[ColossalContrarian]

Virtual Machines are the future of OS integration. There are some limitiations as far as video and of course Apple won't release an un-hackable version of their OS... I guess Apple misses out or will change their views. It's funny with VMWare fusion however you can run pretty much any OS so mabey Apple is the way to go as a base OS?

VMWare sessions can be easily deleted and tested with so I might test a version of this OS -the linux version

[Oilguy]

The Horn of Africa has become a hotbed of piracy due to outdated maritime laws, the lack of a Somali government and gut-wrenching poverty.

Where there is a sea, there are pirates. - Greek proverb

To many people, the term "piracy" evokes images of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. Until last year piracy was an annoyingly persistent low-level irritant for maritime nations, clustered around several global hotspots, including African waters, the Straits of Malacca and relatively isolated incidents in Latin America.

Last year the problem metastasized in the waters of Somalia, where now a motley international coalition of about 30 warships, including vessels from NATO members Italy, Latvia, Turkey, Greece, the US, the UK, Denmark, Spain and Germany, along with India, France, China, Russia and Japan are attempting to contain the problem. Piracy is now big business: Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula estimates that in 2008 the Somali pirates received $US150 million in ransom payments.

In January the International Chamber of Commerce's International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Centre stated that 2008 piratical attacks worldwide totaled 293, with 49 vessels hijacked and 889 crew members taken hostage, its highest figures since it began reporting in 1992. Attacks in the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters accounted for 111 incidents, an increase of nearly 200 percent from 2007. Nigeria ranked second with 40 reported incidents while the Malacca Straits saw only two attacks in 2008, compared to seven in 2007.

High Profile Incidents

The Ukrainian freighter Faina was seized on 25 September 2008. What focused attention on the ship was its cargo of 33 T-72 tanks and military equipment, ostensibly bound for Kenya. After protracted negotiations which saw an initial ransom demand of US$35 million whittled down to US$3.5 million during the ship's 134-day captivity, the Faina and her 20 crewmen was released on 5 February, but not before her captain had died of apparent natural causes.

On 15 November 2008 the Somali pirates captured their biggest prize yet, the VLCC (very large crude carrier) 162,252- ton Sirius Star, 500 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, the farthest out to sea Somali pirates had struck up to then. With a capacity of two million barrels, the Sirius Star carried the equivalent of more than a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily production, a cargo worth more than worth US$100 million at the time.

On 9 January the vessel was freed in exchange for a US$3 million ransom. What most unsettled the international community was that the VLCC's capture proved that the potential range of the pirates now extended to an area of more than 1.1 million square miles, as they extended their activities as far south as the Tanzanian coast.

Muslim nations were rattled by the seizure of the Saudi tanker, a high-profile reminder that the pirates were no respecters of their co-religonists' property.
Full article at: http://oilprice.com/Geo-Politics/Africa ... frica.html

[eXpat]

Those somali pirates are creating new jobs!
Insurance firms plan private navy to take on Somali pirates
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')nsurers have drawn up plans for the world’s first private navy to try to turn the tide against Somali pirates who continue to plague the global shipping industry by hijacking vessels for ransoms of more than £100m a year, The Independent has learnt.

The new navy, which has the agreement in principle of several shipping groups and is being considered by the British Government, is the latest attempt to counter the increasingly sophisticated and aggressive piracy gangs who operate up to 1,200 miles from their bases in the Horn of Africa and are about to launch a new wave of seaborne attacks following the monsoon season.

A multi-national naval force, including an EU fleet currently commanded by a British officer, has dramatically reduced the number of assaults in the Gulf of Aden in recent months. But seizures continue with 16 ships and 354 sailors currently being held hostage. The Independent has seen Nato documents which show both ransom payments and the period that pirates are holding vessels have doubled in the last 12 months to an average $4m and 117 days respectively.

[Expatriot]

So pay the ransom, let them leave the boarded ship, and then send a smart missile up their asses. What is the problem here? It's not like it's 1492 and the moment they disappear on the horizon we don't know where they are. I hear they can read your license plate from space. Maybe we can get Google maps on this.

[dolanbaker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')irate ringleader faces execution in Somalia.

The captain of the MV QSM Dubai was killed as Puntland soldiers stormed the hijacked ship A pirate ringleader has been sentenced to death by a court in the breakaway Somali state of Puntland.

Salah Mohamed Gelle faces execution for murdering Sayid Jacfar, the Pakistani skipper of hijacked cargo ship the MV QSM Dubai, in early June.

Seven other pirates who took part in the assault were sentenced to jail terms of between 10 and 17 years.

[eXpat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Expatriot', 'S')o pay the ransom, let them leave the boarded ship, and then send a smart missile up their asses. What is the problem here?

[americandream]

Africa's growing pains as she seeks to acquire a base of capital, by both conventional (South Africa's established place in global capital) and unconventional (rest of Africa crime syndication/budding entrepreneurs) means. They will stand on the sidelines (bar a few gestures for the uninformed masses) and watch new sources of future co-operation coalesce in this apparent maelstrom of chaos.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Expatriot', 'S')o pay the ransom, let them leave the boarded ship, and then send a smart missile up their asses. What is the problem here? It's not like it's 1492 and the moment they disappear on the horizon we don't know where they are. I hear they can read your license plate from space. Maybe we can get Google maps on this.

