Remember these pirates (the ones that commandeered the Ukrainian ship Faina off the coast of Somalia carrying T-72 tanks)?
Hampton at the WPR blog writes that for a sum of $8 million the pirates are willing to release the ship…but on one condition:
the pirates were asking for guarantees that they would not be arrested or blown out of the water by the armada of American warships currently circling them.
Are these guys serious? One, they are asking for lots of money and, two, they want to be treated as if this were a normal business transaction? How much time did it take to come up with that plan?
Something completely not related to pirates
Worldfocus ran a feature video report about David Sweere, an American farmer from Minnesota managing his investments in Ukraine (e.g. growing corn and rapeseed). The story is interesting for exploring how much FDI potential Ukraine’s agrarian sector still holds.
[...] from its out-of-region mission in Afghanistan and now also around the horn of East Africa (i.e. the Arrrgh problem). But I am skeptical if we can - at the moment - convincingly make the case for the [...]
[...] TV after they read Yet another ship an update post about Somalian pirates (see also, Arrrgh, Crazy pirates and corn). From the email: We just debuted a new video about modern day pirates operating in the straits of [...]