lead to some ethical problems, as other folks feel that a monopoly on a humanitarian product is a bad idea, and if the stuff was produced by numerous companies the price would drop (it costs about $1 a day for the 3 packets needed to feed a starving child). Nutriset feels that quality control would become an issue, and that black-hearted commercialism could lead to the substitution of harmful ingredients, like the Chinese did when they added Melamine to exportable foodstuffs. Even though Plumpy’nut would make a superb backpacker food or MRE, Nutriset sells their product only to hunger relief agencies.

Read more

PS - in case it’s been a long time since Chemistry class, what Americans call a Calorie is what science terms a kcal, or kilocalorie. Thus a pack of Plumpy’nut does actually contain 500,000 calories, but to us that’s only 500 Calories. 1 calorie is not much energy: it’s the energy required to heat 1cc (1/5 tsp) 1 degree Centigrade.

GET ME OUT OF HERE ...

Posted by Drew458     on 08/16/2011 at 11:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Pirates, aarrgh! •  
• Comments (3) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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