[Expatriot]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eXpat', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Expatriot', 'S')o pay the ransom, let them leave the boarded ship, and then send a smart missile up their asses. What is the problem here?

[eXpat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Expatriot', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eXpat', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Expatriot', 'S')o pay the ransom, let them leave the boarded ship, and then send a smart missile up their asses. What is the problem here?

[dolanbaker]

A bit of "gunboat diplomacy" at the ports the pirates operate out of, plus a couple of airstrikes on sites of dodgily acquired wealth would send a message!

Why should this be any different from the US "war on terror".

[americandream]

I'ld read somewhere recently (don't ask me where as it slips my mind) that East Africa was in the process of developing complex forms of exchange involving the proceeds of this latter day piracy, forms not akin to those that arose in an earlier age of piracy in the Americas. I am watching this with interest. It's only a matter of time before this economy goes legitimate.

[rockdoc123]

The solution to Somalia piracy is not an easy one. The main reason that the Somalias from Puntland province resorted to piracy was a combination of an almost completely depleted fishery and the lack of crops due to extended drought. There has been little in the way of economy active onshore other than that generated by the local warlords. The Transitional Federal Gov't is virtually failed, they currently hold reign over an area of about 20 city blocks in Mogadishu, outside of that area the warlords with their "technicals" still rule the streets. The African forces are poorly equiped in comparison to the war lords and the US and NATO have basically washed through hands of any involvement. Without proper security to guaranty that food and medicine gets into the hands of the populace and not the warlords and without any semblance of an economy there is no incentive for the pirates to stop their activity.
The solution here is not with armed force/retaliation against the pirates but rather with getting the basics of life supplied to the populace and then effective policing.

[americandream]

Let's remind ourselves though that all of this has been played out before, off the coast of the Americas and in other parts of the world (my own native South Africa for example), in a previous age of chaos and social calamity, out of which todays world was born. It seems that as a species, the raw edge of upheaval is where significant change on the systemic level occurs. One can't really apply a elastoplast in these circumstances. These people WILL adapt or die off.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'T')he solution to Somalia piracy is not an easy one. The main reason that the Somalias from Puntland province resorted to piracy was a combination of an almost completely depleted fishery and the lack of crops due to extended drought. There has been little in the way of economy active onshore other than that generated by the local warlords. The Transitional Federal Gov't is virtually failed, they currently hold reign over an area of about 20 city blocks in Mogadishu, outside of that area the warlords with their "technicals" still rule the streets. The African forces are poorly equiped in comparison to the war lords and the US and NATO have basically washed through hands of any involvement. Without proper security to guaranty that food and medicine gets into the hands of the populace and not the warlords and without any semblance of an economy there is no incentive for the pirates to stop their activity.
The solution here is not with armed force/retaliation against the pirates but rather with getting the basics of life supplied to the populace and then effective policing.

[Expatriot]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'T')he solution to Somalia piracy is not an easy one.

[timmac]

If anyone told me 20 years ago that pirates would out number warships in certain regions of this planet I would have told that person he was smoking something, but here we are...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')With too many pirates and not enough warships, the insurance companies that have been forced to pay huge ransoms for hijacked ships have come up with their own solution: They are proposing a privately operated fleet that would accompany ships through pirate-infested waters.

[papa moose]

When the "wolves" threatened the cargo ships and troop transports during WW2 these ships were organised into convoys to make protecting them easier for the Navy.
How is this situation different?
Insurance companies setting up private navies will lead to those navies slyly funding the pirates to ensure their reason for existing continues.
How about looking at why there is a pirate problem and working at addressing those issues? Oh right that means helping to improve the life of the locals instead of setting up another profit stream.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('papa moose', 'W')hen the "wolves" threatened the cargo ships and troop transports during WW2 these ships were organised into convoys to make protecting them easier for the Navy.
How is this situation different?
Insurance companies setting up private navies will lead to those navies slyly funding the pirates to ensure their reason for existing continues.
How about looking at why there is a pirate problem and working at addressing those issues? Oh right that means helping to improve the life of the locals instead of setting up another profit stream.

[Crazy_Dad]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('papa moose', 'W')hen the "wolves" threatened the cargo ships and troop transports during WW2 these ships were organised into convoys to make protecting them easier for the Navy.
How is this situation different?
Insurance companies setting up private navies will lead to those navies slyly funding the pirates to ensure their reason for existing continues.
How about looking at why there is a pirate problem and working at addressing those issues? Oh right that means helping to improve the life of the locals instead of setting up another profit stream.

[Keith_McClary]

The US hired private "security contractors" to protect military supply lines against the Taliban. The contractors payed the Taliban not to attack them. Of course, the Taliban used the cash to increase attacks elsewhere.

Hopefully these pirates will just take the money and go fishing.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Danegeld ("Danish tax", literally "Dane's gold", pronounced /ˈdeɪn.ɡɛld/[1]) was a tax raised to pay tribute to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged.
...
the thing about Danegeld is that one keeps on having to pay it.